They sat. The fire did its ancient work. Briar explained, in careful pieces, the assessment: warm-up traverse, controlled short turns on a moderate pitch, a skin-or-hike segment if the upper lift stayed closed, hazard identification aloud, a rescue-drag demonstration with a sled if one could be borrowed, and a cool-down that included route choice commentary. Redmond would score judgment more than speed.
"I can haul a sled," Callum offered. "Not for points. For logistics."
"You don't have to make yourself useful to justify existing in my eyeline."
"I make myself useful because idle hands invent trouble, and also because I like your eyeline."
Briar looked at the fire instead of him. "Don't get ahead of the storm."
"I'm not. I'm naming a preference. Preferences aren't contracts."
"Good," she said. "I don't sign contracts by firelight."
Across the room, Brendan taught Arlo cribbage and lost with theatrical despair. Piper inventored candles. Redmond slept in his chair with the paperback on his chest like a paper heart. The lodge creaked. Snow piled against the lower panes until the world outside looked like a held breath.
Callum named a parallel fear without competing: that his client would use the weekend delay—roads, storm, absence—as leverage to reopen negotiated fees.
"They emailed a soft threat," he said in the candle dark. "Not illegal. Just slimy. Pay schedule 'revisited' if completion slips."
"Will it slip because you're here?"
"It might slip because weather exists. They want a person to blame. I'm convenient."
"Then go if the road opens early."
He shook his head. "I already told them Monday. I'm not abandoning a sled commitment I made to your supervisor for a client who pays late and threatens early. That's not nobility. That's refusing to train people to yank my chain."
Briar wanted to argue him into self-protection. She also wanted him at the hut. She chose not to turn his choice into her burden or her trophy.
"All right," she said. "Monday, then. Both of us facing our paperwork like adults."
"Adults," he echoed, amused and weary. "Someone should warn adults how often adulthood feels like group projects with worse communication."