Page 25 of The Wiener Across the Way

Maybe I let out one tiny giggle. Just one.

This wasn’t real after all.

THE FAMILY THAT PLAYS TOGETHER

DECLAN

Waking up had never felt like such a shock to the system. My eyes flickered open, the numbers on the clock barely registering in my sleep-deprived brain. It was only a few hours since I’d finally hung up the phone with Kelsey. But even tired as hell, I felt more awake than I had in years.

I lay in bed, the ceiling a familiar friend, as I replayed pieces of our conversation in my mind. The laughter, the deeper confessions, the easy banter, it all swirled together, painting a picture of Kelsey that was so different from the pop star the world saw. She was real, funny, vulnerable, and incredibly easy to talk to.

We weren’t playing again until Thursday night, and that gave me a rare day off during the season. Which was the perfect time to plan a real date with Kelsey. But how the hell did someone date a celebrity as big as her? My brothers and I had a hard enough time going out in public as it was. Especially inthe Denver metro area. The fans were great, and usually very respectful, but there was no privacy, ever.

I also had no idea what her schedule was like. Did she even have time to herself? Didn’t seem like it.

I headed down to my kitchen, and while I was throwing the ingredients into my blender to make a protein smoothie, something, or rather someone, caught my attention in my back yard.

I slid the glass door open and threw a frozen strawberry at Everett. Hayes snatched it right out of the air an inch before it should have hit Ev in the chest, who hardly noticed since he had his nose buried in Jules’s phone.

“What are you dickheads doing in my backyard?” They were lounging on my outdoor furniture like they owned the place.

“Point of clarification.” Jules, not looking up from her phone either, raised her hand, one finger in the air. Not the correct one for pointing either. “I’m not a dickhead. I’m a princess, and don’t you forget it. Did she call?”

I gave her a death glare and wished, not for the first time in my life, that I had a Darth Vader level command over the force to use on any and all of my siblings.

Jules glanced up at me and shrugged. “What? I didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know. You and Kelsey are trending on pretty much every social media platform right now.”

Fuck. “I don’t even look at that shit, much less care about it.”

Everett finally pulled his face away from whatever he was watching on the phone. “That’s why you have us. Between the six of us, we got you covered.”

Six? Shit. That meant everyone except Chris. He didn’t do socials either, and I’d followed his lead. But the rest of my siblings were all over it. Ev had huge followings on FlipFlop and InstaSnap. And Hayes and the twins did some sort of online streaming while they played video games and talked sports.

Dad insisted that Jules keep her socials private and anonymous as much as humanely possible. At least until she was eighteen.

I sat on the bench across from them. “What exactly do you think I need you for?”

Jules turned her phone around with a huge shit-eating grin on her face. A grainy as fuck, shaky video played, sound off. It was me catching Kelsey when she tripped backstage. Kind of. It was more like a blurry blob of me catching a blurry ghost of Kelsey. That had to have been taken from the top of the steps. Jeez.

I glanced quickly at the little heart on the side of the video that showed how many people had liked it. The number was so big, I wasn’t even sure I knew how to say it out loud. There were also tens of thousands of comments.

My own phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out.

“Is that her?” Jules asked with wide eyes, more excited than on Christmas morning.

It was my agent. Just one line of text.

Told you.

Clearly, she’d seen the videos of last night too. I wasn’t dignifying that with a response.“No. It’s Alexis.”

“But Kelsey did call, didn’t she?” Jules’s voice went up an octave.

My response to her question was simply a raised eyebrow.

But since I had my phone in my hand, I sent a quick text to Kelsey.

Good morning, sweet queen of hearts

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