Page 50 of Wilder

“I’m meeting Kayleigh and Hudson. Are they here?”

“Not yet, but I’ll show you to their usual table.”

Wilder followed her through the restaurant to the table he’d sat at before with his sister. He settled into the booth, then pulled out his phone.

He’d given himself enough time to stop by the rink to say hi to Alexandra, but she hadn’t been there. So now he was early for his lunch with Kayleigh and Hudson.

As he waited for them to show up, he checked the stats of his latest video, then went through his social media, responding to comments and answering DMs he’d received.

He contemplated texting Alexandra but decided to just stop by the rink again after lunch to talk with her. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too busy.

“Hello, brother dear,” Kayleigh said as she slid into the booth across from him. Hudson followed, unbuttoning his suit as he settled next to her.

“How’s it going?” Hudson asked.

“Good. My shoulders are a little sore from helping Dad paint the guestroom yesterday.”

“Better you than me,” Kayleigh said.

“Mom made me supper as a way of saying thank you.”

Kayleigh laughed. “Thendefinitelybetter you than me.”

“Hey. It wasn’tthatbad. She didn’t mess up the spaghetti at all.”

Their waitress appeared with a tray holding three glasses of water and set them on the table in front of them. “Do you need menus?”

“We don’t,” Hudson said. “How about you, Wilder?”

“No, I don’t either.”

The waitress smiled. “Alright then. What can I get for you?”

They quickly placed their orders, then once they were left alone again, Wilder laid out what he and his folks had talked about the night before. Since he had just the lunch hour to present the idea to Kayleigh and Hudson, he didn’t want to waste any time.

The waitress returned with their food mid-conversation, so they took the time to pray for their meal before diving back into the discussion.

“I could see Alexander getting on board with this,” Hudson said. “He’s pretty generous when it comes to good causes.”

“Maybe instead of making it strictly a performance for Alexandra, we could have it be a skate with Santa and Mrs. Claus sort of thing,” Kayleigh said. “Then we could also have some elves available to skate with kids.”

“And we could have the café there sell hot chocolate, apple cider, and coffee. Maybe have some decorated Christmas cookies, too.”

Kayleigh smiled. “I think this will work so much better. We just need to see if Alexandra will be on board with it.”

“I think she will be,” Wilder said. “But I don’t think we should hype it up using her fame, if you know what I mean. Wearing a costume would help her keep a lower profile, which is what I think she would want.”

“Will you talk to her?” Kayleigh asked. “The two of you have seemed to hit it off.”

“We get along,” Wilder agreed.

“Once you’ve had a chance to talk to her, let me know what we can do to help. We’ll need to get posters designed and printed, and maybe start spreading the news on social media.”

“Sounds good.” He paused then said, “Something else that might sound good is if you bail on the 80s night idea. I just don’t think it’s going to fly.”

Kayleigh sighed. “Yeah. Let’s put that idea on the back burner for now.”

“Put it into the garbage as far as I’m concerned,” Wilder said.

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