We met them in line for the hot dog–eating contest signup. Jordan, Jones’ brother, and his boyfriend, Wren, just so happened to be in line right in front of them. Wren was the famous vlogger who put Kither Springs on the map.
He’d been on a road trip to California for his vlog, and his van, Marge, broke down right outside Jordan’s property. Naturally, Jordan couldn’t leave him stranded and took him in. He was the knight in shining armor, or at least that was what Wren liked to say.
Wren ended up doing his vlog in Kither Springs,with Jordan by his side. They wound up falling in love while making countless others fall in love with our town.
We chatted with them about their newest adventures. I hadn’t seen either of them at the diner in a while and learned they’d gone to Spain for one of Wren’s projects.
The line moved quickly, and the five of us soon paid and were seated. Jordan hadn’t planned on participating and was happy to film more content for Wren’s vlog. Jordan had a tiny camera that looked pretty inconspicuous. I wouldn’t have known he was filming if they hadn’t told me.
Hector sat beside me on one side, while Wren was on my other. Ryker and Sam were seated at a different table, and Sam waved wildly when he found us. I waved back with a grin, then settled into my seat.
“You know, I was thinking about what we were talking about earlier,” Hector leaned into my side and whispered. “About sausages.”
“What about them?”
“When Sam said he was up for the challenge, he was talking about dick, wasn’t he?”
“Perhaps.” My cheeks stretched wide.
Hector’s eyes shifted around, as if to make sure nobody was paying attention to us. “Would you want me to, um, beup for the challenge? Take you in my mouth?”
I had to fist my mouth to cover my goofy smile. How could someone so stoic be so adorable?
Without caring that we were in the center of a crowd, I gave him another peck on the cheek. “I love you,” I whispered in his ear. Hector cleared his throat and murmured the words back, making my heart fill.
Just as I straightened in my seat, I felt goose bumps on my arms. The familiar heat of someone watching ran down my neck. I flung my head around and looked through the crowd behind me, but nothing seemed out of place.
A few familiar faces waved at me when they saw me looking their way. I forced a smile and waved back, but the fear that one of them could be my stalker had me frozen.
“Is everything okay?” Hector asked, hand on my knee. He followed my gaze to the crowd, probably trying to figure out what had me so shaken up.
“It’s nothing,” I told him. I shook the nasty thoughts out of my head. I couldn’t go walking around suspecting every person I knew. I told Hector I wasn’t going to let this stalker keep me from living my life, and I was going to do just that.
Hector didn’t look completely reassured, but the announcer proclaimed the competition was starting. I squeezed his hand to reassure him I was fine before returning my attention to the announcer.
The hot dog competition was hosted to raise funds for a local charity, so it was a pretty casual thing. Besides one or two people who looked serious about winning,the other participants looked like they were joining just for the heck of it, like us.
It didn’t help that when the competition began, Sam and Wren started goading each other by making ridiculous faces. I almost choked from laughing at watching them, which had Hector going into protective mode and being attentive over me instead of eating his hot dogs.
All that to say, none of us made it close to winning first prize. Even still, I had a blast.
“Fifteen hot dogs in ten minutes? That guy deserves first place,” Sam said as we left the competition area. “What was the prize anyway?”
“I heard local businesses donated to the pool. Hector donated a hundred-dollar voucher for The Diner.”
“One hundred dollars for Hector’s? That’s like twenty banana splits. Lucky bastard,” Sam grumbled.
We all laughed and walked around to digest some of the food. We hadn’t won anything from the competition besides our food babies.
“I heard the mayor put together a huge corn maze. Should we go check that out?” I suggested.
“Didn’t they try doing one last year? People complained it was too easy,” Sam commented.
Ryker nodded. “It only took Jones and me five minutes to find the exit last year.”
“Becca told me they made it into a whole thing this year. The mayor’s been bragging about it all over town, apparently,” Hector chipped in.
“I wouldn’t get my hopes up. How big can it be anyway?” Sam said, his mouth hanging open as we neared the corn maze at the back of the fair.
