She sat down across from me and folded her hands in her lap with the composure of a woman about to deliver news she had been sitting on for months.
“Because,” she said, “we are on our way to your wedding.” A pause. “Not this wackadoodle nonsense for the paparazzi. Your real wedding.”
I stared at her.
She smiled. Completely unrepentant. Completely at peace.
“My what?”
REINDEER GAMES
DECLAN
“Ihave eyes on Prancer.”
“Jules, I swear to god?—”
“It’s your call sign.”
I was going to need to have a serious conversation with my sister about the appropriate use of authority.
When I drew Jules’s name in the best man lottery, I had felt a very specific kind of relief. Because if there was anyone who could help me pull this switcheroo super secret sneaky surprise wedding of Kelsey’s dreams off, it was my terrifying baby sister.
That said, I was starting to have regrets.
“What’s my call sign supposed to mean?” I asked.
“This is a delicate, finely tuned operation, Declan Hunter Kingman. We need call signs.”
“Fine. What’s yours?”
“Vixen. Obviously.”
“Obviously. The girl reindeer.”
“Technically,” Hayes said, ambling up the path toward us with his hands in his pockets and a look on his face that suggested he was about to say something he wished he didn’tknow, “all the reindeer were girls. Male reindeer lose their antlers in winter.”
“Really?” Huh. Who knew? Hayes. Obviously. He knew everything.
“That explains how they got so much accomplished in one evening.” Jules nodded, satisfied. “Girls rule the world.”
I looked at her now, in her game-day outfit, and I couldn’t argue. She’d shown up today in a forest green three-piece suit that matched the vest of my own tuxedo exactly, which she had coordinated without telling me, because that was just how Jules operated. She had one of Chris’s old wristband playbooks strapped to her forearm and an earpiece like a Secret Service agent. She had been in constant communication with our amazing wedding planner Ciara Mosely Willingham, and the wedding team since before sunrise, running today like a master’s level chess game with full confidence she was going to win.
I had drawn the right name out of that helmet. There was no version of this day that worked without Jules. I was never going to tell her that.
“Speaking of reindeer,” Hayes said, his voice dropping, his eyes going to somewhere in the middle distance.
Jules turned to look at him.
“We might not know the exact current location of the, um. Reindeer.”
The silence that followed was the kind that had weather patterns.
“And how did that happen, Hayes?” Jules asked, in a voice that was sweet and completely deadly. Like poison in a crystal glass.
“Maybe Flynn tried to put a light-up nose on the reindeer and it spooked and ran into the woods?” Hayes offered. “Maybe?”
Jules took a long, slow breath. She tilted her face toward the sky like she was requesting patience from something muchlarger than the rest of us. She exhaled through her nose, cued her earpiece, and said in a completely level voice, “Dasher. Dancer. Go for Vixen. Stat.” Then she stepped away.
