Page 53 of While You Were Trending

I hope Cricket can convince my mother to leave.

I hope Declan and his crew have some vacation rental that’s super secluded but nearby that they’re using so that they don’t have to stay on the property.

And I hope that the internet magically forgets I exist.

None of which are likely.

Can’t solve reality by hiding from it, so it’s time to face it.

11

THE (SECRET) OFFICE

Declan

Early evening,while I’m at my hotel splicing together video of me trying my hand at being a firefighter for a day that I recorded last week before the wedding—and debating if I should call Alex and see if he knows he’s going viral again while also waiting for the news that my documentary is canceled—I get a text from Mabel requesting that Shade and I return to the winery.

I ask if I can bring Flow, my Bernedoodle, who’s been extra neurotic lately.

She doesn’t like the doggy daycare I found for her while we’re here and I’m tied up during the day.

And she doesn’t like when I’m struggling.

She likes it less when I’m struggling but pretend like I’m not.

Mabel tells me the dog can come as long as she’s not likely to eat cats or chickens, so I load her up, and the two of us leave the hotel to head back to the winery.

And now Shade, Flow, and I are being led through an underground barrel cellar that we accessed through anondescript door in the fermentation building above. Dori and Cricket are with us too.

And I’m playing like I’m not expecting this to be a trap where I’m kicked out.

Or worse.

“How do you get the barrels in and out of here?” I ask.

Shade’s filming as he follows us.

“There’s a lift that goes up to the bottling floor,” Mabel replies.

“Where’s that?”

“Other half of the fermentation building.”

“Ah.”

She pauses in front of a stone wall at the far end of the cellar and tilts a wall sconce.

“No fucking way,” I breathe as part of the wall shifts forward and then swings open.

“Are you for real right now?” Dori whispers.

“Oh my god,” Cricket says reverently.

Mabel steps aside and gestures us in. “Congratulations. You now know something about this winery that Aunt Pip does not.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“That she doesn’t know? Positive. If she did—well. I expect it would look different inside. More glitter and feathers and neon pink.”