Page 121 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
Raz flinched. He’d come up with that crock of shit on the fly.
“Do you know what that makes me think of?” Phoebe replied, sticking with the French maître d’ voice.
Libby inhaled an audible breath. And he was right there with her. God only knew what was about to fly out of the child’s mouth.
“What?” Sebastian queried.
“Bergen Summer Adventure Camp in Aspen. The camp you, me, and Oscar get to go to,” the girl spouted, going back to her normal voice.
Libby released her breath as he did the same. There’s one crisis averted.
“The Bergen part is the same name as me and Oscar’s teacher, Mrs. Bergen,” Phoebe explained. “But I don’t think she’ll be at camp. I think teachers stay in their classrooms over the summer. Why would they want to leave? School is the best.”
“Camp is great, too,” Oscar added. “Remember Outdoor Lab in Telluride, Phoebe? You scared all those boys and made them give you their cookies at lunch every day.”
Phoebe sighed. “I really love camp.”
“My Charlotte showed me the brochure for the camp we’re going to,” Oscar continued. “They’ve got woodworking, and we get to decide if we want to build a picture frame or a little step stool.”
A stool.
Raz’s heart twisted in his chest as the image of a boxing ring with two stools crystalized. He stared at the ground and willed the picture away.
“That gives me an idea,” Oscar chimed. “Your birthday is coming up, right, Sebastian?”
“Right-o, mate! My birthday is a few days after the donkey race,” Sebastian answered, puffing up, then paused. “Dad,” the boy whispered, waving him to the bed.
“Yeah?”
“I asked Augie for the dates to make double sure you could come to my donkey birthday party. Remember last year. You had to train.”
Shame came at him from every corner of the room. “I remember. I’ll be there,” he answered, his voice a tight rasp.
Sebastian flashed him a toothy grin, then got back to his friends. “What’s your big idea, Oscar?”
“You know how I’m a photographer like my Charlotte?”
“Yeah, mate, you take a real banger of a picture.”
“I’m going to make you a picture frame for your birthday. If you go back to England, I’ll put a picture of me and Phoebe in it, so you can remember us.”
Raz shifted his stance.
Were they going back to England?
“I don’t want you to go back to England, Sebastian. You’re the only one who calls me Phoebe, Princess of the Hot Dog Fairies, Bearer of Cookies, and Eater of Pizza. I made Oscar try to say it, but it sounds better when you do it.”
Raz chanced a look at his son. The boy wasn’t looking at the screen. The kid had fixed his gaze on Libby.
There was that pang in his heart again. He didn’t need to be awarded Father of the Year to know what the lad was thinking.
He didn’t want to give up his Mibby.
Too bad it wasn’t that easy.
He could buy the child anything—except what the lad truly wanted.
“I’m making a stool,” Phoebe announced, pulling Sebastian’s attention back to the screen. “And then,” the girl mused, “I’m going to give it to my almost aunt, Penny. She’s always asking my uncle Row to get a book off a high shelf for her. And it’s always in a room where the door is locked.”
