Page 180 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
“Blimey, Erasmus!” Augie answered, scratching his head.
Raz stared into the donkey pen and caught Plum and Beefcake standing side by side, nuzzling each other. “I have to be the donkey, Aug.”
“What?” the group questioned in unison.
“You feeling okay, Erasmus?” Augie asked.
Raz gestured to the animals. “The donkey knows.”
“What does the donkey know, Dad?” Sebastian asked, skipping over with his friends and Granny Fin in tow.
“The donkey knows what’s important,” he replied.
“Like Beefcake knowing he loves Plum?” Sebastian offered.
The kid had cut right to the heart of it.
“Yeah, just like that, son.”
Sebastian looked around. “Where’s Mibby?”
“I want to talk to you about Mibby,” he began, his stomach doing somersaults. “I’d like to do something for her, something big because I…because she…”
“Because she won the Ass-in-Nine?” the lad supplied.
“Something like that,” he rasped.
“I get it, Dad,” the boy replied. “When I got the highest marks on my spelling test, Auntie Calliope and Auntie Callista took me to the London Eye, and I got to go way up high and see all of London and eat as much sticky toffee pudding as I wanted.”
“Yeah, Sebastian, but Mibby and I might be gone a few days.” He checked on Briggs. The agent had his mobile pressed to his ear.
“Will you be back for my donkey birthday party?” the boy asked, his joyful demeanor fading.
“Yes, absolutely,” he answered, taking a knee to be at eye level with the boy. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Then I think you should go. If you want to do something for Mibby, you should do it.”
“Briggs?” he called.
“It’s coming together,” the man answered, then turned to continue his hushed conversation.
Raz scanned the group and zeroed in on his trainer. “I know this seems crazy, but I need a little time off, Aug.”
“Yeah, I can see that. Try to fit in a visit with a shrink, if you can work it in,” the man answered, but there was a thread of Aug’s wry humor in the reply.
He chuckled, nodding to his mentor. “It must be the mountain air.”
Was it completely ludicrous to do something so extreme, so close to his upcoming fight? Yes, of course, it was. But he’d be even worse off if he didn’t. He had to act. Maybe it was the vortex, or perhaps it was what his heart had been trying to tell him since he set eyes on the woman, but he had to do this.
“Gran, do you mind keeping an eye on Sebastian for a few days?”
“We’ll be fine, lad. Do what you need to do,” she answered.
He exhaled a heavy breath.
Was that it? Were there any other loose ends?
“The donkeys!” he exclaimed. He couldn’t leave them here.
