Page 110 of The Sebastian Guarantee
“I’m a bartender, too,” the man replied as he set a tray of drinks on the table.
“And he’s available for private events,” Madelyn added, then handed her a drink. “The perfect dirty martini. Three olives, no more, no less. You recently enjoyed a few of these, if I’m not mistaken?”
Phoebe held the martini glass as another whopper of a revelation hit. “It was you, Madelyn,” she said wide-eyed. “You sent the drinks to my table and paid for me to get hammered after I squirted mustard all over Jeremy Drewler.”
“It was the five of us, dear,” Madelyn replied, nodding to the women at the table.
“And you were glorious,” her aunt Penny added.
“Way to use that Dijon,” Harper cheered, still crying as she raised her glass. “That was straight out of something I would have done back in the day.”
“How did you know I’d be there?” Phoebe pressed.
“I can’t give away every matchmaking secret,” Madelyn confided. “Just know that at the end of the day, I’m simply—”
“A facilitator of fate,” Penny, Harper, Libby, and Charlotte supplied, then clinked glasses.
Phoebe stared at her martini. While she appreciated their love and support, there was one item she had to address. “Madelyn, you said that my match was made years ago, and I have a feeling you think my match is Sebastian, but you might be wrong.”
Madelyn raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
“I can’t be with someone who doesn’t believe in me. I love Sebastian. I do. But he doesn’t support my dream to create Go Girl. That’s what I’ll be pitching at LETIS Live.”
Madelyn took a sip of her drink, then glanced out the window. “Are you sure about that?”
Phoebe followed the matchmaker’s line of sight. The woman had zeroed in on a group of girls. They held signs with two lightning bolts framing two words:goandgirl. “Holy shit,” she whispered, then reached for her martini and downed it in one gulp.
“Here, honey, finish mine. I have a feeling you’ll need it,” Harper offered, sliding her martini across the table.
“Thanks.” Phoebe downed the second cocktail like a seasoned day drinker. She sat back, set the martini glass on the table, then peered out the window to find a giant hot dog waving to her. She blinked. Was she seeing things? “These drinks weren’t made with magic mushrooms, were they?”
“No way,” Harper assured her. “I’d know if they were.”
Phoebe nodded but couldn’t pull her gaze from the life-sized hot dog. “Is that who I think it is?” Her heart skipped a beat.
“Why don’t yougo, girl, and find out,” Madelyn purred.
“Go, girl?” Phoebe repeated.
“Go, girl!” the ladies exclaimed.
Message received. And this was it. Go Girl or bust. Like she’d slipped into a dream world, Phoebe rose to her feet. She floated off the party bus, took a few steps, then stopped in front of a six-foot-four-inch hot dog. No, not just any six-foot-four hot dog. A six-foot-four hot dog with Sebastian’s face framed by the fabric of the costume frank.
“What the hell are you doing?” Honestly, she was impressed she could muster an actual question in the presence of Sebastian Cress dressed like a giant wiener. The guy was all about looking good—only giving the masses a whiff and a taste of the abs-tastic, social media sparkly version of himself. He’d been voted the sexiest man on the internet. One could assume donning an adult-sized hot dog costume was the polar opposite of maintaining that facade, and yet, if anyone could wear the hell out of a frankfurter ensemble, it was him.
“I figured it out, Pheebs,” he said earnestly. “I owe you an apology. You were right. A part of me knew keeping the Sebastian Guarantee data a secret from you was wrong. And that wasn’t the only thing I was wrong about. I couldn’t figure out my purpose in this world. I thought I knew how to make a name for myself. I thought I had it figured out, but I was wrong about who I was meant to be. I’m not confused anymore. I know where I belong.”
Check out Sebastian 2.0.
Phoebe stood there awestruck—or she was dead, or those cocktails did contain some hallucinogenic substance.
She pinched herself. “Ouch!”
“What are you doing, Pheebs?” he asked, taking her hand. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I must be asleep. I’m asleep, or maybe the helicopter I was in earlier crashed and I’m in a coma experiencing a fever dream or . . . I’m dead. I could be dead,” she sputtered.
He smiled that boyish grin that turned her brain to mush. “You’re not dead. You’re awake, and this is very much the real world.”
