Page 12 of The Sebastian Guarantee
“Sebby, are you there, or did you fall asleep?” Tula pressed. “And don’t you tell me you’re super busy and have to get off the phone.”
He massaged the kink in his neck. “I’m here, T, I’m here.”
Phoebe wasn’t the only person he’d been avoiding. He hated how long it had been since he’d spoken with his sister. Along with being a shit friend, he could add being a shit big brother to the list of his failures over the last one hundred and eighty days. With the phone pressed to his ear, he dragged his ass out of bed and into the bathroom. He flipped on the tap and bent down to slurp a few mouthfuls of water.
“How do you like my burner phone, Seb?” Tula tossed out nonchalantly.
Burner phone?
He lurched forward, choking on the liquid. “Why do you have a burner phone?”
“So I can talk to Ivy after Mibby and Dad put me to bed. Why else?”
This spunky, slightly frighteningly devious kid.
He caught his breath and wiped his wrist across his mouth. He still got a kick out of his sister calling Libby, Tula’s biological mom, and his stepmom,Mibby. That had been the nickname he’d given to Libby when she was still his nanny. Mibby was the mashed-up version ofmyandLibby. Wanting to be like her big brother, Tula had picked it up instead ofmomormommy,and to his great pleasure, it stuck.
He used to love that Tula wanted to be like him. Now it was probably better that he’d distanced himself from the child. Still, he was her older brother, and in this situation, he could act like it.
“Where did you get the burner phone, T?”
“Do you promise not to tell Dad and Mibby?”
“Tula,” he chided.
The girl huffed. “Ivy and I asked Phoebe to get us secret phones after she brought us to a Girls in Tech Expo downtown a few weeks ago. We were on our way home and told her we needed secret phones to play super-secret spy agents. We weren’t lying, Sebby. We play secret spy agents, and sometimes we play after our parents think we’re asleep on school nights but then end up talking about normal stuff. You have no idea how busy the life of an eight-year-old girl is these days.”
He pressed his lips together to suppress a chuckle. “When Phoebe and I were around your age,” he said when he was sure he wouldn’t bust out laughing, “we were into playing super-secret spies, too.”
“That’s what she said!” Tula exclaimed.
He cleared his throat. “Did Phoebe say anything else or mention a boyfriend, some guy named Jeremy Drewler?”
He cringed. What was he thinking, asking his kid sister about Phoebe’s love life?
“She didn’t say anything about a drooling Jeremy,” Tula answered to his absolute delight.
Jeremy Drewler was wrong for Phoebe. Granted, he’d never met the guy, but from what little he knew, the dude sounded like a tool. As her friend—no, as herbestfriend—he needed to look out for her. That’s what he was doing. Yep, that was it. Totally it. Done and dusted.
“Want to know what else Phoebe said?” Tula asked like she was dangling a bit of meat in front of a lion.
His brain screamedhell yes, but he had to play it cool. “If you want to tell me, you can, I guess. Whatever. It makes no difference to me. Unless you want to tell me, then you might as well say it. We are on the phone.” Jesus, he sounded like a moody preteen.
“Phoebe said a lot of things about being a strong woman. She wants Ivy and me to follow our dreams, and then we stopped at a food truck and ate hot dogs and cookies. Lots of chocolate chip cookies.” Tula paused. “But I don’t have time to talk about Phoebe. We need to talk about you, Sebby.”
Yowza!That couldn’t be good.
“I left my super-secret spy agent phone in your room and took Ivy’s with me to Rickety Rock so I could call you. You know it’s our family’s fall break-break,” Tula added, lowering her voice.
His family had started doing this back-to-nature break when he was in elementary school. Mibby insisted they take time away to connect with their inner selves and each other. During the school year’s fall break, they’d head south to their mountain home, a few hours away in Rickety Rock, Colorado. They’d put away their phones, laptops, and tablets to recalibrate, reconnect, and find balance. He loved that time, and he should have been there with them. But he had a legitimate reason to skip out this year that also allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief. His absence in Rickety Rock meant he wouldn’t have to come face-to-face with his dad, who wasn’t impressed with how his son had been conducting his life. Little did his dad know, that made two of them.
Despite his fall from grace, he was determined to succeed. He’d returned to make a change—and to make good on the promise he’d made to himself and his deceased mother. His publicist, Briggs Keaton, who also managed his father’s PR and business dealings, had scheduled a slew of meetings for him in Denver.
But before he could get on with turning his life around, he needed to hear out his sister. She was breaking the rules for him. He owed her his utmost attention.
“What do we need to talk about, Tula?”
“Boyo,” the little girl answered, mimicking their father’s gritty, East London accent.
