Page 13 of The Sebastian Guarantee
Andboyo, it was never a good sign when Erasmus Cress dropped that word to describe anyone.
“What did Dad say, T?” he asked, but he had a good idea he already knew what his old man was rumbling about.
“I heard Daddy and Mibby talking when they thought I was asleep the day before we left for Rickety Rock. Dad said, ‘thatboyoof ours is acting like a right plonker, showboating around the world like a lazy sod.’” Tula perfectly imitated their father. “And then Mibby said she felt a shift in your aura six months ago, and she was worried your chi was out of balance. But then she said she felt another shift a week or so ago. Our Mibby is good at telling when we’re out of sorts or have big changes coming our way.”
His sister wasn’t wrong. Libby Lamb-Cress was blessed with an intuition like no other.
“That’s why I left the phone under your pillow, Sebby. Dad and Mibby said you were coming home, and I had a feeling you’d wait until we’d left.”
He flinched. Her words sliced through him like a knife straight to his heart.
“The only time I see you is when I look at your social media stuff. But it makes me sad to look at your pictures,” Tula continued.
He cleared the emotion clogging his throat. “Why does it upset you?”
“I can tell you’re pretending.”
He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Pretending to be what?”
“Happy.”
Dammit.
Tula Meredith Cress had inherited a good chunk of her mother’s spot-on insight.
His eyes burned, and it wasn’t from an abundance of alcohol or lack of decent sleep.
“Are you okay, Sebby?” his sister asked softly. “What happened that made you sad and made you forget to put on a shirt in your posts?”
It was a valid question, but he’d spent the last six months trying to forget the answer, and it wasn’t an answer he could share with Tula.
He hadn’t always been like this.
A year ago, he’d set out to make his own success. And he hadn’t been alone. He and Phoebe had left their positions at their family’s companies to chart their own course and start their own businesses. They’d talked or texted multiple times a day and cheered each other on. Phoebe wanted to use her talents to unite women and girls in tech, and he wanted to employ his fitness and business skills to create a program that helped people attain their goals through positive lifestyle choices.
He’d been a machine for the first six months, working from early in the morning until late at night. It took time and research to craft an in-depth business plan. He knew this. And he’d wanted to get it right. He’d used his savings to travel the world, gathering information on the benefits of different types of diets and exercise habits. He’d met with fitness professionals, motivational speakers, and scientists. He wanted to harness the information he’d amassed to create a system that would encourage—no, guarantee—a harmony-infused existence. Boiled down to one succinct goal, he wanted to become a motivational life coach who transformed lives. He dreamed of writing books, creating a media channel, and guiding the masses toward better, more fulfilling choices.
That’s when Project Confidence was born. But it still needed work—and probably a better name.
Here’s the thing. He understood the ins and outs of business development. After graduating with a business degree, he’d spent a handful of years expanding his family’s Pun-chi yoga franchise. This form of exercise married precise yoga positions with the intensity of boxing moves. While it seemed like an unlikely match, his stepmom and dad had proven the two disciplines created a workout that provided heart-pumping aerobic exercise with a dose of soul-cleansing mindfulness, and he believed in it.
He’d opened Pun-chi yoga centers in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia. He hadn’t just stuck to the spreadsheets and presentations with investors during that time. When it came to the business side of things, he could talk the talk, but when it came to the fitness aspect of the business, he could also walk the walk.
He’d taught Pun-chi yoga classes and begun sharing fitness and health tips on his social media accounts. That’s where he’d gained a following and realized it was time for him to break away from the family business and make a name for himself. He’d been well on his way until he’d woken up to the salty air on the Spanish island of Ibiza six months ago. He’d grabbed his phone off the bedside table to review his appointments. That was when he’d read a text from Phoebe that knocked the wind clean out of him. Instead of meeting with experts that day, he’d crawled back beneath the sheets, then hit the clubs that night.
After that day, his life had become a blur of booze and one-night stands. He’d distanced himself from the people he loved. He’d abandoned his research and flitted from one luxurious locale to the next, living the life of a rudderless playboy until a dream and a date on the calendar had stopped him dead in his tracks last week. That must have been the shift in the universe Mibby had felt.
Instead of making plans to party, he’d texted Briggs. He’d told the man he was returning to Denver and asked him to set up meetings with potential investors.
And his “come to Jesus” hadn’t come a moment too soon.
He’d neglected his finances over the last six months. His stomach had dropped when he’d logged on to his savings account. He’d burned through most of it, and he wasn’t about to ask his father and Mibby for cash. Sure, they’d give it to him, but that wasn’t how he wanted to make it in this world. If he was going to set out on his own and build a business, he’d need to secure funding. And he needed it quickly. His last name helped. It opened doors, but it also brought immense pressure to succeed. Just by virtue of being the son of a former heavyweight champion and a yoga phenomenon, a certain sect of this world pegged him as a spoiled rich kid and was gunning for him to fail. His choices over the past six months certainly hadn’t done anything to dissuade the perception. That’s why he had to turn his life around now. Failure was not an option. Not when his last name was Cress.
He left the bathroom, returned to his bed, and sank onto the edge. He had so many good memories in this room. Sleepovers with Aria, Oscar, and Phoebe. Rocking a tiny, teething Tula in his arms in the dead of night to give his bleary-eyed parents a break. He returned his attention to the watch. He picked it up, taking comfort in its familiar weight, then pressed the latch. It popped open, and he looked from the delicate timepiece to the small, circular photo of his mom—no, his mum. That’s what he’d called her back when he was a wee lad and still spoke with a prim British accent.
“Sebby?” Tula asked softly. “Are you still there?”
He closed the watch and exhaled a shaky breath. “Yeah, Tula, I’m here. I was just thinking.” He had to get out of his head and put the kid at ease. It wasn’t her fault her brother had screwed up. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m home. I’ve got meetings set up. I’m getting back on track.”
