Page 82 of The Sebastian Guarantee
She flicked her gaze from the ground, shielded her eyes, then froze. In a small clearing, no more than twenty or thirty feet ahead of them, a fox sat in the center of the path. Its bushy tail curled inward as the animal held its ground. She scanned the area, checking to see if the woodland critter was alone, then spied a stone structure through the trees just off the path.
Sebastian came to her side. He took another step and put himself between her and their new friend. “It’s a fox,” he said like he was the end-all and be-all authority on mountain wildlife. “We need to make noise to scare it away.”
Who did he think he was talking to?
She pushed him out of the way. Fox or no fox, she was tired of men thinking they knew more than she did. “Of course we have to make noise,” she bellowed, her voice rising above the pounding rain. “You only know about foxes because, growing up, you went withmeto Bergen Adventure Camp every summer.” She stabbed her finger into his chest. “Every year, I was right there by your side when the counselors went over trail etiquette. You and I have been all over the entire state—and all over the world together.”
Salty tears and rainwater pricked her eyes. Anger and frustration had her wound up so tight she wasn’t sure if she was on the cusp of breaking down or parting her lips and screaming like she’d been cast to create sound effects for horror movies. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. It was fight-or-flight time. She hardened her features and went into fight mode.
She eyed the animal. “I do not have the time or the patience to be mauled, bitten, or attacked. Do you hear me, Mr. Fox? I will harness every ounce of energy to banish you from this trail, from this state, from this earth. This is your warning, you bushy-tailed bastard,” she bellowed, raising her hands like she was calling the corners to cast a spell. “Get. Off. This. Path!”
The words screeched past her lips a second before a lightning bolt rocketed toward the earth. It struck a rock jutting from the trail a few feet from the animal as a bang of thunder shook the mountain.
She screamed and stumbled backward. Turning away from the jagged flash, she pitched forward and slipped on a slick patch of mud. But she didn’t hit the ground. Sebastian caught her in his arms. She held on to him as he guided her off the trail. Beneath a canopy of golden-leaved aspens and a trio of boulders providing respite from the wind, he wrapped his arms around her. She should have rejected his touch, but she couldn’t fight him. She needed his strong embrace to hold her together. Trembling, she pressed her head against his rain-soaked chest and exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for the last hour.
But what about the fox?
Panic shot through her. “Did I kill it?” she yelped. “Did I summon a lightning bolt to barbecue a fox? I’m so sorry, fox. I’m sorry, creatures of Glenn Pines. I didn’t mean to be such a . . .” she whimpered and tapped her foot five times. “Only a douche nozzle butthole threatens a fox,” she sobbed, bunching the fabric of Sebastian’s shirt in her hands as she clung to him.
He tightened his hold and threaded his hand into her mass of wet hair. “Easy now, you’re not a douche nozzle butthole. The fox is okay. He took off like a shot into the woods.”
“Was he intact? Did he lose an ear or his tail? Did he escape with all his appendages?”
He pulled back and tipped her chin up. “Trust me, the fox is fine. And I thought,” he added, mustering a weak grin as rivulets of rain trailed down his beautiful face, “we agreed to never, ever use the wordappendageagain.And don’t even ask me about the fox’sorifices,because I sure as hell didn’t get a look at any of those. Did an offshoot of the lightning bolt hit his ass orifice and send him off with a little more zip? I don’t know, Pheebs. I reckon it’s possible.”
This man.Even when she wanted to throttle him, he was there beside her, making her smile.
Her tears mixed with the rain as she melted into him, holding on like he was the only thing keeping her tethered to the ground. “What do we do now, Sebby?”
He rested his chin on the crown of her head. “You let me talk, and you listen to me for one bloody second,” he bit out, his voice taking on his old accent.
She took a step back. She had some questions first. “Before you say anything, tell me what you and Jeremy discussed.”
Sebastian scrubbed his hands down his face. “He came up to me last night when you were talking with Carla and the investors at the cocktail party. Your transformation took him by surprise. He said he had time to devote to winning you back because he’d been contacted by an investor yesterday morning.”
She scoffed. “Wow, nice to know I play second fiddle to a potential investor.”
Sebastian swallowed hard and looked away.
“What else?” she pressed. “Did he mention the bet?”
“No, he just looked at me, smiled that smarmy smirk, and said he knew.”
“What did he know?”
Sebastian’s features softened. “How I felt about you. How I feel about you.”
“No, not me,” she corrected, shaking her head. “How you feel about Phoebe 2.0, Phoebe the lingerie-wearing man-eater.”
“You’re wrong, Pheebs.”
“How am I wrong?” she fired back. “It’s black-and-white. Up until a couple of days ago, I was your good old buddy, Phoebe, and then I put on a baby doll negligee and you couldn’t keep your hands off me.”
“No,” he rasped, shoulders slumping as he shook his head.
“Sebastian, don’t lie to me.”
He cupped her face in his hands. Trembling, he leaned in. “Phoebe Gale, I’m not lying to you. I would never lie to you. I want you. I’ve wanted to be more than your friend for more than six bloody months. But I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want to ruin our friendship—a friendship that sustains me. It completes me. It guides me. You’re my true north.” He wiped the water from her cheeks. “And you’re also the reason my life went to shit. And the only way I knew how to numb the pain was by being the opposite of what you made me want to be.”
