Page 90 of The Sebastian Guarantee
Sebastian sighed. “I was gallivanting across the globe like a knob-headed plonker.”
“I know a thing or two about acting like a knob-headed plonker, too, but something or someone altered your course. I reckon that someone was Phoebe.”
It was a relief to finally talk with his dad about something that brought him such shame. “Phoebe texted me and said she might have met her match. It threw me for a loop. In the back of my head, I always knew I loved her. But the thought that maybe I was wrong, maybe there was somebody else out there for her, sent me into a tailspin. It went downhill from there.” They walked a half-block in silence before he spoke again. “Can I ask you something, Dad?”
“Anything.”
“I know how you and Mibby got together.”
A grin spread across his father’s face. “The nanny love match.”
“But how did you know you were supposed to be with Mum? How did you know she was your match, too?”
“Lightning—with your mum and with Mibby.”
“You’re kidding?” Sebastian repeated, thinking of that poor damned fox.
“I am not. Two strikes when I met your mother, then two strikes the first time you, me, and Mibby went to Rickety Rock all those years ago.”
“And then you knew it was meant to be?” he asked, now feeling damned grateful he and Phoebe had nearly been electrocuted. That had to be a sign.
His father chuckled. “No, I was hard-headed. I messed up. I made mistakes. I let my ego get in the way. But those trials and tribulations got me to where I needed to be. I’ve been blessed, son. Your mum and Libby have made me the man I am today. They forced me to look at myself and decide who I wanted to be in this world. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, supporting the woman I love.”
“What do you think Mum would think of me?” There it was. The question that had been in the back of his mind ever since Phoebe had walked out of the chapel.
“What do you think of me, Sebby?” a little girl’s voice bellowed, cutting short his conversation with his dad.
He looked up as a kid-sized hot dog charged toward him. “Tula, is that you?”
The skipping hot dog waved. “Yeah, it’s me.”
“Why is Tula in her Halloween costume, Dad?” he asked under his breath.
“She wanted to start wearing it straight away ages ago. Mibby and I made a deal with her. We told her she could wear it in October, just not to school. She put it on the second we got home. We probably should have put a few more restrictions on where she could wear it,” his dad said, shaking his head, but that didn’t stop the man from beaming at the bobbing frankfurter headed their way with Mibby a few steps behind.
“Hi, Daddy! Here I come, Sebby,” Tula called. She tried to jump into his arms, but the adult-sized, tube-shaped costume that came to her ankles didn’t accommodate the movement. Instead, she pitched forward like some processed-meat lumberjack had called out “hot dog timber.”
Luckily, he caught the kid before she did a face-plant.
“Hey, Big Foot,” his sister said, her little face peeking out of a hole in the frank part of the costume.
“Sebastian, namaste, sweetheart! It’s good to see your face on this physical plane,” Mibby said. How he’d missed her and her yoga-mystic speak.
He set Tula upright on the ground, then kissed his stepmom’s cheek. “Have you been seeing me on another plane, Mibbs?”
“When we were meditating a few days ago, we both saw you, Sebby,” Tula chirped. “But it wasn’t the usual you. Your aura was . . .” She scrunched up her face like she’d gotten a whiff of dog shit, then tapped her foot five times. “It was bad. I could tell you felt like a butthole douche nozzle.”
“Tula!” he and his parents exclaimed.
“Oops, I forgot I wasn’t supposed to say that part out loud,” the kid replied, then brightened. “But Sebby looks better, huh, Mibby?”
His stepmom gifted him with a warm grin and patted his cheek. “He’s getting there,” she answered.
His dad’s cell pinged. “It’s the contractor,” the man said, growling at his phone. “He’s at the new Baxter Park Pun-chi yoga location. We must have missed him. There’s an issue with the lighting. He wants our opinion before he has the electrician install them. The guy wants to start working tonight.”
Mibby nodded. “We should head over. I know they’re on a tight schedule.”
“Do I have to go, too?” Tula asked, drooping like a soggy hot dog.
