Happily Letter After(25)
Yeah, that was it. It had to be. I mean, sure, Sebastian was a tough nut. But he had no idea who I really was. If he did, he would have called me out on it immediately. So it had to be all in my head.
Twenty minutes later, I finally garnered the courage to walk back to the house. I took a deep breath and lifted my hand to knock, but the door swung open before my knuckles could connect with the wood.
“It’s about time.”
“Marmaduke had a lot of energy today.”
“I was beginning to think you were going to take off with my dog.”
I sort of laughed at that notion. Who the hell in their right mind would take off with this out-of-control animal? Only a person who was nuts, obviously. Oh. Wait. Maybe I did qualify, then. I guess I could see his point. “Sorry. I’ll stay a bit longer so you get your full hour of training time, if you’d like.”
Sebastian stepped aside, and I noticed that he again had a folded-up piece of white paper in his hand. Only this time, I wasn’t going to let my imagination get the best of me by thinking whatever it was contained some ominous evil thing to expose me as a fraud. So I lifted my chin high and ignored his hand as I walked inside.
Back in the living room, I felt Sebastian’s presence all around me. It was uncomfortable yet oddly arousing at the same time. I cleared my throat. “Is there something specific you wanted to work on today?”
He watched me intently. “Yes. Jumping over people.”
My brows drew together. “Excuse me?”
“Your website said it’s one of the tricks that you teach. I thought my daughter might enjoy that type of thing, so I’d like you to teach the dog how to jump over people while they’re down on all fours.”
“You want me to teach Marmaduke how to jump over people who are down on all fours?”
Sebastian looked around. “Is there an echo in here?”
“No. But I just . . . It seems like a better use of our training time might be spent teaching Marmaduke some basic commands. Not something so . . . advanced.”
“Are you not capable of teaching him an advanced trick?”
Uh . . . no . . . I hadn’t gotten that far on YouTube yet. “Of course I am.”
Sebastian flashed a cynical smile and sat down on the couch. He stretched both of his arms out across the top and kicked his feet up onto the coffee table in front of him. “Good. Now down on all fours, Ms. Schmidt.”
“Schmidt?”
“Oh, is that not your real last name? Your website said Gretchen Schmidt. But yet you told my daughter your real name is Sadie? So what is it now? Are you Sadie Schmidt, or is there yet another name?”
I started to feel my cheeks heat. “Umm. No, it’s Schmidt. Like I told your daughter, I just use Gretchen for work purposes.”
“Right. Because it sounds more German.”
“That’s right.”
“Alright then, Ms. Schmidt. Why don’t you get started? What’s the German word for ‘jump’?”
Oh God. I totally panicked and said the first jumbled syllables that I could force out of my mouth. “Flunkerbsht.”
Sebastian’s brows jumped. “Flunkerbsht.”
“That’s right.”
I could have sworn I detected a hint of a smile at the edges of his lips. But then it quickly disappeared. “Ready whenever you are . . . flunkerbsht.”
CHAPTER 10
SADIE
It was the longest ten minutes of my life. Seriously. Every second that passed was excruciating as Sebastian just watched with his arms crossed as I made a fool of myself.
I tried in vain to get this horse of a dog to jump over my back with a made-up command that meant absolutely nothing. It was looking like I’d have a greater chance of turning water into wine.
How the hell do you teach a dog to jump over your back anyway? I tried everything, from demonstrating the act myself while jumping over an end table shouting “flunkerbsht” repeatedly . . . to grabbing another one of the stuffed animals from Birdie’s room and jumping over that. He ended up going after the toy and humping it.
I’m a flunkerbsht, alright. A huge flunker shit.
In a last act of desperation, I tried getting down on all fours and yelling “flunkerbsht” while nudging my head, hoping that by some miracle, Marmaduke would take that as a sign to jump over me. He’d either lie down with his chin on the floor or, worse, climb up on my back and try to stay there. At one point, I became pinned under him. Then, after I flipped around, he started licking my face as I struggled to get up.
How had I gone from getting ready to tell Sebastian the truth just this morning . . . to this?
I needed to end it.
Now.
I needed to tell Sebastian everything.
When I finally got Marmaduke off me, I stood up.
Brushing off my pants, I said, “Sebastian, we need to—”
“Stop it, Sadie. Just stop.” His tone was jarring and his eyes—they became filled with so much anger as he said, “Don’t say another word. It won’t matter. Because it’ll just be another lie.”
My heart pounded, and the room started to feel like it was spinning.
What’s happening?
He unfolded the paper he’d been holding and faced it toward me. It was a photo of a woman and some words. It looked like a bio maybe. The woman had long, curly red hair.