“More tired than I have ever been in my entire life,” she said with a smile.
Seb and I crowded around her to meet Colton.
“Hi, baby Colton. It’s nice to meet you,” I cooed, touching the bumpy skin of his newborn cheeks.
“Wow, man. You did good. This is one seriously cute baby,” Seb said, grinning at Luke.
“Yes,hedid great,” Scarlett deadpanned.
We all burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of that statement. “I’m just trying to make the man feel important.” Seb winked. “Seriously, the idea that this whole person was inside of you an hour ago is mind-blowing. You are superhuman, Letty.”
“It is insane, isn’t it.” She gazed down at the bundle in her arms with so much love. “Do you want to hold him?” She looked between Seb and me. It dawned on me with striking clarity that I had never once held a newborn baby. I had a few friends in New York who had kids, but by the time I met them, they were already at least a few months old. Even Veda was already getting big by the time I made it home to meet her.
Luke must have seen the panic in my eyes. He grinned at me. “Go ahead, Lyds. You won’t hurt him. Colt, don’t you want to meet Auntie Lydia?”
“Oh, okay. Yeah.” I held my arms out for Scarlett to transfer him to me, cradling his little head the entire time. My heart felt so full of love and an overwhelming emotion. Seb rubbed my back as I studied his perfect features, trying to decide if he looked more like Luke or Scarlett.
“Does this make you want to change your mind about kids?” Seb asked.
“No. But it does make me want to be the best auntie in the whole wide world so I can spend as much time with him as I can and then send him home.”
Seb chuckled, reaching over to stroke Colt’s face, the only part of him that was showing since he was wrapped tightly into a baby burrito.
“Uncle Seb and Aunt Lydia. It had a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” Seb said.
I turned to him with a smile, because yeah, it did have a nice ring to it. I could see it—kids barging into our house to raid our kitchen after school, the two of us watching their sports games or dance recitals, backyard parties where my brothers would send their kids to bother Uncle Seb and Aunt Lydia because they wanted them out of their hair for ten minutes.
I saw it all, and I wanted it.
32
Sebastian
I walked my new hire, Mallory, through her job duties, or at least I tried to. The phone rang again, and I had to stop what I was saying to answer it.
“SD Ink. This is Sebastian.”
“Hi. Um, are you the Sebastian from TikTok?”
I pulled in a deep breath through my nose. The first time I had been asked that question was three days ago. To say I was confused and suspicious would be an understatement. Now, three days and over one hundred phone calls later, I was well versed in this.
“Yup. That’s me. What can I do for you?”
“Oh, that’s so cool. Um, I’d like to schedule an appointment for a tattoo.”
“We’re booking out into August. Is that okay?”
I took down her details, confirming she was at least eighteen years old, as I did with all of the TikTok referral clients. So far about twelve of them were going to need to wait another couple of years before I would be able to see them. Mariana, the client on the phone, confirmed she wastwenty-two and explained the size of scope of the design she was thinking about. I booked her for a one-hour consultation in early August and set a timeslot aside the week after for the session.
“Okay, sorry about that,” I said to Mallory after I hung up with Mariana.
“No problem. I saw you enter into the other program the add new client information. Do you have a list of—” She was cut off by the sound of the phone. I let out a frustrated sigh, shooting a side-eye look at the phone, like the fact that it was ringing incessantly was its fault. “I can get it,” she said excitedly.
“Be my guest.” I waved her toward the phone and stepped back.
“SD Ink. This is Mallory speaking… yes, that’s right. This is the same Sebastian… He’s a little tied up right now, but I’d be happy to take a message…” Her eyes went wide, and she gestured wildly for a pen and paper. I pushed a notebook toward her with a Sharpie. “Oh, sure. I’ll let him know… Thanks for calling SD Ink.” She smiled into the phone like the person on the other line could see it as she furiously scribbled a note on the paper.
“They didn’t want an appointment?” I asked.
