“Sebastian? Is that Sebastian?” Her voice was loud and clear through the phone.
Sebastian glanced over in my direction. I sheepishly lifted my phone.
“Erm…yes. This is Sebastian,” I mumbled.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at me. I mouthed “Mom” to him, and a look of understanding crossed his face. He grinned wide and approached me from behind to wave at the screen.
“Mrs. Hall. How are you?” he said brightly. There was one thing I was grateful for in that moment, and that was Sebastian’s ability to sweet-talk himself into almost anything.
“Sebastian! We finally meet. I’m fine, thank you. I was just telling Elly how it’s been quite a while since you two got together and yet I’ve not seen you whatsoever. I guess it’s my lucky day!”
Sebastian chuckled.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I asked him.
“Not today. Father is out of town this week, and since the office was quite slow, I decided to come home.”
“Oh, okay.” I moved out of frame and made a motion to catch Sebastian’s attention. Once I had it, I pointed to the door and pressed a finger to my lip. He nodded.
“Yes, that’s the one. Now, Mrs. Hall…”
“Please,” Mom interrupted him. “Call me Adrianna.”
“Thank you. Well, Adrianna, I must love you and leave you because I have a session with my personal trainer to catch.” He smiled once more at the camera, then turned around with a protein smoothie in one hand and his set of keys dangling in the other.
“Bye,” I called after him.
“See you soon,” he called back, then he left the room.
After a minute of not talking, suddenly Mom couldn’t hold it any longer.
“Elly, how have you been keeping such a handsome man a secret from me? Wow, well done there.”
I blushed. He wasn’t my man, but there was no correcting my mom. I glanced at the clock on my phone, hoping for an excuse to end the conversation.
For once, time was moving fast. It was close enough to my physio session to use that as an escape from having to explain myself.
“Sorry, Mom but I need to run. I have the physiotherapist coming in soon and I need to prep for the visit.” I tried to keep my voice even, so it wasn’t too obvious I was doing my best to get out of the conversation.
But Mom knew me better.
“Elly, I don’t understand why you’re so embarrassed. We need to talk about this. And we need to talk about him. You’ve been so mysterious that you’re getting my suspicions up…”
“Mom, I need to go,” I insisted. I could see she was determined to pull information out of me. I knew at some point some story would be coming out of my lips—the story as per our contract. But I was delaying lying to my mom for as long as I could take it.
“Will you call me this evening?” Mom was persistent.
We rarely called more than once a day, mostly because by the end of the day, Mom’s energy was drained. She was usually in bed before I finished my tennis practice.
So, I agreed, with ninety-nine percent certainty that I would not have to carry out my promise. I had one more day.
“Okay. After practice?”
“Yes,” she nodded. “Have a good day. Oh, and work on that left swing. You know…”
“Mom, I’m sorry but…”
“Okay, okay. Bye, darling!” And the screen went black.