XXVIII. GRACE—CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

          "I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

          "Because you haven't."

          "Good point," Sebastian replied, releasing a light chuckle as he ran a hand through his hair. Grace could tell he hadn't finished filming too long ago, as his hair was still frazzled in the usual 'Bucky style' and he had some leftover fake blood on his hands.

          "Sorry I removed you from the groupchat," she suddenly said.

          "Oh, so it was you?" Sebastian retorted, raising an eyebrow in amusement as Grace nodded on the other end of the screen. "I knew it."

          "I wanted to surprise you!"

          "Well, a surprise would have been to show up on set, Gracie, but I'll take this," he pointed out. "I miss you."

          "I miss you, too. And—" Before Grace could bring up the fact that they only had a few more weeks until he came home, a loud squeal sounded from the other room. She sighed.

          Sebastian's face, though, immediately lit up like a child on Christmas morning as he heard the noise. "Is that—"

          "Bubba? Yeah," Grace cut him off, rubbing her hands along her thighs as she stood from the couch. "She just woke up from her nap. I'll be right back."

          Only a few minutes later, Grace brought out a tired-looking Bubba. The small child had a stuffed animal wrapped in one hand as she rubbed her eyes with the other. Grace then plopped down on the couch and set Bubba beside her, but she still clung to Grace's side.

          Bubba didn't seem to notice Sebastian on the screen in front of them — well, not until he made an unusual cheerful noise on the other end. The child almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the strange noise, and her eyes immediately fell on Sebastian. She squinted her eyes at him. Not in a 'stranger danger' way, but more of a 'there's a man I know in the screen' sort of way.

          "Do you remember Sebastian?" Grace asked Bubba, and she nodded, involuntarily reaching her hand out towards him. She always did that around him, because it was like whenever he held her she fit perfectly in his arms, and passed out every time. Grace watched as a smile grew on his face when she did that. "He misses you, and you know what he's gonna give you when he comes back?"

          Sebastian scrunched his eyebrows in question. "What am I—"

          "He's gonna bring you a really, really big bag of sour gummy worms, and you know what we're going to do with them?"

          Once again, Sebastian spoke up. "I never—"

          "We're all gonna sit on this couch, and we're gonna watch The Little Mermaid while we stuff our faces with candy. How does that sound?"

         Bubba giggled, pulling the stuffed animal to her chest as she grinned at Sebastian. He couldn't help but smile back at her. Her smile was contagious, and even Grace was smiling.

"But you can't steal my boyfriend this time," Grace cut in, pointing her finger playfully at Bubba, and Bubba gave her a single, curt nod, as if to say 'yes ma'am'.

"Aw, come on! Not even for, like, twenty seconds?" Sebastian whined, puffing out his lower lip.

Grace rolled her eyes at him, saying, "No. She's mine."

"That's not gonna stop me from stealing her."

"Give it all you got, Stan."

"You got it, Capuano."

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I had a few more plans for this chapter but I decided to just cut it off here, because it was fluffy and we all like fluff soO

alsO, thank you so much for 50k reads! I'll be sure to update again today for you guys! xx