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“Those fancy underpants don’t look comfortable,” Phoebe continued. “One pair even had a hole in it. I think you should return those broken underpants, Penny.”
Now, every adult’s complexion matched Landon’s seasick hue.
Things had gone downhill fast.
From porn stars to crotchless panties, this housewarming party had taken quite a turn.
“Do doilies have crotches, Landon? Are they private underwear for placemats?” Oscar asked, then held up his camera and snapped a picture of the horrified pop star.
This had to stop.
But it would take a real humdinger to derail this bonkers convo.
She scanned the mortified adults, then waved her hands like she was marooned on a desert island and a plane had just passed by. “Guess what, kids,” she sang like a disheveled, smelly Mary Poppins. “I married Landon, and now I’m his wife, which also makes me his niece’s aunt.”
What had she said?
She didn’t dare look Landon’s way.
A heavy silence took hold until Oscar lifted his camera and snapped a Polaroid of her. “Yeah, we know you married him,” the kid answered, unimpressed with her slightly psychotic declaration. “That’s what you said to your plant between calling yourself the bad words.”
“You can be an aunt and a nanny,” Phoebe gushed. “You’re doing a backward nanny-match.”
A backward nanny-match?
Anything was possible. Her whole world had gone backward, sideways, and upside down.
“Landon does look at you a lot, Harper,” Sebastian commented.
“What do you mean?” she asked as Landon’s complexion went from an uneasy gray-green to beet-red.
“Anytime we’re together, somebody else might be talking, but Landon doesn’t look at them. He looks at you. He looks at you the same way Phoebe looks at hot dogs,” Sebastian explained.
“Sweet, sweet hot dogs,” the girl cooed, then pinned Landon with her gaze. “So, do you like Harper more than hot dogs? Is that how you know if you should marry somebody?”
“Or do you like girls who smell like chocolate? Because Harper smells like a candy store next to a landfill,” Oscar added.
“Do you like smelly chocolate?” Sebastian pressed.
“Um…” Landon stammered.
MIA musician husband or not, she had to help the guy.
She fake-coughed into her elbow. “Change the subject,” she said through the fakest cough in the history of phony throat clearing.
Landon, looking like a gobsmacked fish out of water, nodded. “My niece, Aria, is registered to go to your school.”
The pint-size bringers of mortification paused.
One second passed, then two.
“Do you know what class she’s in?” Phoebe asked as the color returned to Landon’s cheeks.
“We’re gonna be in Miss Carrie Mackendorfer’s second-grade class,” Sebastian said.
Landon nodded. “Yeah, Aria’s in that class. That’s what it said on the school paperwork.”
“Can we meet Aria before school starts?” Phoebe asked with a clap.
