Grace [SEBASTIAN STAN]

LXIX: real life

LXIX. GRACE—CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

"So," Ellen began, a sly smirk taking over her face as she crossed her legs. "You wanna play a game? Oh, wow, that sounded oddly Saw-like..."

Grace laughed, Sebastian quickly following suit as Ellen's eyes bugged out at her previous question. After talking about Grace's experience and how everything was going, they took another commercial break, and now, Ellen wanted to lighten the mood — so that meant playing a game.

Grace had watched Ellen's show many times before, and she was slightly worried as to what game she had planned. She certainly didn't want to embarrass herself on TV, but seeing Sebastian embarrassed on TV would definitely be worth it.

"Anywho," Ellen continued after everyone quieted down. "Have you two heard of the game Who's More Likely?" The two nodded their heads in response. "Good, because I really didn't want to explain it."

Grace giggled and watched as Ellen reached beside her chair, pulling out two cards that had Sebastian's face on one side and hers on the other. She didn't want to know how Ellen received that picture of her, but she was damn thankful she looked semi-decent in it.

Ellen handed one to each of them, a mischievous, yet curious, smile on her face. "After the first break, I sent out a tweet asking people to use the hashtag #StacieOnEllen and ask you guys Who's More Likely questions. Now, I haven't seen any of these questions, so I'm a little curious myself as to what they've come up with. Of course, it's censored, but I mean—" And then she shrugged, accepting the printout from someone who appeared from backstage of the questions she was to ask.

"Ready?"

"Ready," the couple replied at the same time. Grace's fingers excitedly (more like nervously) drummed against her bare thigh as she waited for Ellen to ask the first question. Sebastian, on the other hand, didn't seem to be nervous whatsoever; in fact, he seemed almost ecstatic to play.

"Okay, first one: who's more likely to forget to turn the lights off when they leave the room?"

Immediately after the question was asked, Sebastian flipped his card to Grace's face, but Grace thought for a moment. Either one of them could forget.

"Oh, come on, Gracie," Sebastian groaned. "You literally forget to close the cupboard doors all the time." Once he finished his statement, he grabbed her card and flipped it to her face for her. Grace squinted her eyes at him, lightly whacking him with the card.

"Fair enough. Question two: who's more likely to buy a pet on impulse?"

Both Sebastian and Grace kept their card on her, because it was completely obvious it was her. Just last week she was talking about buying a dog. Just to further prove the point, Sebastian added, "His name would be Rufus, apparently."

"God, I love that name," Grace mumbled, almost like she was proud of herself for it.

"No," Sebastian deadpanned with a shake of the head. Grace whacked him again.

"Question three: who's more likely to shove fifteen donuts down their throat without throwing them back up? Wow, that's a — that's quite descriptive."

Grace released a heavy sigh, the card remaining on her face. "I feel like these are all directed at me."

Her boyfriend chuckled, his card, too, staying on her face. "They totally are."

"Hey, I have no control," Ellen said, holding her hands up in mock defense. "Now, who's more likely to survive the zombie apocalypse?"

"Alone?" Grace questioned, raising a brow. Ellen shrugged, it didn't say. "Well, if I can have myself a Daryl Dixon then it will be me." And she smiled proudly, keeping the card on her face.

"No, no, no," Sebastian denied, flipped the card onto himself. "You'd die without your donuts after a day — even with Daryl Dixon!"

"Shit, you're right." And then she flipped it to Sebastian's face, the boy smiling smugly beside her.

"Who's more likely to fart and blame it on someone else? Um — I don't think I even want to know this one, really."

Grace grinned, her card remaining on Sebastian's face. He craned his neck forward, seeing that her card hadn't changed, him then asking, "What?"

"God, Sebastian, don't you know that girls don't fart? They don't even have bodily functions. We're like aliens."

At that, Ellen spoke up, "Yeah, Sebastian. God."

He sighed. "That's definitely a lie, but I'll go with it." And the card stayed on his side.

"Good. Who's more likely to forget they're babysitting a child?"

Sebastian flipped his to Grace, and her mouth immediately dropped. "No way!"

"Yes way!"

"Don't you remember that time where —" Sebastian's eyes widened, cutting his girlfriend off quickly by placing his hand over her mouth. Everything after that came out muffled, no one hearing anything else.

"We don't talk about that," he reminded her, removing his hand from her mouth.

Ellen held up a hand. "Wait, wait, wait. I wanna know what you did. I'm highly curious now."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I didn't even do anything wrong."

"Yeah, okay," Grace mumbled sarcastically. "I left my house for twenty minutes to go get breakfast and put him in charge of my god-daughter. He was like 'she's sleeping, it'll be fine', but when I came back, he was passed out on the couch and she was eating my favorite plant."

"In my defense, it was early!"

"Okay, Mr. Morning Person, it was eleven o'clock."

At the sound of that, Sebastian ran a hand over his face and released an exasperating sigh. "Well, he's never going to let me watch her ever again."

Grace placed a hand on his knee, saying, "Yes, he will."

Ellen rested her chin in the palm of her hand. "This is cute. I like this. Have you two ever thought about reality TV?" The two shook their heads, both knowing very well that neither of them would ever do that. "Bummer."

And so the couple spent a few more minutes answering questions, joking more along the way (and Sebastian even earning a few whacks here and there), and after it was all over, Ellen gave Grace a huge hug, thanked her for coming, and gave her a card that would allow her to get free donuts for a year (not that she needed it).

But right then, in that moment, Grace thought that, maybe, she would be okay.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: TEN CHAPTERS LEFT