“You mean when I was cowering in my sleeping bag, hoping that you would leave me alone?”
“Yes,” Sebastian said, placing her on her feet only to end up narrowing his eyes suspiciously when he noticed the triumphant gleam in her eye. “You’re lying about needing to use the bathroom, aren’t you?”
Nodding, Mikey said, “I really am,” a split second before she took off running, leaving him standing alone on the deck, unable to help but sigh because she really was a pain in his ass.
*-*-*-*
He looked furious, Mikey couldn’t help but notice as she nibbled on the delicious s’mores that she’d made to help pass the time.
Upon further inspection, she couldn’t help but notice that he was also soaking wet from head to toe, caked in mud with bits of twigs and other things that she really couldn’t identify at the moment, tangled in his hair and he was definitely pissed. There was no missing the murderous glare that he was sending her way. Her gaze flickered to Braxton to find him in a similar state and for some reason he was glaring at her, too.
Well, that couldn’t be good…
Clearing her throat, Mikey held up her half-eaten s’mores in offering. When Sebastian’s eyes narrowed dangerously on her, Mikey returned to nibbling on her delicious treat as she watched Sebastian, who still hadn’t said a word to her, reach back and grab hold of his wet shirt and pulled it off. While he balled it up in his hands, she couldn’t help but sit there, appreciating the sight before her.
He’d definitely come a long way since she’d met him, Mikey absently thought as she took in his well-defined chest and abs. Then again, all the men in his family seemed to be built like that. She wondered if it was genetic when he tossed his soaking wet shirt at her feet.
Blinking, she looked down at the shirt already creating a muddy puddle at her feet that smelled like stale pond water before looking up and–
“Why are you covered in black leaves?” Mikey asked, unable to help but frown because she’d never actually seen a black leaf before. Then again, maybe the leaves were from the bottom of the pond that he’d clearly went for a swim in, she thought, but that wouldn’t explain why some of them looked plump and…
Were they moving?
Frowning, Sebastian followed her gaze and…
Made her realize that she probably should have kept that question to herself when Braxton suddenly screamed, “Leeches!” right around the time that both boys started to freak out a bit there.
Definitely should have kept it to herself, Mikey decided a moment later when she was forced to jump off the log that she’d been using as a bench when they started tossing the leeches that they’d managed to tear off, away.
That was followed by more screaming and a lot of panicking, which drew the attention of the rest of their family. That led to Mikey wondering why she hadn’t thought to grab her phone when this all started so that she could record this. Thankfully, Mathew and Joshua were on top of this, so she didn’t have to worry.
“What the hell is going on?” Uncle Trevor demanded as he walked over and quickly jumped out of the way of a flying leech.
“Get them off!” one of them screamed. She really wasn’t sure which one at the moment. Not that it mattered, Mikey thought as she moved to help Sebastian. While he continued to tear the ones off the front of his body, Mikey focused on his back.
Trying not to think about what she was doing, Mikey tried to wipe them off, but they wouldn’t budge. That led to her taking a deep breath and reaching for a particularly fat leech on his shoulder. She grabbed hold of the slimy, wiggly body and yanked it off. When it wiggled in her hand, she tossed it in the fire and forced herself to keep going. She was probably doing this all wrong, but at the moment, Mikey really didn’t care as long as she got them off.
It took her several minutes to get them all off, but once the last leech was gone, she–
Realized that Sebastian was definitely going to kill her this time, Mikey thought when he turned around and she found him glaring down at her.
Clearing her throat, Mikey said, “I missed you?” hoping that it would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Deciding that a hopeful smile couldn’t hurt, Mikey glanced over to find Aunt Zoe helping Braxton with the leeches on his back before returning her attention to Sebastian just as he reached for her.
Thankfully, Uncle Trevor grabbed him by his arm and pulled him back so that he could whisper something in his ear. Before Mikey could wonder about that, Sebastian took off running toward the bathrooms. Braxton was right behind him a moment later. With a heavy sigh, Uncle Trevor grabbed their bags from their tent and followed them, leaving Mikey standing there only to decide that she should probably go wash her hands when she remembered the leeches.
Wondering what happened at the pond, she made her way to the bathrooms only to frown when she heard one of the boys scream, “Oh, my god!”
That was followed by another, “Oh, my god!” This one louder as she finished washing her hands and headed back to their campsite, deciding that she should probably make this up to Sebastian.
Mikey headed to the tables covered in food and grabbed a plate. She loaded it with all of Sebastian’s favorites, covered it in foil, and grabbed a Coke from one of the coolers. Once she was done, she headed back to the campfire by their tent only to think better of it because of all the leeches currently writhing in the dirt and headed back to their tent instead.
After a slight hesitation, Mikey went inside and quickly made her way to her sleeping bag, praying that there weren’t any snakes hiding in the tent, ready to attack her as she went. Once she was settled, Mikey placed Sebastian’s plate on his sleeping bag and–
Decided that it might be in her best interest to pretend to be asleep by the time that he got back. Not that she had anything to be afraid of, but she felt that it would be better if she didn’t draw his attention when he was this pissed, especially since she may have inadvertently ditched him this afternoon and laughed with glee when she did it.
Definitely time to go to bed, Mikey thought as she crawled inside her sleeping bag and curled up on her side, and not a moment too soon. He definitely sounded pissed, Mikey decided as she listened to him drop his bag by the door before making his way to his sleeping bag and once he was there…
Mikey was forced to bite back a wince when she felt him glaring at her.
For several minutes, she was forced to lay there, struggling against the urge to make a run for it. When she finally heard the foil on his plate being removed, she felt herself relax. He ate quietly while she lay there, struggling against the urge to open her eyes and see if he was glaring at her.
When he finally finished, she heard him crawl out of the tent to get rid of his trash and was back a moment later. She heard him turn off the lantern and settle into the sleeping bag next to her.
Realizing that she’d somehow managed to survive, she felt her body relax as she slowly exhaled and–
“I didn’t see where Jonathan released that snake, did you?”
–found herself shoving her sleeping bag open and crawling for the tent opening only she never made it.
Before she could reach the tent flaps, Sebastian had his hands wrapped around her ankles and was dragging her back as he drawled, “Let’s talk about your betrayal this afternoon, shall we?”
Chapter 36
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened when you went fishing?” came the absently murmured question as they cut through the park.
“You mean the time when I spent eight hours in a boat with that little prick because you ditched me?” Sebastian asked as he glanced at Mikey to find her absently rolling a ball between her hands as she worried her bottom lip between her teeth.
Instead of answering her, Sebastian said, “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” Mikey said with the saddest little sigh that he’d ever heard, letting him know just how bad it was.
She didn’t want to be here.
But not today. Today, she was dragging her feet and looking absolutely miserable. Over the last week, she’d been smiling, laughing, and tormenting him for her own amusement only to suddenly go quiet last night when his father announced that they had to go home early because Mathew took an unfortunate roll through a patch of poison ivy.
When her mom reminded her that she had a game today, she’d reluctantly nodded and spent the rest of breakfast staring down at her untouched pancakes. She waited until the last minute before she went upstairs and put her uniform on. When she was done, Mikey hesitated until it was finally time to leave and even then, it took her mom reminding her that she was going to be late to get her to go.
He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed either, Sebastian thought as he glanced to his right to find Uncle Reese walking next to them, looking just as worried as Sebastian was. They needed to do something. The season was barely halfway over and he doubted that Mikey was going to be able to keep this up for two more months.
Hoping to distract her, Sebastian said, “He spent the entire time glaring at me. We didn’t catch a single fish and when it was time to come in, we couldn’t because Joshua and Mathew managed to steal our oars when Jonathan threw nightcrawlers at us to distract us. We were stuck out there drifting for two hours before we finally gave up waiting for them to come back and ended up jumping in the water and swimming to shore where we got stuck in the mud.”
“I knew there was a reason why Jonathan was my favorite,” Mikey said, finally cracking a smile, which is the only reason that he let that comment slide.
Besides, Sebastian knew that he was her favorite.
“Looks like the game is about to start,” Uncle Reese said and just like that, the smile on Mikey’s face melted away.
“You don’t have to stay, Dad. I know that you have a lot of work to do,” Mikey said, which wasn’t like her. Mikey normally loved having her parents at her games, especially her stepfather.
“Cleared my day so I wouldn’t miss this,” Uncle Reese said as they reached the baseball fields. He pulled Mikey into a hug and kissed her forehead before he gave one of her braids a playful tug and said, “Go get ‘em.”
With a forced smile, Mikey nodded as she turned around and headed for the dugout only to stop when her coach walked over and asked, “What are you doing here, Campbell?”
“We came back early and I didn’t want to miss another game,” Mikey said, moving to join her team only to stop at the coach’s next words.
“You quit the team, Campbell,” he said, making her frown.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t quit,” Mikey said as Uncle Reese stepped forward.
“What’s going on?” Uncle Reese asked as he wrapped an arm around Mikey’s shoulders.
“Your daughter hasn’t shown up for practice or any of the games for a week,” the coach said, sighing heavily as though it pained him to say this.
“Because she was on a family trip. She told you last Friday,” Uncle Reese said as Sebastian reached over and took Mikey’s trembling hand in his and pulled her back before she lost it.
“And I told her that was fine because that was her decision, but I was very clear about the expectations that I had for every player at the beginning of the season. This wasn’t the first time that I had problems with Mikey. She’s been late before,” the coach said, making Mikey frown.
“It was one time and I had a note from my teacher,” Mikey said, looking confused.
Nodding, Uncle Reese said, “I really don’t think it’s going to matter what we say at this point, not when you finally found an excuse to get my daughter off the team. But, let me ask you something, what kind of coach benches a kid who holds the state record for throwing perfect games? It just seems to me that most coaches would be happy to have a kid like Mikey playing on their team.”
When the coach opened his mouth to answer, Uncle Reese answered for him. “Probably the same coach who wanted to make sure that his son and nephews made the team.”
“I really hope she wasn’t planning on coming out for the team next year,” was all the coach said as he turned around and walked away, leaving Mikey completely devastated.
*-*-*-*
“This was a stupid idea,” Sebastian said as he glanced down at the new target that he’d built for Mikey and sighed.
He’d been wracking his brain over the past week trying to find something that would cheer Mikey up, but so far…
This was the best that he could come up with.
He’d never seen her like this. She’d just shut down and he had no idea how to make this better for her. Over the past week, everyone had been alternating between trying to cheer her up and giving her space. She hadn’t said much since the coach kicked her off the team. She’d simply shut down.
After they’d walked home in silence, she’d headed to her room, took off her uniform and stuffed it in the kitchen trash before closing herself off in her room. She just laid there, staring at the wall and…
God, this was killing him.
She hadn’t touched a baseball all week. Refused to leave her room until Monday and the only reason that she’d left it was because her mother refused to let her stay home from school. Not that Mikey had put up much of a fight, she’d simply nodded when her mother told her that she had to go to school. The whole way there, she’d stared at the ground, never saying a word to him.
It had been the same way all week. He’d waited until everyone was asleep before he snuck into her room. She didn’t say anything when he laid down next to her. She simply turned over and buried her face against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and held her.
Maybe he should buy her a new bucket of baseballs? Sebastian thought as he grabbed the old throwing target that she’d managed to pulverize and carried it out front for trash pickup. He moved to go put the tools away when he spotted the mail truck at the next house. He walked back over to the mailbox and grabbed the mail for Aunt Kasey and headed back to the house when a thick envelope on top of the pile drew his attention.
Rerum Prep High School.
For a minute, he stood there, staring down at the thick envelope in his hands as he debated doing something incredibly stupid. This was a bad idea, but…
This could make everything better.
After a quick glance at his watch, Sebastian shoved the rest of the mail back in the mailbox and ran across the street to grab his bike. After a quick glance at the kitchen window to make sure that his mom wasn’t looking, he shoved the letter in his pocket and headed to the middle school.
Ten minutes later, he was out of breath and waiting outside the gym for the second lunch bell to ring. Sighing heavily, Sebastian leaned back against the brick wall and waited, tapping his fingertips against the brick wall as he counted down the seconds until the bell rang as he kept an eye out, just in case.
“Finally,” Sebastian said, sighing with relief a few minutes later when the lunch bell sounded. He waited a few more seconds to make sure that everyone was gone before he glanced through the crack and when he didn’t see anyone, he carefully pushed the door open and headed inside.
As soon as he was inside, Sebastian made his way to the boys’ locker room and slipped inside, pausing at the end of the small hallway before he made his way through the locker room and did the same thing at the door that led to the main hallway.
When he heard the sounds of students heading to lunch, Sebastian pushed the door open and headed to the cafeteria, blending in with the rest of the students. As he made his way to the cafeteria, he slowly exhaled, hoping that they were going to be able to give her a full scholarship. If not, then that was fine. It was just the first school that had responded and he was sure that one of the schools was going to offer her a full scholarship after seeing the video he’d made.
God, he hoped so.
He stepped inside the cafeteria and moved to the side, searching for Mikey. When he didn’t see her in line, Sebastian shifted his focus to the back tables and found her sitting by herself, staring down at her lunch and looking so damn miserable that he–
“Don’t move,” came the harsh command as he felt someone grab hold of his arm and before he could move, his arm was pulled behind him as someone used the move to drop him to his knees.
“You’re under arrest for trespassing,” came the announcement that had his stomach dropping as he felt cold metal close around his wrist.
His other arm was yanked behind his back seconds later. Sebastian felt the metal cuff close around his other wrist as he was yanked back and dragged out of the cafeteria. In seconds, he was laying on his stomach and–
“What are you doing? Let him go!” he heard Mikey scream from somewhere behind him.
“It’s fine!” Sebastian yelled, closing his eyes in defeat as he pressed his forehead against the tiled floor. “It’s fine!”
He was going to be sick.
God, he’d just screwed everything up, Sebastian realized as dread pooled in his stomach when his arms were grabbed and he was dragged to his feet. He looked over his shoulder to tell Mikey not to worry only to have the words die in his throat as he watched an officer pull Mikey’s arms behind her back and reach for his handcuffs.
Oh, God…
Chapter 37
“So, I was thinking,” came the softly spoken words that had Zoe smiling as she felt her husband’s arms wrap around her and pull her back against him.
“About?” Zoe asked.
“Everything,” Trevor said, pressing a kiss against the back of her neck before he let her go so that she could turn around and pull him down for a proper kiss.
“What are you doing home so early?” she asked as she brushed her lips against his one last time.
“Would you believe that I missed you?”
“Possibly, but I have a feeling there’s something else that you’re not telling me,” Zoe said with a teasing smile.
Misunderstood: Inspired by the Neighbor from Hell Series (A Neighbor from Hell YA Book 1) Page 22