It had nothing to do with Aunt Haley and everything to do with manipulating the elderly woman sitting across from him, and he had a bad feeling that he knew why. He just hoped that he was wrong.
“No, she can’t,” Sebastian said, keeping his gaze locked on Braxton as he popped open the Coke and took a sip.
“Says who?” Braxton demanded.
“Says her doctor,” Sebastian said firmly, wondering just how far he would go. Mrs. Blaine had a heart condition and Aunt Haley made sure that everyone in the family knew it to ensure that her grandmother couldn’t get her hands on anything that would interfere with her medication.
When Braxton moved to grab another Coke, Sebastian stopped him with a quietly spoken, “If you give her something that could hurt her and you end up making Aunt Haley cry, it will be the last thing that you ever do.”
Grinding his jaw, Braxton shot him a murderous glare before he turned around and stormed off while Sebastian watched him, making sure that he wasn’t about to try anything else. Once Braxton disappeared from sight, Sebastian shifted his attention back to his book only to feel someone watching him. Looking up, he found Mrs. Blaine watching him with that curious gleam back in her eye.
With a firm nod, she said, “I like you. You may call me Grandma,” before gesturing to her helper to roll her away, leaving him sitting there…confused.
Chapter 16
They were just trying to screw with her head, Mikey decided as she shifted her gaze from Sebastian, who was quietly reading a few tables away from her, to find Jonathan, along with Mathew and all their cousins watching her with knowing smiles and…
Definitely screwing with her, Mikey decided as she pulled the baseball out of her pocket and forced herself to read the book that she was beginning to fear would never end only to once again find herself watching Sebastian as she absently rolled the ball between her hands. This wouldn’t be the first time that they’d tried screwing with her head.
They’d been doing it sinc
e she met them, which worked for her since she usually enjoyed screwing with their heads as well, but this…
They definitely had to be kidding.
She didn’t know where they were going to end up when they were adults, but she knew enough to know that they probably wouldn’t be living next to each other anymore. Sebastian would probably go off to attend some Ivy League school and end up living somewhere like New York or London while she ended up attending whatever college would give her the best chance to make it to the pros and once she graduated, she honestly didn’t care where she ended up as long as she was able to play baseball for the rest of her life, which meant…
If what they said was true, then Sebastian would one day fall in love with someone else, who would probably have more in common with him and make him happy, and that was fine. More than fine, because Sebastian was her best friend and she wanted him to be happy. That didn’t mean that Mikey had to like whoever he ended up with, she told herself as she watched Sebastian head inside.
She considered following him and demanding some answers but the small group watching her every move, waiting for another chance to torment her, had her biting back a sigh. Besides, she had better things to do than to sit around wondering if they were screwing with her head. With that in mind, Mikey forced herself to focus back on the book in her lap even as she mumbled, “Stupid Bradford curse.”
“You’re Mikey, right?” came the question as the boy that had been glaring at everyone all afternoon sat down next to her. “I’m Braxton.”
“That’s me,” Mikey said, biting back a sigh when she realized that she had no idea what she’d just read. With a groan, she flipped back to the previous page and…flipped back again until she found a page that actually made sense to her.
“I saw you play last year in the Chase Tournament. You have a pretty good arm,” Braxton said as Mikey checked how many pages she had left to read.
“Thanks. Do you play?” Mikey absently asked as she mentally calculated how many pages that she was going to have to read between today and tomorrow and–
“First base,” Braxton said as he reached over and plucked the baseball out of her hand.
Blinking, Mikey looked from her empty hand to the boy absently tossing her ball in the air and catching it. “That’s my ball,” she mumbled hollowly as she tried to make sense out of what was happening.
“Let’s go play catch and you can show me that fastball of yours,” Braxton said, tossing the ball in the air and–
“I’m gonna have to pass,” Mikey said as she reached out and snatched the ball out of the air before he had a chance to catch it.
“Why?” Braxton demanded with a look that told her that he wasn’t used to hearing no.
“Because I have to finish this book for school and I promised that I wouldn’t,” Mikey said, shoving the ball back in her pocket as she shifted her attention back to the book that was going to take a miracle to finish in time.
“Come on, just ten minutes,” Braxton said, sounding annoyed.
“No,” she said firmly, determined to get through this damn book so that she could–
“Whatever. You probably throw like a girl anyway,” Braxton said and just like that, Mikey decided that she could spare ten minutes to teach the jerk a lesson.
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