“You really are a brat,” Sebastian mumbled as he curled up on his side so that he could wrap his arm around her.
“You knew this,” Mikey mumbled sleepily, making his lips twitch as he closed his eyes only to open them again in what felt like minutes later to find Mikey gone.
Frowning, he looked around the living room, noting that everyone else was asleep. Mrs. Blaine had gone back to her in-law apartment for the night, and Cole and Braxton were missing along with the brat who’d refused to share the pillow with him. Rubbing his hands down his face, he kicked the sleeping bag off and decided to go see what Mikey was up to. He checked the downstairs bathroom before heading to the kitchen where he found Mikey and Braxton raiding the refrigerator.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked around a yawn.
“Starving,” Mikey sighed as she gestured lazily back toward the living room. “Mathew and Joshua kept stealing our food.”
“You’ve gotta learn to eat faster,” Sebastian told her as he joined them, noting the way that Braxton was watching him.
“I don’t think that’s humanly possible,” Mikey said with a sad shake of her head as she grabbed three plates out of the cabinet and started making sandwiches.
At his questioning look, she said, “One for me, one for you, and of course, one for Uncle Jason to pay the snack tax,” making him chuckle since his father had the same rule.
Sebastian watched as she made quick work out of making the sandwiches, adding extra mayonnaise and meat to his, knowing how he liked his sandwiches. When she was done, she grabbed the plate for Uncle Jason and moved to head to the door only to stop, level a glare of warning on him, and said, “Don’t touch my sandwich.”
“I won’t,” Sebastian promised, nodding solemnly.
With a grumble and a resigned sigh, Mikey left. While she was gone, he decided to make himself useful and grabbed two Cokes from the fridge and–
“That’s kind of pathetic, don’t you think?” came the question that had him biting back a sigh.
“What is?” Sebastian asked as he grabbed the chips and tossed them on the table.
“Sucking up to an old woman to try to get into her will,” Braxton said as he finished making his sandwich.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Sebastian shot back as he grabbed their plates and carried them to the table.
“Me?” Braxton drawled with a slow shake of his head. “I’m just getting to know my great-grandmother.”
Not really in the mood to deal with the little prick tonight, Sebastian said, “I don’t want anything from her.”
“Then I guess we don’t have a problem.”
*-*-*-*
“Why does this keep happening to me?” Chloe asked as she stared down at the little girl that was slowly destroying her will to live.
“I will not apologize for defeating my archnemesis,” Katie bit out only to wince when some of the ketchup that caked her hair when she’d decided that she needed to teach Cole a lesson with condiments, got in her eye.
“You got us banned from the movie theater for a year,” Chloe said, sighing heavily even as she couldn’t help but feel that they got off easy this time.
“There’s nothing good playing anyway,” Katie said, shrugging it off as she shifted her attention to the toys that she had lined up along the edge of the tub.
“He paid you, Katie. You’ve gotta let it go,” Chloe said, hoping beyond hope that her sister would just let it go and move on.
“It’s not about the money,” Katie said as she gestured for Chloe to get on with it. Sighing heavily, Chloe stood up and aimed the showerhead on Katie so that the water was hitting the spot that was caked with yellow mustard and relish. While the water slowly removed the condiments from her sister’s hair, Chloe shifted her focus on trying to figure out which shampoo would be able to cut through barbeque sauce.
“Then what’s it about?” Chloe asked, deciding that baby shampoo just wasn’t going to cut it tonight.
“Honor,” Katie said firmly.
“Really? What do you think Uncle Nick is going to say when he finds out that you attacked Cole out of honor?” Chloe asked as she gave up trying to figure out which shampoo to use and grabbed them all.
“He’s not going to find out,” Katie said, sounding smug…a little too smug.
“Oh, and why’s that?” Chloe asked as she placed all the bottles of shampoo on the floor.