“You thought wrong,” Mikey said as she reached over to steal the book back only to have it pulled out of reach before she could grab it.
“I also thought you weren’t allowed to sleepover anymore,” Jonathan said, for some reason deciding to bring up the rule that their parents came up with when they both turned thirteen and decided that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea for them to sleep in the same bed anymore.
If it had been any other boy, Mikey would have probably agreed, but…
This was Sebastian.
He was her best friend, a bed hog, and…
Not that she would admit it, especially right now when she was supposed to be mad at him, but she liked waking up in the middle of the night to find him next to her, because it meant that she didn’t have to worry about him. She knew that Sebastian could take care of himself, but sometimes he just looked so damn lost and lonely, which of course, was the reason why she kept letting him sleep over. It had nothing to do with liking the way that it felt to wake up in his arms.
Nope…nothing at all.
“She’s not,” Sebastian murmured absently from beside her as he continued reading a book that somehow looked even more boring than the one that she was stuck with.
“Then why is she already ready for bed?” Jonathan asked, gesturing to the T-shirt and shorts that she’d helped herself to from Mathew’s room since he was the smallest of the three brothers.
“Because as far as everyone is concerned, I’m back in the comfort of my own bed fast asleep,” Mikey said, gesturing for him to give her back the book so she could get this over with.
“I see,” Jonathan murmured, sounding thoughtful as he glanced between the two of them. “Can I ask you something?”
“Only if you give me back my book,” Mikey said with a pointed look at the book in his hands.
“Why don’t you ever ask me for help?” he asked as she gave up waiting for him to give her the book and snatched it out of his hands with a satisfied sigh.
“Why would I do that?” she asked, blinking at him.
“Because I’m smarter than Sebastian.”
Squishing up her face, Mikey said, “Are you though?” making him glare.
Eyes narrowing, Jonathan bit out, “Move over,” already getting up so that he could drop down on the bed next to her, forcing her to get out of the way and climb onto Sebastian’s lap before he had a chance to squish her.
Once she was settled comfortably between Sebastian’s legs, she settled back against his chest andī
Ended up groaning when Jonathan reached over and stole the book out of her hands, again. “Where are you stuck?” Jonathan asked, thumbing through the book as he sent her a questioning look.
Knowing that it was pointless to argue with him at this point, Mikey reached over and flipped the pages back until she came to the spot where she was stuck and pointed at the sentence that she couldn’t make sense of. It probably didn’t help that she’d spent the last two hours sitting here, worrying about the boy that she was no longer speaking with.
She should be trying to get this book report done as soon as possible so that she could go to tryouts on Monday, but…
Mikey couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d told her this afternoon.
Blinking, Jonathan looked down at the book, then at her, and then back at the book before he asked, “You’re stuck on the first page?”
“Yes!” she bit out, ignoring the heavy sigh from behind her as Sebastian wrapped an arm around her, most likely to stop her from killing his brother.
“How long have you been reading this book?” Jonathan asked, throwing her another questioning glance that she really didn’t appreciate.
“Two hours,” Mikey said with a look that dared him to say something about it.
“I see…” he murmured only to clear his throat and follow that up with, “Why did you pick this book?”
“I didn’t,” she bit out evenly.
“Then why are you reading it?”
“Why are you judging me?”
“Because it’s easy?”
Nodding, Mikey said, “We’re done here,” as she shoved Sebastian’s arm away, ignored his heartfelt sigh that she didn’t appreciate at the moment, crawled off the bed, making sure to knee Jonathan in the side as she went and headed for the door only to end up turning around, marching back to the bed and snatched the book that she hated more with every passing second out of Jonathan’s hands.
Once that was done, Mikey narrowed her eyes on him one last time before she remembered that she wasn’t actually supposed to be here right now and headed toward the window, grabbed her newly acquired sweatshirt and crawled out the window, allowing herself one last glare at Sebastian to let him know that this wasn’t over yet.
Not by a longshot.
*-*-*-*
“She’s going to kill you one day,” Jonathan murmured, looking thoughtful as they watched Mikey throw one last glare in his direction before disappearing out of sight.
“Probably,” Sebastian said, sighing heavily as he tossed the book that he’d already read aside and moved to climb off the bed to go after her to make sure that she got off the roof safely when his brother’s next words stopped him.
“Your therapist called today.”
“What did he say?” Sebastian asked, watching Jonathan pull his cellphone out of his pocket as he shifted to get more comfortable on the bed next to him.
“Many things,” Jonathan murmured absently as he scrolled through his phone, making Sebastian narrow his eyes on his twin brother, his fraternal twin brother, who lived to piss him off.
“You want to clear that up for me?”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Jonathan countered, making Sebastian sigh as he shoved him off the bed.
“There’s nothing going on,” Sebastian said, ignoring his brother’s pained grunt as he climbed off the bed and headed toward the window.
“No? Then why didn’t you grab the book that Aunt Haley left on the table for you?” Jonathan asked, making everything in him go still.
“Which also makes me wonder what happened to your hand since Aunt Haley wasn’t there to ask you to do anything,” Jonathan said, sounding smug as he dragged himself back onto Sebastian’s bed with a satisfied sigh.
“What does Mom and Dad think happened?” Sebastian asked, watching as his brother made a show of getting more comfortable while he was forced to stand there waiting for his brother to answer him.
“Oh, do you mean because you weren’t where you said you were supposed to be?” Jonathan asked with a sad shake of his head, clearly enjoying tormenting him.
“Are you going to tell me what the therapist said?” Sebastian asked as he grabbed a fresh pair of socks from his bureau and pulled them on.
Nodding, Jonathan said, “Just as soon as you tell me what you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” Sebastian said, pulling on his shoes only to bite back a wince when the movement caused sharp pain to rip through his hand.
“That’s not what your therapist said,” Jonathan said in a taunting tone that was going to get him hit.
“What does Mom and Dad think is going on?” Sebastian asked, reaching for his sweatshirt only to remember that the little bully stole it and grabbed an old one from the closet.