“That you’re jealous of me,” Jonathan said with a sad shake of his head, which was followed up with, “Not that anyone can blame you.”
“That really just went without saying,” Sebastian said absently as he pulled on the sweatshirt that was a little tight. “Anything else?”
“Oh, you mean besides the therapist telling Mom and Dad that they might want to consider sending you to military school?” Jonathan said with a look that told Sebastian that it was time to stop screwing around.
Chapter 8
“Why are you doing this to me?” Mikey asked only to end up groaning when Nathan, her two-year-old brother, decided to stand up so that he could immediately drop back down on her back.
That was followed by his twin brother, Zach, throwing himself across her legs and pinning her to their bedroom floor so that her one-year-old twin brothers, Toby and Thomas, could shove their tiny feet in her face in silent demand as they finished off their bottles. With a glare, Mikey obediently kissed the proffered toes, noting the huge smiles on her brothers’ faces as she did so.
They were lucky they were cute, Mikey thought only to release a whimper when Nathan dropped back down on her back, reminding her that her brothers were evil.
“Daddy stories!”
“I just read you three stories,” Mikey reminded him, sighing heavily as she debated her next move only to obediently kiss her baby brothers’ toes when they offered the other foot. That was followed by Happy, her three-legged dog that loved to follow the twins everywhere, rolling over onto his other side so that he could lick the twins’ toes.
“Daddy stories!” Zach demanded as her baby brothers upped their game and settled on jostling her, hoping that it would be enough to make her give in to their demands, which of course, she would gladly do.
There was only one problem…
“Dad’s not home yet,” Mikey said only to grunt when her announcement was met with more bouncing and another, “Daddy stories!” as her baby brothers made her regret offering to read them a bedtime story.
Granted, she knew better when she did it, but she’d been hoping to use the distraction to get her mind off what was going on with Sebastian. Well, that and she really didn’t want to read that damn book. Why couldn’t Mr. Rose pick an easier book to read? she wondered only to mumble, “Thank god,” when the boys suddenly climbed off her back.
“Daddy!” Nathan and Zach yelled in unison while Toby and Thomas dropped their bottles and held up their arms, smiling hugely as they waited for Reese to pick them up.
Chuckling, Reese sat down on the floor next to her with his legs stretched out so that the boys could climb onto his lap. With a groan, Mikey managed to sit up and
“You want to tell me about your book report?” Reese asked, making her wince.
“I love you, Daddy?” she said with a hopeful smile that had his lips twitching as he helped Thomas and Toby climb onto his lap while the older boys settled in next to him and Happy, the traitor, moved closer so that he could snuggle against Reese’s leg.
“I bet you do,” Reese drawled, looking exhausted as he accepted the book that Nathan had been hugging.
Nodding, Mikey said, “I really do.”
“You want to tell me about this book report?” he asked again, leaning down to kiss Toby’s cheek while Thomas traced the words Bradford Construction written across his shirt.
“I would rather you tell me what you know so that I don’t accidentally say something that will get me in trouble,” Mikey said, noting the way that his green eyes that were a lighter shade than hers, narrowed on her, which prompted her to say, “I love you, Daddy,” again, because at this point it really couldn’t hurt.
“Start talking,” he said with a look that told her that it would be in her best interest to do just that even as he smiled down at Nathan, who was trying to get him to read the book.
“There was an issue with the book report that I turned in,” she said even as she wondered how he found out about it only to remember that he went to school with her teacher, which apparently meant that she wasn’t going to be able to get away with a hell of a lot this year.
“What was the issue?” Reese asked, glancing at her as he opened the book so that the boys could look at the pictures.
“That I didn’t read the book?” she admitted with a wince only to add, “He’s letting me do a new book report to make up for it?” with the hopes that would be enough to save her from spending the next two weeks in her room when his eyes narrowed dangerously on her.
When he continued to glare, Mikey cleared her throat, opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, cleared her throat again as she got to her feet with a mumbled, “I should probably go work on that.”
“I would,” Reese drawled, making her wince as she headed to the bathroom that she shared with the boys, pausing so that she could climb over the first baby gate before making her way across the bathroom, climbing over the second baby gate and closed the door behind her.
Once she was in her room, Mikey grabbed the book that she was determined to get through before Monday off her nightstand with a resigned sigh and threw herself across her bed. Determined to do this, she turned to the first page and quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be able to get through this without a dictionary.
That led to a search of her room, which resulted in her finding five dollars, a new understanding of why her mom didn’t want her to have food in her room, a quick trip downstairs to get rid of what she could only assume had been a peanut butter sandwich at some point, finding several incomplete assignments that she should have passed in last year, two more trips downstairs after figuring out what that weird smell coming from her closet was, and the realization that she didn’t actually have a dictionary.
She considered asking her stepfather if he had one, but quickly decided against it since she didn’t think it was a good idea since it had the potential to lead to questions about how she’d managed to do her homework up until this point without a dictionary. That led to her deciding that she was going to have to sneak out of the house again so that she could borrow Sebastian’s dictionary, which was probably going to be awkward since she wasn’t talking to him at the moment.
*-*-*-*
“What are you going to do?” came the softly whispered question that he’d been asking himself for the past two hours.
“I’m not sure,” Sebastian answered absently, unable to help but frown as he watched Mikey shove their bedroom window open, crawl inside, and
“Stupid floor,” she mumbled, making his lips twitch as he watched her drag herself back to her feet only to sigh as she turned around and closed the window behind her. Once that was done, Mikey headed toward their desk, tripped, grumbled something that he couldn’t quite make out before following that up with another sigh and a mumbled, “Stupid desk.”
“Can I help you with something?” Jonathan asked, sounding amused as they watched Mikey try to search through their desk in the dark. Sebastian didn’t bother asking her what she was doing here since she wasn’t talking to him at the moment. Not that she was actually mad at him, because she wasn’t. No, what she was, was a cranky little thing that lived to torment him. It gave her great pleasure knowing that she had him wrapped around her little finger and could torment him whenever she wanted, which was often.