“What did you do to piss them off?” Uncle Jason asked, handing her phone back to her.
“Exist?” she said, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
“That’ll do it,” the headmaster said, sighing heavily. “Do yourself a favor, Mikey, stay away from them.”
“That’s the plan,” Mikey assured them with a firm nod as she moved to leave, only to go still when Coach Jackson gestured for her to sit back down.
“While I have you here, I want to talk to you about what’s expected of you this year. Starting is a big responsibility, you’re going to have a lot of competition this year and you need to work hard. It’s important that you don’t slack off. High school baseball is harder and more intense than what you’re used to,” Coach Jackson said while Mikey sat there, nodding in agreement, only to go still when Uncle Jason said, “Don’t worry. We’ve got it covered,” with an unholy gleam in his eyes that actually terrified her.
“Wait. What does that mean?” Mikey asked, trying not to panic as Uncle Jason headed for the door with a chuckle that she found deeply disturbing.
CHAPTER10
“What are we doing?” Cole asked as he dropped down on the bench next to Sebastian.
“Waiting for Mikey to finish running laps,” Sebastian murmured absently as he looked up from the textbook that he was already behind in to find Mikey holding onto her side as she stumbled past them.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” Sebastian asked as Mikey mumbled, “I can’t feel my legs,” as she went for her eighteenth lap.
“She grabbed a ride home with Dad,” Cole said as they watched Mikey stumble in a zigzag fashion as she struggled to keep going.
“And Chloe?” Sebastian asked as he watched Cole’s eyes narrow dangerously at the mention of the teenage girl who was driving him crazy.
“The little traitor ditched me.”
“You need to move faster, Campbell,” Coach Jackson said, not bothering to look up from his iPad while Mikey sadly mumbled, “I’m dying,” while she kept going.
“Nicole’s going to make her life a living hell,” Cole said as they watched Mikey do another lap around the track.
“Is that the blonde girl who couldn’t stop glaring at Mikey during lunch?” Sebastian asked as he closed the textbook and shoved it in his bag before grabbing the bottle of water he’d bought earlier from the school store while he’d waited for Mikey to change back into her gym uniform so that she could run laps.
“The very same,” Cole murmured as they watched Mikey stagger towards them.
“That’s probably not going to end well,” Sebastian murmured as Mikey, who was gasping and holding onto her side, finally managed to stumble over to them.
Without a word, she stole his water, finished it off, and shoved the empty bottle back into his hand with a gasped, “Dying,” before reaching down and grabbing her bag and stumbled towards the gate. With a sigh, they grabbed their bags and quickly caught up with her, mostly because her legs gave out and she’d been forced to grab onto the gate with a sadly mumbled, “My legs.”
Sighing heavily, Sebastian reached over and plucked the backpack off her shoulder and tossed it to Cole so that he could pull her off the fence and throw her over his shoulder. Once she was settled, they headed home with Mikey mumbling incoherently over his shoulder the entire way.
When they reached Cole’s house, he tossed Mikey’s backpack to him just in time to catch Katie when she tried taking him down with a tackle. With a yawn, Cole said, “See you tomorrow,” as he threw Katie over his shoulder and headed next door, leaving Sebastian to deal with the teenage girl pouting over his shoulder.
Ten minutes later, he was carrying Mikey into her kitchen past Aunt Kasey and settling her down at the kitchen table, where she mumbled, “I hate high school,” before she dropped down across the kitchen table chairs with a sniffle and did her best to curl into a ball.
“That good?” Aunt Kasey asked as Sebastian helped himself to a cookie off a cooling rack on the kitchen island.
“I made new friends,” Mikey mumbled sadly.
“That’s what I heard,” Aunt Kasey said with a sympathetic smile.
“They adore me,” Mikey muttered against the chair.
“I’m sure they do,” Aunt Kasey murmured as she made quick work of dropping cookie dough on a pan and placed it in the oven. “Do you have homework?”
“Probably,” Mikey mumbled, making him sigh as he reached into her bag to grab the iPad the school gave her, only to realize that it wasn’t there. Wondering why she was a pain in his ass, Sebastian headed upstairs and wasn’t exactly surprised to find the iPad still in its box along with her new laptop. Ten minutes later, he was setting them up at the kitchen table while Mikey continued mumbling sadly to herself.
After he finished creating logins for her, Sebastian started downloading everything that she was going to need for the week. That was followed by realizing that Mikey had fallen asleep at some point and deciding that he should probably head home and get started on his own homework.
“Her textbooks should finish downloading by the time she wakes up,” Sebastian said as he grabbed his bag.