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“And I’ll never play baseball again,” Mikey said hollowly with a nod, knowing that Coach Dilmore would never let her on his team. Not after what happened last year.
“No, you probably won’t,” Reese murmured in agreement with a look that told her everything that she needed to know.
She couldn’t do anything to risk losing her scholarship.
“What was Nicole’s punishment?” Mikey asked, needing to know what she was working with here.
Her mother shared a look with Reese before saying, “Nothing.”
“She slapped the tray out of my hand and then dumped her lunch on my head and she got nothing?” Mikey asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
“According to Nicole and her friends, you tripped and dropped your tray. When they tried to help you, you knocked Nicole’s tray out of her hand, which caused her to dump her lunch on your head and you took it out on her,” her mother said, not looking all that happy about it.
“But everyone saw what happened. Most of them even got it on camera,” Mikey pointed out.
“Apparently, they didn’t pull out their phones until you decided to ruin her uniform and it’s her and her friends’ word against the few people who actually saw what happened,” her mother explained as Mikey slowly nodded, finally understanding the situation.
There was nothing stopping Nicole from making her life a living hell.
CHAPTER24
December
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” Chloe began, only to slowly exhale. That was followed by shaking her head and admitting, “You know what? That’s a lie because I do want to hurt you. In fact, I would love nothing more than to grab that tray and beat the hell out of you with it until every teacher in this school was forced to come together in order to pry it from my hands.”
“I see,” Cole murmured, blinking up at the teenage girl who was visibly struggling not to beat the hell out of him as he pointed to his empty cup. “That cup’s not going to refill itself.”
When Chloe’s gaze flickered to his tray, Sebastian and Jonathan cleared their throats and shoved their chairs back, knowing better than to get between a Bradford and whatever female he’d pissed off. Sebastian watched as Chloe visibly struggled with the need to beat the hell out of Cole while she reached over and snatched the cup off his tray. He watched as Chloe’s gaze flickered to the tray one last time before she forced herself to turn around and made her way back to the table set up near the lunch line offering a selection of drinks to celebrate the start of Christmas break.
“She adores me,” Cole said with a satisfied sigh, drawing Sebastian’s attention to find his cousin watching Chloe with a predatory gleam in his eye, the same one that Sebastian’s father got whenever he looked at his mother.
“This really is going to be the best year ever,” Jonathan murmured as he pulled his chair closer and dug into the turkey dinner he’d grabbed.
“You want to tell us why Chloe has been at your beck and call for the last three months?” Sebastian asked as Braxton dropped down in the chair across from him, pulled his iPad out of his bag, and promptly ignored them like he did every day.
After what happened last year with his father, Braxton seemed more relaxed, smiled more, and spent every chance he got at Uncle Jason and Aunt Haley’s house only to stop coming by right around the time that his father stopped showing up to board meetings and no one knew why. Since school started, Braxton had barely acknowledged their existence and when he did, it was usually only to glare at Mikey, which was understandable considering how much the little pain in the ass loved to torment them.
“She hasn’t been at my beck and call,” Cole said as he focused on the lunch that Chloe had been forced to abandon so that she could fetch a glass of apple cider for him.
“What would you call it?” Sebastian asked while Cole helped himself to the roll that Chloe buttered.
“Being given free rein to adore me,” Cole said with a satisfied sigh as Chloe slammed the cup of apple cider on the table in front of him, the murderous rage in her eyes only intensifying as she reached over and snatched the roll out of Cole’s hand just as he went to take a bite. Keeping her gaze locked on Cole, Chloe took a huge bite and released an overexaggerated moan as she sat back down, leaving Cole to narrow his eyes on the move.
“Are you sure that you really want to do that?” Cole asked as Chloe went to take another bite.
“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life,” Chloe said, and with that, she finished off the roll in one bite.
Slowly nodding, Cole kept his gaze locked on her as he picked up the cup of apple cider that she’d just refilled and finished it off in one gulp. When he was done, Cole placed the empty cup back on the table and shoved it in her direction. Without a word, Chloe snatched the empty cup off the table as she stood up and made her way back to the beverage table while Cole watched her go, his lips pulling back up into that predatory smile and-
“When are we going to talk about that?” Jonathan murmured, sounding thoughtful as he gestured lazily in Chloe’s direction with a forkful of mashed potatoes.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Cole said, shrugging it off as he helped himself to a bite of turkey off Chloe’s plate.
“Normally, I’d take that as my cue to torment you, but right now, I’m wondering about something else,” Jonathan drawled with a pointed look that had Sebastian frowning as he followed his brother’s gaze and-
“This is becoming painful to watch,” Cole said as they watched Nicole and her entourage step in front of Mikey to block her from getting in line. Even from here, Sebastian could see the taunting smile on Nicole’s face as she tore into Mikey, knowing that she wouldn’t do anything about it.
Not unless she wanted to risk her scholarship and there was nothing in this world that would make Mikey do anything to risk her spot on the team. Mikey loved baseball more than anything, which was why, for the past three months, she’d been biting her lip whenever Nicole and her band of airheads came for her. She simply shrugged it off and moved on, hoping that Nicole and her friends grew bored, but so far, the only thing that it did was set up a challenge that Nicole and her friends happily accepted.
