quite comfortable off the floor and pulled it on.
“And I’m assuming that you’re not going to tell me how you got out of your house without your parents knowing either?” Uncle Trevor asked, clearly understanding her need for survival.
“You assume correctly,” Mikey said, sighing in relief as she grabbed her book.
“And I also assume that you’re going to want to go tell your parents about this before I get a chance to,” he said, making her wince.
“And just out of curiosity, when will that be?” Mikey asked, licking her lips nervously as she started to slowly move closer to the door, really hoping that he was kidding.
He wasn’t kidding.
“When I’m done talking to my son,” he drawled with a look that told her that she better move her butt and since that seemed like a good idea at the moment, she nodded, cleared her throat, and murmured, “That’s probably not going to end well for me.”
“Probably not,” Uncle Trevor murmured as she stood there, debating her options only to decide that she really didn’t have a choice in the matter. With that in mind, Mikey nodded to herself, murmured, “Okay,” for some reason and turned around and did what she had to.
*-*-*-*
“Did…did she just hide in your closet?” his father asked, looking stunned while Sebastian sat up with a resigned sigh.
“Probably,” Sebastian said around a yawn as he leaned back against the wall while he waited for the talk that he knew was coming, the one where his father let him know that he was worried about him, again.
His parents had been having these talks with him since he’d turned down that scholarship three years ago, and they always began the same way…
“We need to talk,” his father said, giving up trying to figure Mikey out and focused on Sebastian.
“About?” Sebastian asked as he watched his father try to figure out how to talk to him.
With a sigh, his father rubbed the back of his neck as he reached over and grabbed the desk chair and sat down. “Mikey for starters.”
“What about her?” Sebastian asked while he sat there, wondering when his father was going to bring up the therapist.
“How about the fact that I told you that she wasn’t allowed to sleep over anymore. At least, not in your bed,” his father said, leaning back in the chair as he gestured to the iPad.
Great.
Sebastian grabbed his iPad and tossed it to his father, who added, “You’re grounded for a month.”
“A month? Are you serious? For what?” Sebastian demanded, because there was no way in hell that this should end with him losing everything for a month.
One month of not being allowed to leave the house, of having to stay in his room only allowed to leave for meals, to do his chores, and most likely, go to therapy. There was no way that he would be able to handle that right now. Christ, he could already feel the walls starting to close in around him.
“How about the fact that you lied to me?” his father said as he turned the iPad over in his hands.
“What did I lie about?”
“Aunt Haley,” his father said with a pointed look at his bandaged hand.
“I didn’t lie about anything!”
“Where did you go after you left the therapist’s office?”
“To the library and then to Aunt Haley’s house to grab a book,” Sebastian said, deciding that there was no way in hell that he was going to tell him where he’d gone for lunch because he wasn’t about to risk his father taking that away from him, too.
“You never grabbed the book that she left on the table for you,” his father said, watching him.
“That’s because I didn’t go inside,” he bit out evenly.
“What did you do, Sebastian?” his father asked, looking resigned to whatever he was about to admit and that…
Pissed him off.
“Or what? You’ll send to me to military school?” he demanded, watching as his father cursed under his breath.
“Sebastian, I–”
“I have never given you a reason not to trust me. I work my ass off to do everything you tell me to. I get my schoolwork done, do my chores, help Jessica and Mathew with their homework, make sure they get to school on time, and none of that is ever good enough!” he snapped.
“You lied and you broke a rule. You were told that Mikey wasn’t allowed to sleep in your room anymore,” his father bit out evenly, looking just as pissed as Sebastian was.
“I didn’t lie, but that really doesn’t