Misunderstood (A Neighbor from Hell YA #1) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,64

inside. With a quietly murmured, “See you inside,” Braxton moved to join them and–

“What exactly do I need your forgiveness for?” Sebastian asked, taking up their conversation from earlier as he joined her.

“For eating all my ice cream?” Mikey said, even though she should have known better than to trust a Bradford, even her best friend, with food.

“It was a long walk back to my house and I got hungry,” Sebastian said with a shrug as he reached past her and opened the door for her.

“It’s a thirty second walk,” she pointed out in disgust.

“Not if you stop to look both ways,” Sebastian said, making her lips twitch.

“Just for that, now you’re buying me a pack of Reese’s Pieces, too,” Mikey said as they headed inside.

“God, you’re high maintenance,” Sebastian said with a mock glare as they got in line to buy their tickets.

“You knew this,” Mikey absently said as she pulled out her money to buy her ticket and–

“Here,” Braxton said, drawing her attention to find him handing her a movie ticket.

Frowning, Mikey asked, “What’s this for?”

“For last weekend. I wanted to apologize,” Braxton said, shrugging it off.

“You don’t need to do this,” she said, moving to hand the ticket back to him.

“Yes,” Braxton said as his gaze found Sebastian, “I did,” before he walked away.

“Thank you,” she said, noting the absent nod of acknowledgement before she turned her attention to Sebastian to find him once again glaring at Braxton.

“I don’t like him,” he said as they moved up in line.

“Really?” she asked, blinking up at him. “I couldn’t tell.”

Grumbling something that sounded suspiciously like, “Brat,” they moved up in line so that he could buy his ticket. Once he had his ticket, they went to the concession stand where he refused to let her pay for anything. Since she knew that he was probably going to devour most of her food anyway, she shrugged it off and followed everyone into the theater even as she couldn’t help but wonder why they’d let Mathew and Joshua pick the movie.

A few minutes later, she was sitting down next to Sebastian and was surprised to find Braxton sitting on her other side. Shifting the large bucket of popcorn on her lap, she moved to get comfortable only to find both boys hogging the armrests. Biting back a sigh, Mikey settled in to watch the movie, deciding that it would probably be for the best if she pretended that they weren’t glaring at each other and focused on what promised to be a very gory movie.

An hour later, she had her arms wrapped around Sebastian’s arm and was pressing her face against his shoulder as she mumbled, “Is it over yet?”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” came the whispered response.

“Always,” Mikey said, nodding only to decide that it somehow amplified the sounds of bodies being torn apart and stopped.

That was quickly followed by her deciding that she’d had enough for one night.

Decision made, she released her hold on Sebastian’s arm, opened her eyes and headed for the exit sign while keeping her eyes firmly locked on the floor below. That was followed by covering her ears with her hands and trying to tell herself that she didn’t just hear what sounded like flesh being devoured.

Before she reached the exit, Sebastian was there, wrapping his hand around her arm and quickly pulling her through the door. Once they were a safe distance away from the sounds that she would really rather not think about, Mikey dropped her hands away, spotted a lovely bench just outside the theater and decided to kill some time there.

Sighing in relief, she dropped down on the bench, pulled her ball out of her sweatshirt and began rolling it between her hands as she sat back and waited for the movie to end. Sebastian didn’t say anything as he sat down, and to be honest, she really didn’t expect him to. He wasn’t big on malls, so she wasn’t exactly surprised when he pulled out his iPad and lost himself in a book.

That was fine with Mikey since that left her free to people-watch, her second favorite pastime. She watched as people came and went, guessed who was out on their first date, winced in sympathy for those who were probably about to get dumped, and found herself relaxing. A half hour later, she watched as their cousins walked out of the theater, all of them glaring at Joshua and Mathew before her attention shifted to a