Misunderstood: Inspired by the Neighbor from Hell Series (A Neighbor from Hell YA Book 1)

by R. L. Mathewson

  “Not usually,” Mikey murmured, looking thoughtful as his father took another look at his hand.

  “You want to tell me what really happened?” his father asked with a sympathetic wince.

  Shrugging, Sebastian pulled his hand free. “I had to fix something for Aunt Haley.”

  “And you forgot to wear gloves?” his father asked, sending him a questioning look as he sat back in his chair.

  “They got in the way,” Sebastian said, noting the questioning look Jonathan was sending him.

  “Next time wear them,” his father said with a pointed look at his hand.

  Nodding, Sebastian reached over to grab another slice of pizza when he caught the way that Jonathan was staring at Mikey. Frowning, his gaze flickered to Mikey to find her staring right back at his brother. “Can I help you with something, pookie?” she asked, somehow managing to look bored.

  “Why are you here?” his brother asked, looking confused.

  Blinking, Mikey asked, “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  Instead of answering her, Jonathan followed that up with, “What is your mom making for dinner tonight?”

  “Meatloaf and mashed potatoes with buttermilk biscuits.”

  “And…”

  “And chocolate fudge cake for dessert?” Mikey barely had a chance to finish when Jonathan nodded once, stood up and headed toward the door.

  “But I made baked macaroni and cheese,” his mother said, sighing with disappointment as her shoulders slumped while the rest of them slowly turned their attention to the pan on the stove and swallowed hard as they stared helplessly at the red gooey mess that they were apparently expected to eat.

  He loved his mother.

  He did.

  More than anything in this world, but the woman couldn’t cook. What she could do was create disturbing messes that had been known to send people to the hospital, praying for death. He still didn’t know how she managed to do it, and to be honest, he probably didn’t want to know.

  She was determined to learn how to cook and honestly, none of them had the heart to tell her that they were terrified of her cooking. She knew how much they loved food and she wanted to be able to do this for them, so they pretended that they weren’t terrified every time she so much as glanced toward the kitchen. They also took turns cooking, came up with excuses to keep her out of the kitchen, and those times that she actually managed to get near the stove, they’d come up with a system that allowed them to safely discard her cooking without her ever finding out. But sometimes, now being one of those times, they were taken by surprise and left with no other choice but to panic.

  He turned his head to see how his father was going to get them out of this when Mikey asked, “On a completely different subject, umm, do you think an overnight trip to the hospital would be enough to buy me a few more days on a book report?”

  Before anyone could answer, Mikey mumbled, “Probably,” to herself as she released a shaky breath, grabbed her plate and headed toward the stove with a weakly mumbled, “Totally worth it.”

  It took Sebastian a minute to realize what she was doing, and when he did…

  “Wait! No, this is my only chance to play baseball!” Mikey gasped, struggling to reach the macaroni and cheese that wouldn’t end well as his father struggled to pull her back while Sebastian tried to pry the spoon out of her hand before she did something that she would regret.

  As they wrestled Mikey to the ground, doing their best to avoid one of the elbows that she was throwing in an attempt to dislodge them, Sebastian turned his head to find his mother watching them with a questioning look on her face and before she could ask a question that none of them really wanted to answer, he said, “She’s watching her carbs,” only to grunt when the ungrateful brat took advantage and caught him in the gut with an elbow.

  That led to him calling her a filthy Mudblood and her trying to ensure that he never had children.

  Chapter 7

  “I don’t understand this,” Mikey said only to groan when the book that she was being forced to read was suddenly plucked from her hands.

  “I thought you went home an hour ago,” Jonathan said absently as he dropped down on the end of Sebastian’s bed where she was currently lounging along with the boy that she was no longer speaking with.

  “You thought wrong,” Mikey said as she reached over to steal the book back only to have it pulled out of reach before she could grab it.

  “I also thought you weren’t allowed to sleepover anymore,” Jonathan said, for some reason deciding to bring up the rule that their parents came up with when they both turned thirteen and decided that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea for them to sleep in the same bed anymore.

  If it had been any other boy, Mikey would have probably agreed, but…

  This was Sebastian.

  He was her best friend, a bed hog, and…

  Not that she would admit it, especially right now when she was supposed to be mad at him, but she liked waking up in the middle of the night to find him next to her, because it meant that she didn’t have to worry about him. She knew that Sebastian could take care of himself, but sometimes he just looked so damn lost and lonely, which of course, was the reason why she kept letting him sleep over. It had nothing to do with liking the way that it felt to wake up in his arms.

  Nope…nothing at all.

  “She’s not,” Sebastian murmured absently from beside her as he continued reading a book that somehow looked even more boring than the one that she was stuck with.

  “Then why is she already ready for bed?” Jonathan asked, gesturing to the T-shirt and shorts that she’d helped herself to from Mathew’s room since he was the smallest of the three brothers.

  “Because as far as everyone is concerned, I’m back in the comfort of my own bed fast asleep,” Mikey said, gesturing for him to give her back the book so she could get this over with.

  “I see,” Jonathan murmured, sounding thoughtful as he glanced between the two of them. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Only if you give me back my book,” Mikey said with a pointed look at the book in his hands.

  “Why don’t you ever ask me for help?” he asked as she gave up waiting for him to give her the book and snatched it out of his hands with a satisfied sigh.

  “Why would I do that?” she asked, blinking at him.

  “Because I’m smarter than Sebastian.”

  Squishing up her face, Mikey said, “Are you though?” making him glare.

  Eyes narrowing, Jonathan bit out, “Move over,” already getting up so that he could drop down on the bed next to her, forcing her to get out of the way and climb onto Sebastian’s lap before he had a chance to squish her.

  Once she was settled comfortably between Sebastian’s legs, she settled back against his chest and

  Ended up groaning when Jonathan reached over and stole the book out of her hands, again. “Where are you stuck?” Jonathan asked, thumbing through the book as he sent her a questioning look.

  Knowing that it was pointless to argue with him at this point, Mikey reached over and flipped the pages back until she came to the spot where she was stuck and pointed at the sentence that she couldn’t make sense of. It probably didn’t help that she’d spent the last two hours sitting here, worrying about the boy that she was no longer speaking with.

  She should be trying to get this book report done as soon as possible so that she could go to tryouts on Monday, but…

  Mikey couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d told her this afternoon.

  Blinking, Jonathan looked down at the book, then at her, and then back at the book before he asked, “You’re stuck on the first page?”

  “Yes!” she bit out, ignoring the heavy sigh from behind her as Sebastian wrapped an arm around her, most likely to stop her from killing his brother.

  “How long have you been reading this book?” Jonathan asked, throwing her another questioning glance that she really didn’t appreciate.

 
; “Two hours,” Mikey said with a look that dared him to say something about it.

  “I see…” he murmured only to clear his throat and follow that up with, “Why did you pick this book?”

  “I didn’t,” she bit out evenly.

  “Then why are you reading it?”

  “Why are you judging me?”

  “Because it’s easy?”

  Nodding, Mikey said, “We’re done here,” as she shoved Sebastian’s arm away, ignored his heartfelt sigh that she didn’t appreciate at the moment, crawled off the bed, making sure to knee Jonathan in the side as she went and headed for the door only to end up turning around, marching back to the bed and snatched the book that she hated more with every passing second out of Jonathan’s hands.

  Once that was done, Mikey narrowed her eyes on him one last time before she remembered that she wasn’t actually supposed to be here right now and headed toward the window, grabbed her newly acquired sweatshirt and crawled out the window, allowing herself one last glare at Sebastian to let him know that this wasn’t over yet.

  Not by a longshot.

  *-*-*-*

  “She’s going to kill you one day,” Jonathan murmured, looking thoughtful as they watched Mikey throw one last glare in his direction before disappearing out of sight.

  “Probably,” Sebastian said, sighing heavily as he tossed the book that he’d already read aside and moved to climb off the bed to go after her to make sure that she got off the roof safely when his brother’s next words stopped him.

  “Your therapist called today.”

  “What did he say?” Sebastian asked, watching Jonathan pull his cellphone out of his pocket as he shifted to get more comfortable on the bed next to him.

  “Many things,” Jonathan murmured absently as he scrolled through his phone, making Sebastian narrow his eyes on his twin brother, his fraternal twin brother, who lived to piss him off.

  “You want to clear that up for me?”

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” Jonathan countered, making Sebastian sigh as he shoved him off the bed.

  “There’s nothing going on,” Sebastian said, ignoring his brother’s pained grunt as he climbed off the bed and headed toward the window.

  “No? Then why didn’t you grab the book that Aunt Haley left on the table for you?” Jonathan asked, making everything in him go still.

  “Which also makes me wonder what happened to your hand since Aunt Haley wasn’t there to ask you to do anything,” Jonathan said, sounding smug as he dragged himself back onto Sebastian’s bed with a satisfied sigh.

  “What does Mom and Dad think happened?” Sebastian asked, watching as his brother made a show of getting more comfortable while he was forced to stand there waiting for his brother to answer him.

  “Oh, do you mean because you weren’t where you said you were supposed to be?” Jonathan asked with a sad shake of his head, clearly enjoying tormenting him.

  “Are you going to tell me what the therapist said?” Sebastian asked as he grabbed a fresh pair of socks from his bureau and pulled them on.

  Nodding, Jonathan said, “Just as soon as you tell me what you’re hiding.”

  “I’m not hiding anything,” Sebastian said, pulling on his shoes only to bite back a wince when the movement caused sharp pain to rip through his hand.

  “That’s not what your therapist said,” Jonathan said in a taunting tone that was going to get him hit.

  “What does Mom and Dad think is going on?” Sebastian asked, reaching for his sweatshirt only to remember that the little bully stole it and grabbed an old one from the closet.

  “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 r
eport 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