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

by R. L. Mathewson

  Knowing better than to argue with her, especially when she had that cane, Sebastian headed upstairs and after a search of his cousin’s closet, he managed to find a black suit and a navy-blue shirt that fit him. His cousin had a few inches on him, but they had the same build, which made it easier to find a suit that actually fit. The box of Twinkies hidden in the back of his cousin’s closet helped pass the time as he searched for shoes. Once he had a black tie in hand and had consumed most of the Twinkies, Sebastian headed back downstairs only to find himself rushed out the door and sitting next to Mrs. Blaine in the backseat of her car, heading toward the highway.

  “Where are we going?” he found himself asking when they joined rush-hour traffic.

  “We have work to do,” was all Mrs. Blaine said before she closed her eyes and settled in for a nap while Sebastian sat there, wondering how he was going to explain this to his parents. They were going to kill him, Sebastian thought as he pulled his phone out of his pocket only to frown when he saw the message waiting from his mom.

  Have fun!

  Wondering why she didn’t tell him what Mrs. Blaine had in store for him this morning, Sebastian slowly exhaled as he sat back. He found himself staring out the car window, absently watching the cars they passed by as the exhaustion from the last four days finally caught up with him and he found himself closing his eyes, wondering how he was going to pull off the impossible only to groan sometime later when something hard tapped his knee.

  “We’re here,” Mrs. Blaine said as he opened his eyes and found himself looking at the Blaine Building, a twenty-five-story building in the heart of downtown Carta. He’d passed by this building every time they came to the city, which wasn’t often, but every time he saw it, he found himself wondering about Aunt Haley’s family.

  He debated asking Mrs. Blaine why they were there, but something told him that she would just glare at him. God, the woman loved to glare, Sebastian thought as he climbed out of the car. Biting back a yawn, he walked around the car to the other side just as her helper placed the wheelchair next to the car and set the locks. When Sebastian saw Mrs. Blaine reach out with a trembling hand to grab hold of the door as she moved to stand up and transition herself to the wheelchair, he bit back a curse and stepped closer. Before she could argue, Sebastian was there, pulling her into his arms and picked her up, absently noting that she weighed less than Mikey as he carefully placed her in her wheelchair.

  With a nod and a murmured, “Thank you, Sebastian,” Mrs. Blaine settled back in her chair and gestured with her cane for him to push her inside. With one last glance up at the large building they were entering, Sebastian pushed her toward the double doors where two security officers dressed in black suits waited with welcoming smiles.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Blaine,” the larger of the two said as he gestured for Sebastian to stop.

  “Good morning, Vincent,” Mrs. Blaine said with a warm smile as she reached over and took his large hand between her frail ones and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “How is Andrew doing?”

  “He’s doing much better, Mrs. Blaine. He’s putting on weight and the doctors said that he should be able to come home soon,” Vincent said with a warm smile.

  “That’s wonderful news,” Mrs. Blaine said, giving his hand another squeeze. “Tell Margaret that I’ve been thinking about her.”

  “I will, Mrs. Blaine,” Vincent said, returning her squeeze with a very gentle one of his own before releasing her hands and–

  Focused on Sebastian.

  The warm, welcoming smile that he’d greeted Mrs. Blaine with was gone and in its place was a look of warning, letting Sebastian know what would happen if he did anything to upset Mrs. Blaine. Before he could make good on the unspoken threat, Mrs. Blaine said, “This is Sebastian, the boy that I’ve been telling you about.”

  At that, the scowl was gone, replaced by a welcoming smile and…an amused twitch of his lips? Clearing his throat, Vincent reached over and shook Sebastian’s hand. “We’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Not sure how to respond to that, Sebastian simply nodded as he returned the handshake as the other security guard chuckled.

  What the hell had she been telling them? Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder as amusement lit Vincent’s face while he gestured for Sebastian to go inside. Telling himself that he was just being paranoid, Sebastian absently nodded as he pushed Mrs. Blaine inside and found himself glaring at the back of Mrs. Blaine’s head when he heard the men laughing behind him.

  Still glaring, he followed Mrs. Blaine’s gesture and rolled her toward the bank of elevators as she greeted everyone she passed with a smile. Sebastian parked her in front of the elevators and reached over and pressed the call button. Once the elevator doors opened, he rolled her inside, watched as she pressed the button for the twenty-second floor with the tip of her cane, and continued to glare.

  Lips twitching, she said, “I may have shared some of the stories that your cousins have told me about your exploits. You’ve kept us all quite entertained over the years,” making him sigh because he could only imagine the stories that his cousins told her.

  “Glad I could help,” he said dryly, watching as the numbers above the elevator doors lit up.

  “Me, too,” Mrs. Blaine said with a firm nod, making his lips twitch as he leaned back against the elevator wall.

  “Are you going to tell me why I’m here yet?”

  “I could use the company,” Mrs. Blaine simply said with a firm nod as the elevator came to a stop with a quiet ding, but he couldn’t help but feel like there was something more to it.

  Not that he was complaining since it saved him from trying to make it through another day without dying of boredom. When the elevator doors opened, Sebastian pushed Mrs. Blaine into an upscale waiting room complete with a receptionist that looked stunned to see them.

  “Mrs. Blaine, what a wonderful surprise to see you!” the young woman said, but something, mostly the fact that the smile on her face looked like it was strained, told Sebastian that it wasn’t exactly a welcomed surprise.

  “Mary,” Mrs. Blaine said coolly in greeting as she gestured for Sebastian to take her down the long corridor to their right.

  “Mrs. Blaine?” Mary called after them only to groan as she rushed to catch up with them when they kept going. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Blaine, but your sons are in a board meeting. I would be more than happy to show you back to the waiting room and bring you something to drink while you wait.”

  Instead of answering her, Mrs. Blaine ignored her and gestured for him to bring her to the large double doors at the end of hallway. Sebastian threw the receptionist one last look over his shoulder to find her wringing her hands together as she noticeably panicked before he shifted his attention to the double doors in question. When he raised his hand to knock, Mrs. Blaine gestured for him to open the door.

  Not sure what he was going to find behind the closed doors, Sebastian reluctantly opened the door in front of him to find over two dozen people in expensive suits glaring in his direction. That is, until they spotted Mrs. Blaine next to him. He watched as one of the men that he’d seen at Uncle Jason’s and Aunt Haley’s house slowly stood up. He was guessing that this was Aunt Haley’s father, but he wasn’t really sure since he hadn’t been introduced to any of them.

  “Mother, what a pleasant surprise,” Mr. Blaine said with a polite smile as he came around the corner and–

  Frowned when his mother gestured for Sebastian to push her toward the seat that her son had just vacated. Once Sebastian moved the chair out of the way to make room for Mrs. Blaine’s wheelchair, he moved to leave only to bite back a groan when she gestured for the man sitting to her right to move.

  Clearing his throat awkwardly, the man stood up with a murmured, “Excuse me,” and quickly made his way to the other end of the table. Once he was gone, Mrs. Blaine gestured for Sebastian to take his seat. Aware that every set of eyes in the room was on him, Sebastian sat down next to her while her son st
ood there, looking as though he was debating his next words.

  Finally, he said, “As happy as I am to see you, this probably isn’t the best time for a visit, Mother.”

  “The last time I checked, this was still my company,” Mrs. Blaine said as her eyes narrowed dangerously on her son.

  He opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, cleared his throat and pasted a polite smile on his lips as he murmured, “Of course,” and with that, he moved his chair to her left and sat down as an awkward silence enveloped the room.

  Sebastian glanced at Mrs. Blaine to find her patiently waiting for them to continue before shifting his attention to her son only to find Mr. Blaine watching him. Clearing his throat, he gestured to Sebastian. “And who do we have here?”

  “This is Sebastian. I kidnapped him,” she said, making Sebastian bite back a smile as he said, “She really did.”

  With a nod, and a curious glance his way, Mr. Blaine cleared his throat and got back to the business at hand while Sebastian sat there, listening as the board meeting continued, surprised that it wasn’t as boring as he thought it would be. They went over quarterly reports, stock updates, and…Sebastian was fascinated.

  While they went over international trends that were affecting their dealings overseas, they were served a three-course meal consisting of soup and salad, followed by steak and lobster, ending with a large slice of cheesecake and a fruit plate. As they ate, Sebastian paid attention to what was going on in the meeting only to frown when the topic of conversation turned to Blaine Industries’ latest acquisition, a line of luxury hotels that employed over five thousand people, and all the things that they were going to do to immediately bring up the value of its stock.

  When they started talking about layoffs, Sebastian’s stomach turned.

  “We’re going to start the layoffs on the first and aim for a total of two thousand layoffs by June,” Mr. Blaine said as he reached for his glass of wine only to go still a moment later when his mother spoke for the first time since the meeting started.

  “No, you won’t,” Mrs. Blaine calmly said as she gestured for her plate to be removed.

  Clearing his throat, Mr. Blaine said, “Mother, we really don’t have a choice if we want to turn a quick profit on this.”

  “And the reputation of those hotels will suffer in the long run, which is not something that your father would have done. He would have only purchased those hotels if he could make them better. We built Blaine Industries with the purpose of improving lives, not destroying them.”

  “With all due respect, Mother,” her son said, “we don’t have a choice.”

  “Not while I’m the majority stockholder you don’t,” Mrs. Blaine said, coldly. “There will be no layoffs.”

  Mr. Blaine opened his mouth only to rethink that decision and after a moment, nodded. “Very well.”

  With a nod and a gesture for Sebastian to roll her toward the door, Mrs. Blaine said, “I’ll expect the files by morning.”

  With that, Sebastian’s first board meeting was over and he couldn’t stop smiling as he rolled Mrs. Blaine out the door.

  Chapter 23

  “Wait. What the hell are these?” Sebastian asked, looking up from the stack of applications that she’d printed this afternoon. “I thought we were only going to apply to Latin Scribe?”

  “We need to play it safe,” Mikey said, gesturing for him to get on with it with one hand while she scratched Happy behind the ear with the other.

  “Play it safe?” he asked, shaking his head in disbelief as he looked back down at the large stack of applications, half of them they were going to have to get through this week if they had any chance of making the cutoff date for applying.

  Not that she actually thought that she had a chance in hell of getting into any of these schools, because there was no way that she would be able to pull this off. No, the reason that she was doing this was very simple, she was making sure that the stubborn boy who was currently glaring at her was able to go to school next year. If that meant that she had to pretend to play along and fill out applications and stumble her way through writing essays so that he would apply, then that’s exactly what she would do.

  She knew Sebastian well enough to know that if she tried to push him into doing this for himself, that he would drag his feet. This way, he would be able to keep his options open and had a real chance of going to school next year. When he found out that she had no plans of joining him, well…

  She’d figure that out later, because she wasn’t about to hold him back.

  Not for something like this.

  “You’re not going to military school,” Mikey said when he wouldn’t stop glaring at her, knowing that it was a good excuse as any to get him to do this.

  “They’re not going to send me to military school,” Sebastian said, sighing heavily as he returned his attention back to the stack of applications that they had to get through.

  “How do you know that? Did you talk to your parents?” Mikey asked as she shoved the other stack that she’d printed earlier out of the way.

  “No,” Sebastian said, shaking his head as he reached over and helped himself to the stack that she’d set aside.

  “That seems like a wise decision,” Mikey said, nodding solemnly as he sent the stack of available scholarships an approving look.

  “Shut up and write,” he said with a mock glare that had her biting back a smile as she grabbed a pen and began filling out the first application.

  For the next few hours, they sat on her bedroom floor, filling out applications, one right after the other until Mikey could barely see straight. One glance at the clock had her biting back a sigh and deciding that they needed a break. Decision made, she tossed her pen on the floor, reached over and grabbed Sebastian’s hand, and stood up, dragging him toward the door with Happy following after them.

  “What are we doing?” Sebastian asked, sounding amused as he watched her carefully open her bedroom door and peek out, making sure the coast was clear before she pushed the door open all the way and made her way toward the stairs.

  She didn’t answer him until they were safely downstairs and out of earshot of her parents’ bedroom. “We need a break,” she whispered softly as she continued to drag him toward the kitchen and once they were there…

  Mikey found herself glaring at Sebastian when he pointed toward the stools lining the kitchen island. When he said, “Go sit down,” she grumbled, but did as she was told for the simple fact that she didn’t feel like arguing with him at the moment, not when they both knew that he wouldn’t make as big of a mess as she would.

  While her mother loved to cook, Mikey…didn’t. Love it, that is. Every now and then, she liked to try her hand at cooking just to see what she could do, which admittedly, wasn’t much. It was also a gesture that went unappreciated by her family since they normally ended up staring at whatever she cooked with terror in their eyes, something that should probably concern her.

  “Did they post the roster yet?” Sebastian asked as he searched the refrigerator for something to eat.

  “No, but I already know that I’m not pitching,” Mikey said, trying to shrug it off like it was no big deal, but it was killing her.

  “How do you know that?” Sebastian asked, throwing her a questioning look as he pulled out the pot roast that her mother made earlier and placed it on the kitchen island before grabbing the roasted potatoes, carrots, and butter.

  “Because I found out today that the coach’s son and nephews tried out for the team and they’re all going for the pitchers’ spots,” Mikey said, biting back a sigh as he grabbed a cutting board, careful not to disturb the video equipment and laptop that her mother had set up for KaseyCooks.com on the large kitchen island that Reese built for her.

  Slowly exhaling, Sebastian said, “Well, that explains it then.”

  “It really does,” Mikey said, still not sure if she should be relieved by the news or not.

  On the one hand, there was a
good chance that the coach said what he did because he wanted to make sure that his son and nephews got the pitchers’ spots, but on the other hand, it meant that she really didn’t have a chance in hell of pitching on this team. It also meant that she would never get a chance to pitch in high school with him as her coach, which left her with a few options.

  She could apply to Latin Scribe High School like they’d planned and tryout for the baseball team or talk to her parents and see what they could do, which honestly, wasn’t really much of an option. There was nothing that they could do without pissing off her coach and making this worse. Her only hope was to keep her mouth shut and put in the work, showing the coach that she had what it takes.

  Not really in the mood to talk about this right now, Mikey decided to change the subject. “When are you going to talk to your parents?”

  “I’m not,” Sebastian said, grabbing a large onion off the counter and started cutting it.

  “Why not?” she asked, wondering, not for the first time, why he was being so stubborn about this.

  “As long as I stay out of trouble and get back into school, there’s nothing to worry about,” he said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal.

  For a moment, Mikey sat there, watching him as he chopped the onion into small pieces as she thought about what he’d said and…

  “Maybe it would be a good idea if you stopped showing up for lunch,” she suggested, even though she hated the idea of him being alone all day. If he wanted a fresh start, then they were going to have to do everything that they could to make sure he got it, which meant that they should probably stop sneaking into each other’s rooms at night.

  “You’re probably right,” Sebastian said after a slight hesitation as the sound of the kitchen door opening had her looking to her left and murmuring, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere else that I need to be,” as she made her way to the door closest to her.