“For what?” he asked, sounding distracted as Aunt Haley’s SUV pulled up to the curb and they watched as Cole climbed out followed by Joshua, Elizabeth, and–
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Sebastian said as they watched as Braxton, who didn’t look any happier to be here than he had at the party last week, climbed out of the car. “What’s he doing here?”
“Spending time with his cousins, same as us,” Mikey pointed out as she reluctantly got up and joined them, noting that Cole looked miserable.
“What’s wrong?” Mikey asked, stepping over Mathew to join them.
“Nothing,” Cole said, sounding distracted as he rubbed the back of his neck with a sigh.
Nodding, Mikey said, “Good talk,” as she shifted her attention to find Braxton standing apart from the rest of the group, looking like he would rather be anywhere but here. For a moment, she considered ignoring him but…
She couldn’t do that.
“Ready for a rematch?” Mikey asked as she moved to join him.
Lips twitching, Braxton said, “I may need more time to recover first.”
“I should probably apologize,” she said, nodding solemnly.
Chuckling, he said, “But you’re not going to.”
“I’m really not,” Mikey said, unable to help but notice that he actually had a nice smile when he wasn’t glaring at everyone.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure I had it coming,” Braxton said, still smiling.
“You really did,” Mikey promised him, easily returning his smile.
“I don’t think your boyfriend’s happy that you’re talking to me,” Braxton said with a pointed look at something behind her. Frowning, Mikey glanced over her shoulder and found Sebastian glaring in their direction.
“He’s my best friend, but he does look uncharacteristically pissed at the moment,” Mikey agreed, biting back a sigh when she looked back at Braxton to find him returning Sebastian’s glare with one of his own.
Great.
Resigning herself to the long night ahead, she sighed with relief when everyone headed 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.