Misunderstood (Neighbor from Hell (YA) 1)

As the years passed, one thing became clear, she was meant to play baseball. It was the only thing that she wanted to do, which was a problem since her mom refused to let her quit school and focus on her baseball career. That was fine, because she had a plan, one that she’d been working on since she was little and one that had almost failed before they’d met Reese.

Her pitches had been wild and the parents of the other kids on the team hadn’t been happy about her playing with them. That had led to her being stuck warming the bench and terrified that she would never get a chance to play. After she’d accidently sent Reese to the hospital with a fastball, she’d expected her mom to put an end to her dreams. What she hadn’t expected was for Reese to work with her and show her how to control her aim better. Once he’d married her mom, they’d moved closer to his family and she’d finally found a team that would let her play.

For the last three years, she’d waited for a chance to try out for the eighth-grade baseball team, biding her time on the travel teams, practicing every chance that she got just so that she would be ready because this was the year that everything changed. It didn’t matter how many perfect games she’d pitched before, how many players that she’d managed to strike out, or how many homeruns she’d managed to score because none of that mattered anymore.

The only thing that mattered was getting on the team and securing the starting pitcher position and keeping it. Next year, there was going to be a lot of competition and she planned on doing whatever it took to make sure there was a spot on the team for her. Getting on the team this year would go a long way to helping her make the freshmen team next year. If she didn’t get on the team this year…

God, she didn’t even want to think about that.

Looking thoughtful, Mr. Rose nodded as he murmured, “That should give you three days then.”

“For what?”

“To see how fast you can read that book and do your book report over again if you want to play baseball this year,” he said, making her wince as he handed her book report back to her.

“Very quickly,” Mikey promised as she gestured toward the door with the thick book that she had no chance in hell of finishing in three days. “I’m going to get started right now.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Mr. Rose murmured in agreement as Mikey headed for the door, wondering how she was going to pull this one off.

She could see if they’d made a movie based on the book, but since that hadn’t ended well for her the last time, mostly because she fell asleep before the end and decided to just wing it when it came time to write the book report, she would probably be better off skipping that option. That meant reading the book, Mikey realized as she opened the book to the back page and?

Groaned.

Six hundred and forty pages? Oh, there was no way in hell that she was going to be able to pull that off, Mikey realized as she shoved the book into her backpack along with the book report that she’d been hoping would be enough to raise her grade. She reached inside the pocket of her hoodie, needing the familiar weight of her baseball only to remember that she wasn’t allowed to have it in school and sighed heavily as she dropped her hand away.

Maybe she was going about this all wrong, Mikey wondered a few minutes later as she grabbed a plastic lunch tray and stepped in line. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, she thought as she ordered a double-lunch and took her time choosing a particularly yummy looking cup of chocolate pudding with extra whipped cream and paid for her lunch before heading toward an empty table in the back.

It was just a book report, Mikey told herself as she placed her tray down, dropped her bag on the floor and sat down with a nod because she could do this. If she started reading the book as soon as she got home, stayed up all night and spent every waking minute for the next two days reading, then she should be able to pull it off. This could definitely work, Mikey thought, nodding only to end up groaning as she dropped her head in her hands because she definitely wasn’t going to be able to pull this one off in time.

“What are you doing?” came the murmured question that had her dropping her hands away to find Sebastian helping himself to the hamburger that she bought for him as he dropped down in the seat across from her.

“Wallowing in self-pity,” Mikey said as she grabbed a tater tot and popped it in her mouth.

Nodding, Sebastian said, “And you’re really good at it.”

“I know,” Mikey said absently as she glanced around the busy cafeteria, making sure that none of the teachers had noticed Sebastian’s presence even as she couldn’t help but wonder how he kept managing to sneak in here without getting caught.

“Why are we wallowing?” Sebastian asked, popping another tater tot in his mouth as he leaned over and picked her backpack up off the floor.

“Because it brings me joy,” she said, grabbing one of the chocolate milks off the tray and took a sip as Sebastian searched through her bag to see if she had any new books to read. When he came across the book that she was supposed to read for class, he said, “The Count of Monte Cristo? I’ve already read this book,” with a disappointed sigh.

“Figures,” Mikey said with a pathetic groan as she watched Sebastian shift his attention to her book report.

“What’s this?” he asked, frowning down at her paper.

“My book report,” she said, switching her attention to her burger.

Blinking, Sebastian looked back down at the paper in his hands and–

“No, seriously. What is this?” he asked, making her eyes narrow on him as she reached over and snatched the paper that she’d really rather not discuss out of his hands and decided that a change in topic was in order.

“How was therapy?” she asked, watching as he ran a hand through his messy short dark-brown hair that somedays looked black, today being one of those days.

She liked his hair, but she liked his eyes even more. They were the bluest eyes that she’d ever seen. They were also the first thing that she’d noticed about him. The second? That he was too damn serious for a kid their age. While the rest of the kids in his family had been playing football, running around on the beach, and playing tag, he’d had his face buried in a book, ignoring the world around him.

The few times that he’d spoken to her, he’d been quiet, greeted her with a polite smile, asked her a few questions about baseball and then…

He’d have another book in his hands and the world around him was once again forgotten. She’d shrugged it off, figuring that he wasn’t really interested in talking to her, which was why he’d taken her by surprise when he’d decided to go with her when she got stuck going with her mom and Reese on an errand to pick up tools for the renovation on their house. Not that driving two hours to pick up tools was her idea of a good time, but it had either been that or spending the day with her Uncle Eric at his office, helping sort through IRS forms.