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Blindly reaching over, Mikey patted him on the head with an absently mumbled, “I’m going to need you to man up here.”

“You’re evil. Did you know that?” Sebastian asked as he gently swatted her hand away.

“Yes,” she said only to ask, “Do you think we could check out the baseball fields after your meeting?”

“I’m sure that could be arranged,” Mrs. Blaine said as Steven rolled her over to join them.

“I can’t do this,” Sebastian found himself admitting with a shake of his head only to end up biting back a gasp of pain when Mrs. Blaine’s cane landed on his foot.

Looking innocent, she said, “You’ve come too far to give up now.”

Making a mental note to steal her cane and hide it, Sebastian glanced around the office, looking for an exit only to forget how to breathe when someone called his name. He looked up to find the receptionist gesturing for him to follow her.

“They’re ready to see you now,” she said with a polite smile as she waited.

When he opened his mouth to tell her that he’d changed his mind, Mrs. Blaine raised her cane and–

Sebastian found himself quickly getting to his feet and following the receptionist down the hall. He shot one last glare over his shoulder as Mrs. Blaine’s eyes narrowed in warning and her grip tightened around her cane. Message received, he cleared his throat and quickly turned around and focused on the portraits of every dean that had served at Latin Scribe High School since it opened over two hundred years ago.

When they came to a white door at the end of the hallway, she gestured for him to go inside. After a slight hesitation, Sebastian slowly exhaled as he reached for the doorknob and opened the door to find nearly a dozen people sitting behind a long table waiting for him, including Uncle Jason.

“Sebastian Bradford,” someone said, drawing his attention to a man wearing a black suit with a bowtie, sitting in the middle of the table. “We were just reviewing your application.”

“Have a seat,” a woman with dark hair and a firm smile said, gesturing to the small table in the middle of the room. Unable to shake the feeling that he was on trial, Sebastian nodded as he made his way to the table and sat down.

“Can we get you something to drink before we start?”

“No, thank you,” Sebastian said, hoping to get this over with quickly before he did something to make this worse.

“Why don’t we get right to it then?” the man sitting across from him suggested.

After a slight hesitation, Sebastian nodded.

“We heard about the incident at the middle school. Would you like to tell us what happened?” came the question that he should have expected.

“I made a mistake,” Sebastian admitted, licking his suddenly dry lips as he slowly took in all the people staring at him.

“You seem to do that a lot,” a woman sitting at the end said as she opened a file, probably his, and read something.

Not sure how to answer that, Sebastian glanced at Uncle Jason for help only to find his uncle frowning as he read through his file. God, why did he come here? He should have told Mrs. Blaine that he’d changed his mind and went home when he had the chance.

“Destruction of property, suspensions, detentions, truancy, the list goes on and on,” a man at the other end of the table said, taking off his glasses as he sat back and gestured to Sebastian’s file. “I honestly don’t understand why you’re here wasting our time with this.”

After a slight hesitation, Sebastian nodded slowly as he pushed his chair back and stood up. “I’m sorry for wasting your time,” he said as he turned around to leave only to have the same man stop him with a question.

“We have thousands of applicants this year, all of them have worked hard to get where they are and all of them have better records than you. Why should we even consider giving you a chance?”

“Because no one else will,” Sebastian said, meeting his questioning gaze head-on.

“Why didn’t you accept the full scholarship from Radcliffe?” Uncle Jason asked, drawing Sebastian’s attention.

“Because I didn’t deserve it,” he answered honestly.

“And your brother did?”

“Yes,” Sebastian said firmly.

“Why?”