NFH 02 Perfection (3 page)

"Is this 23 Bedford Street?" the kid
asked.

Trevor nodded dumbly as his eyes took
in the oversized pizza box Black Jack's was famous for and the
small cardboard box on top of it. He sniffed, allowing his Bradford
senses to do its thing and in seconds knew that he had a "Monster"
and a large chicken tenders inches from his grasp.

His fingers twitched with the need to
yank the food out of the guy's hands and make a run for
it.

"That'll be $26.50. I'm sorry it took
so.....wait a minute," the guy said, frowning. "You're not a
Bradford, are you?" he asked, quickly taking in Trevor's dark hair,
good looks, and large muscular build.

"No, no of course I'm not," Trevor
said quickly, fully prepared to tackle the bastard if tried to
leave with his food. Granted, that may have been one of the reasons
why he was placed on the banned list at Black Jacks, but they
really should have known better than to show up at his door at
eleven at night with someone else's order. Besides he'd only scared
the hell out of the guy, there was no real harm done, at least
that's what the Judge decided.

He wasn't exactly sure what the rest
of the men in his family did to earn a place on the banned list,
but he could guess.

The man took a small step back and
Trevor prepared to lunge. He gestured with his chin towards the
mailbox. "It says Bradford on the mailbox."

"That's my neighbor," he said, forcing
himself to remain calm as he pulled his wallet out of his pants
pocket. He pulled out two twenties and handed them to the guy who
was still looking unsure about the whole thing. "Keep the
change."

That seemed to make up the man's mind.
He handed Trevor the food and a two litter bottle of Coke and
smiled. "Thank you, sir. You have a nice night."

"I will now," Trevor mumbled as his
mouth watered. He closed the door and turned around only to find
his little tenant standing in front of him, glaring at the food in
his hands.

"Is that my order?" she demanded as
she pushed a strand of her wet mahogany hair behind her ear,
narrowing her baby blue eyes on his face.

"Um, no?" he cleared his throat,
realizing that sounded more like a question. "This is my
order."

"Oh." She frowned. "Sorry," she
mumbled, heading back to her apartment. He wasn't too surprised
that she didn't bitch about him stealing the washer from her. She
never bitched, making her his favorite kind of tenant.

He walked into his apartment and shut
the door, eager to dig into his food. He set the food down on the
coffee table and turned on the game, which was thankfully still in
the second inning, and headed to the kitchen for a glass and a
handful of napkins.

Just as he was about to sit down and
help himself to the first slice someone knocked on his door. Having
a pretty good idea who it was, he ignored it and sat down. The
knocking continued for another minute before it thankfully stopped.
He picked up a thick slice of that beautiful pizza and almost wept.
It had been too damn long since he'd had a slice of the most
perfect pizza ever made.

He was just about to take a bite when
the slice of pizza was ripped out of his hands. It took him a
minute to realize what the hell had just happened and by the time
he did his eyes were narrowing dangerously on his frumpy little
neighbor as she tossed the slice of pizza back in the box and
closed it. Then she placed the box of chicken tenders on top and
picked them both up and headed for the door only to pause and
return for the bottle of soda.

"What the hell do you think you're
doing?" he demanded.

"Getting my order. I called. Not only
did you not order this, but apparently you're on some sort of
banned list," she said, heading for the door.

Trevor was up and over the couch in
seconds, blocking her way. "That's my food!" he snapped.

"No, it's not!"

"Yes, it is!"

"I ordered it!"

"So what? I paid for it. Put it back
and get the hell out of my apartment!"

Her eyes narrowed on him as
she squared her shoulders. "Look, I've put up with a lot of crap
from you over the past two months, but stealing my Black Jack's
pizza after I had the worst day of my life is the last straw. So I
really don't give a damn if you go crying to your aunt and whine
about this and get me evicted. I'm taking
my
pizza home and I'm going to enjoy
it."

A lot of what she said and how she
said it pissed him off, but he forced himself to focus as he
reached out and snatched the pizza from her hands, earning a
surprised gasp and a rather cute little growl as he moved away from
her. She of course stalked after him, he would too. It was Black
Jack's pizza after all.

"What the hell have I put you through?
I've been a fucking perfect neighbor," he pointed out, sidestepping
her as she tried to snatch away his chicken tenders.

She snorted at that.
"Puhlease."

"I have!"

"Really?" she demanded, crossing her
arms over her faded blue tee shirt and rather large
chest.

"Yes, really!" he snapped back,
forcing his eyes away from her chest. Shit. If he was checking out
a woman like her it really had been too long since the last time he
got laid.

For some reason she took that as her
cue to share. "You park in my spot so that I'm forced to park on
the street. I've gotten four parking tickets thanks to you," she
said, making him frown. "You steal my paper every morning. You run
the water when I'm taking a shower, leaving me to freeze my ass off
and with no water pressure! You blast your television all night.
You're loud and so are your friends. Every time I go to use the
washing machine you steal it or worse, you take my clothes out of
the drier before they're dry and throw them on top of my dirty
clothes."

When he opened his mouth to argue she
continued, cutting him off. "And every night you watch porn!" she
said accusingly, and he swore he felt his cheeks burn. Fuck. This
was embarrassing. Well, at least she didn't say-

"And
you're
loud.
Really
loud," she stressed, further
pissing him off.

"Look, no one stopped you from telling
me all this shit before. You wouldn't have gotten any of those
tickets if you had just opened your fucking mouth and asked me to
move my truck. Same deal goes for the water. How the hell was I
supposed to know you were having a problem with your water if you
didn't tell me?" he demanded, not mentioning any of the other
things since they just made him look bad.

"Why in the hell would I tell you
about the water?" she demanded, trying to steal his
pizza.

"Because I'm the landlord!" he
snapped, yanking the pizza away from her sneaky little
hands.

"No, you're not," she snorted, trying
to steal his pizza again.

"Call up my aunt if you think I'm
lying. I own this house," he said, stepping away, but not fast
enough. The damn woman stole his chicken fingers.

She considered him for a long moment
while he tried to figure out how to steal back his precious chicken
tenders. "Why would you have your aunt pretend she's the
landlord?"

"Because I hate dealing with tenants,"
he said, switching the pizza to one hand and swiping out with the
other to grab the small box away from her. She simply moved it back
and out of his reach.

"Well," she said, sighing, "then I
guess you're the one I should inform that I'm probably going to
have to move out in a month."

"Fine," he bit out, glaring at the box
in her hands. If she tried to leave with his chicken tenders so
help him he would-

"Okay, so give me back my pizza," she
said, holding her hands out expectantly.

"No. You give me back my chicken
tenders."

"No."

Something in him snapped. He wasn't
sure if it was from hunger, the embarrassment from knowing that she
could hear him at night, or just the bullshit in general, but he
said something he regretted before the last syllable left his
mouth.

"It's not like you need
it."

Chapter 3

Zoe felt her face burn and her eyes
water as his words hit home.

"Oh shit....," he muttered, looking
horrified.

Biting back a sob, she carefully
placed the box of chicken fingers on top of the pizza box in his
hands. "Bon appetite," she mumbled, heading for the
door.

"Zoe, wait!" she heard him say, but
she didn't stop. She ran into her apartment, shut the door, and ran
upstairs, wishing for the second time that day that she had just
kept her mouth shut.

She crawled onto her bed as she
angrily wiped away the tears. After all the crap she'd gone through
in the last couple of years she couldn't believe that a gorgeous
guy calling her fat finally made her cry.

"What an asshole," she mumbled around
a sob as she buried her face in her pillow.

It wasn't like she didn't know that
she was fat, but having it pointed out by someone who looked like
him was beyond humiliating. Granted, she knew he was saying it
because he was pissed, and she did kind of, sort of go out of her
way to embarrass him with that "you're loud" bit, but that didn't
stop it from hurting.

She'd lost count of how many times
over the years she tried to lose weight. Sometimes the diets would
work and she'd lose a few pounds only to gain all the weight back
plus some when something in her life didn't go as she wished or
work depressed her more than usual.

Well, at least she didn't have to
worry about binge eating after receiving another write up for using
too many paper towels in the ladies bathroom, she thought dryly. Of
course being unemployed was really depressing, but at least she
wouldn't have to worry about binge eating while she looked for a
job since she couldn't afford it.

What in the hell was she
supposed to do now? She was unemployed and probably couldn't count
on a good recommendation from
The N.W.
Corporation
, the firm she'd been booted out
of a few hours ago. Why hadn't she kept her mouth shut? She'd heard
some truly frightening stories about how her old bosses treated
their ex-employees. Had those horror stories stopped her from
opening her big fat mouth?

Nope
.

Stupidly she thought that they'd
appreciate finding out where their money was going. She never
expected them to show their appreciation by giving her a raise or a
promotion or anything. She wasn't delusional after all, but she had
hoped that they would relax their rules a little bit so that going
to work wasn't so damn stressful, but really she should have known
better.

Telling her immediate supervisor, who
in turn let everyone know that one of the partner's wives was
stealing from the company was a dumb move. She should have gone
with her original plan and anonymously sent the file, but she
hadn't thought the information would have been taken seriously
unless there was an actual person behind the complaint. She should
have known that Mr. Sands would take it out on her.

Now she was facing a future of living
out of a car, again. Granted her car at this very moment was
rapidly filling up with water or being vandalized and might not be
livable come morning.

"Zoe," she heard Trevor say through
the wall.

"Go. Away," she said into the pillow,
unsure if he could hear her and really not caring. She had enough
problems without adding his bullshit into the mix.

"I'm really sorry," he said
louder.

She didn't bother answering as she lay
there, hoping he would just give up and leave. Of course he
didn't.

"I'm really sorry," he said,
again.

Frustrated that he wasn't going away
and angry with herself for crying, she rolled over onto her side
and demanded, "For what? For being a jerk or for calling me
fat?"

"Hey! I didn't call you
fat!"

"What the hell would you call it?" she
snapped back.

After a short pause he muttered
something before saying. "You're right. I'm an asshole."

"At least we're in agreement about one
thing," she said.

"Look, I'm trying to apologize here.
Could you cut me some slack?"

She thought that over for a minute.
"Are you going to give me back my pizza?"

His answer was a snort.

"Fine. Whatever. Keep the pizza," she
said, half expecting him to offer to share it at least.

"Thanks," he said brightly, and she
could have sworn it sounded like he was eating, but she couldn't
really tell through the wall.

She grabbed Mr. Cuddles, the teddy
bear she'd had since she was two, and absently ran her fingers over
his worn little ears and button nose.

"So?"

"So what?" she called back, throwing a
confused look at her bare lavender wall.