NFH 02 Perfection (34 page)

There were a lot of things she knew
she could force herself to survive, but seeing Trevor with another
woman wasn't going to be one of them. It would be too difficult
knowing that she'd never be good enough to be the woman that Trevor
wanted. She'd always be the plain woman that he'd slummed with and
got pregnant.

"But I did find a can of chicken
noodle soup in the kitchen so we're in luck," Trevor said,
oblivious to her pathetic musings as he lifted the cover off the
tray.

Zoe opened her mouth to tell him that
she wasn't hungry and that she was leaving when the aroma of
chicken broth hit her hard. Gagging, she covered her mouth with
both hands as she struggled to get away from the tray.

Thankfully Trevor had the good sense
to grab the tray and rush it out of the room so that she could run
to the bathroom. She stumbled towards the bathroom, praying she
wouldn't have a repeat of the other day and quickly made it to the
bathroom where she dry heaved for a minute before her stomach
finally gave up.

After using the bathroom and brushing
her teeth, because she felt pretty gross, she decided it was time
to go home.

"I'm sorry, baby. I should have given
you your pill before you tried to eat," Trevor said, walking into
the bathroom, carrying a glass in one hand and a small pile of
pills in the other.

He handed the pills over to her. "The
small one is your nausea pill. The doctor said that should take
care of it, but if it doesn't your doctor can give you a stronger
prescription when you see him on Monday."

She didn't need to ask him what the
other pills were for since she remembered the doctor telling her
that he was sending her home with some low dose pain killers that
were safe for the babies and prenatal vitamins. Needing a moment,
she took the pills and swallowed them.

"Thank you," she said, feeling a
little nervous as she handed him the glass.

The silence that followed was a bit
awkward and telling. Worrying her bottom lip, she looked up and met
his eyes. "You know, don't you?"

"That you're carrying my love child?"
he asked, smiling softly. "Yes."

"Oh," she said, wishing they didn't
have to have this conversation right now, but there really was no
point in putting it off. "Then you know that this doesn't change
anything, don't you?"

"I know," he said, shrugging it off
like it was no big deal and gently ushering her to the side of the
decent size bathroom.

Weren't guys usually more upset about
this kind of thing? she wondered as she watched him start the
shower.

"You're not upset?" she asked,
wondering if maybe she'd imagined the whole thing. The idea upset
her. She may not have known about the babies for very long, but she
wanted them. It would be nice to finally have someone to belong
to.

"Upset?" he asked, throwing her a
frown over his shoulder. "Why would I be upset?"

"Because we're having a
baby," she said slowly, wondering if maybe
he'd
suffered a head injury while
she'd been out. It was possible. There was a lot of ice on the
ground after all. Maybe while he was walking outside with the dogs
he-

"I'm hoping for a girl," he announced
the same way he'd ask her for extra snacks in his lunch.

"A girl?" she asked, not because she
didn't love the idea of having a little baby girl to buy pretty
pink things for, but because she was actually getting a little
nervous here. Never in a million years would she have imagined the
man who didn't want a real relationship with her to be happy having
a child with her, a child that would bind them for life.

"Yeah, I kind of like the idea of
having a little girl to spoil," he admitted with a careless shrug.
"I'll even let you name her," he offered magnanimously. "But if
it's a boy I'm naming it," he said, shooting her a look of warning.
It was the same one he shot her when she wanted to name Max,
Percival so that she could call him Percy.

"Gee, that's really generous of you,"
she said dryly.

"I know," he said breezily, making her
roll her eyes. The man was nothing if not arrogant. She watched as
he yanked off his tee-shirt and tossed it in the hamper and thought
that a shower was a pretty good idea, especially since she'd worn
the same shirt for two days.

She looked down at her shirt and
frowned. "Um, what happened to my Red Sox tee shirt?" she asked as
she looked down at Trevor's favorite Yankees tee-shirt.

"Oh, we burned that."

"You burned my shirt?" she practically
shrieked. She'd loved that shirt. It was really cute with its
bubbled lettering and cartoony baseball.

"Uh huh, we even took a
vote."

"You voted to burn my
shirt?"

"Yup."

"Seriously?" she asked, wondering if
he was kidding.

"It was a real family bonding moment.
There were tears and hugs and everything."

"But I loved that shirt. It was cute,"
she said, knowing she was pouting, but she really couldn't help
it.

"That one's cuter," he said, pointing
at the shirt she was wearing.

"Not really." And it wasn't. There
were no bubbly letters or cartoonish-like drawings on this shirt.
It had a big Y over an equally big N. How exactly was that
cute?

"Well, we'll get the baby a few
Yankees onesies and I'm sure you'll at least find those cute," he
said, yanking his pants off.

"Actually I was planning on getting
the this cute little pink Red Sox uniform I saw-"

He practically growled, "You
wouldn't."

"I would."

He narrowed his eyes on her and she
knew that if she ever tried he'd spank her ass, which meant she'd
have to dress the baby up in cute Red Sox gear when he wasn't
around and of course she would probably do it just to piss him off
when he started dating.

"Look," she said, gesturing to the
door, "I'm going to go now. I need to go home and figure some
things out."

"Like what?" he asked, chucking his
boxers and making it kind of difficult to focus.

"Umm, things?" she asked, admittedly
distracted.

"Do they involve the baby?" he asked
casually.

"Yes."

"Okay," he nodded slowly. "We can
discuss the baby in here," he said, pulling back the shower curtain
and gesturing for her to enter.

"Or we could just wait until later,"
she said, taking a step towards the door.

"Either you strip out of that shirt
and get your ass in here, Zoe, or I'm going to toss you in there.
Your choice," he said firmly, probably thinking that she'd just do
whatever he wanted, but he really should have known
better.

"We'll talk later," she said, turning
her back on him and heading for the door only to find Trevor
blocking her way. For a big man he moved pretty quickly, she
thought, backing up as he stalked towards her.

"Okay, fine. We'll talk now," she said
quickly, knowing there really was no choice in the matter, but
trying to appear like she had a say.

"After you," he said, gesturing once
again towards the shower.

With a small sigh she pulled her shirt
and panties off and tossed them on the hamper and stepped into the
shower. "We're just talking, Trevor. Nothing more and I'm only
going along with this because I need a shower and I don't want to
wait an hour for the water to heat up again."

"Whatever you say," he murmured in
agreement as he stepped in behind her.

She stepped beneath the shower spray,
already cringing at the prospect of her stitches stinging. When
they didn't, sting that is, she felt herself relax and enjoy the
hot water. She felt the tension leave her body and almost sagged
with relief. The only thing better would be a bath, but she wanted
to get clean more than she wanted to relax.

"Step back," Trevor murmured as he
gently gripped her shoulders and pulled her back until she was
leaning against his chest and halfway out of the water. "Close your
eyes."

She was about to argue, but decided to
save her energy. They had a lot to discuss and probably argue and
she wasn't about to start over something so petty. Besides, the man
had some very talented fingers and she'd always loved the way he
took care of her.

When he started massaging shampoo into
her hair she'd barely been able to bite back a moan of pleasure,
but she hadn't been able to stop herself from sagging back against
him. Without a word he put his arm around her to support her while
he continued to massage shampoo into her hair. When she felt the
hand on her stomach gently caress where their babies were she
nearly cried at the sweet gesture.

Five minutes later she felt refreshed
and more than ready to face what needed to be done. She just wished
she knew where to start.

"We probably should talk," she said,
hoping he'd start them off so that she had some idea of what he was
thinking. Other than apparently being happy about the baby, well,
he didn't know they were having twins and she should probably tell
him at some point, but for right now she needed to have some idea
of where he stood.

"Okay," he said, reaching past her to
shut the quickly cooling water off. "What do you want to talk
about?"

She should have known it wasn't going
to be easy, she thought as she stepped out of the tub and wrapped a
large fluffy towel around herself. As much as she would love to put
this off and go drown her sorrows in a pint of ice cream, and yeah
she could do that and not feel guilty about it now, she needed to
get things settled between them so that there were no
misunderstandings. She also wanted to be able to say that they were
friends since the thought of not being able to tolerate each other
wasn't exactly helping her stomach.

"Okay," she said, deciding that this
conversation was probably best held in the bedroom where she could
get space. She walked into his room and did her best to stay away
from the bed while she wrapped her arms tightly around her body for
comfort, "This is probably where I should tell you that I'll be
moving out."

"What else?" he asked, barely looking
at her as he dried off and pulled on a pair of boxers and
jeans.

"The arrangement is over," she said, a
little hurt that he hadn't at least argued about her leaving. Not
that it would have made a difference, but it would have been nice
to know that he at least liked having her around.

"I know. I came to the same conclusion
the other day," he said with an indifferent shrug.

"Oh," she said, feeling like an idiot.
Of course it was no big deal for him. This had never been more than
an arrangement for him and now it was over and true to his word he
was walking away without a care. Granted neither one of them had
predicted that they'd be ending this with a pregnancy, but it was
over nonetheless.

It was fine. More than fine. She'd
known coming into this thing that there wouldn't be a future. She
could handle that. It was more than fine with her, she thought as
she contemplated storming over to him and kicking him in the shin
for breaking her heart.

"Then I guess there's not much else to
discuss right now," she said, deciding she'd tell him about the
twins later. Right now she wanted to go feel sorry for herself in
the privacy of her own home.

"I'll just be going then," she said,
gesturing towards the door.

"Okay."

"Well, thanks," she said lamely, "for
taking care of me and everything."

"Not a problem," he said, giving her
his back as he pulled a shirt on.

"Okay then, bye," she mumbled, heading
for the door and wondering just how long it would take for her
broken heart to heal and surprising herself by not regretting a
single moment with him.

Of course the little bonfire she had
planned for his Yankees shirt would probably make her feel
marginally better.

Chapter
29

"You son of bitch!" Zoe
yelled.

"That didn't take her long," Trevor
noted, heading downstairs at a snail's pace as he did his best to
bite back a huge shit eating grin.

"What the hell is this?" Zoe demanded
as she stormed back into his apartment, waving a piece of white
paper in the air.

"Your eviction notice, what else?" he
asked in a bored tone as he headed for the kitchen.

"You can't evict me!"

"Looks like I just did," he said,
gesturing to the paper.

"There are procedures you have to go
through first. You cannot just post an eviction notice to my door
and change the locks!" she snapped, slapping the notice on the
kitchen island.

"True, but going through the courts to
get you evicted would take too much time and money. I figured it
would just be easier to leave a notice and change the locks," he
said, before adding with a one shoulder shrug, "and
cheaper."

Her eyes narrowed on him dangerously
as her face took on an interesting shade of crimson. She noticeably
took a deep breath to calm down and it probably didn't help when he
grinned. She was just so damn cute when she looked ready to kill
him.