NFH 02 Perfection (4 page)

"So what the hell happened to you
today to set off that little breakdown?" he asked as she heard a
familiar hissing sound. Yup, he was eating her food and drinking
her Coke, she thought with a resigned sigh.

"You don't think the shit you pulled
was enough to set me off?" she asked, rolling onto her back and
placing Mr. Cuddles on her stomach.

"No. Not really," he said
easily.

"I just had a bad day at work," she
said, wondering why she was talking to him.

"Is that why you said you had to move
out?" he asked with what sounded like a mouthful of
food.

She snorted. "You don't think the crap
you pull is reason enough?"

"Nope," he said with absolutely no
hesitation.

Zoe rolled over onto her side, hugging
Mr. Cuddles tightly in her arms the way she used to when she was a
little girl spending her first night in a new foster home. Even
after all these years it still brought her comfort.

"So?" he asked, still eating her damn
pizza. It should piss her off, but after everything she'd gone
through today she discovered that she really didn't care and didn't
have much of an appetite anymore.

"I was fired if you must know so I
won't be able to pay you rent past next month," she said, sighing
heavily.

"What did you do?" he asked
shamelessly, reminding her of the women who gossiped at the beauty
salon.

"I don't want to talk about
it."

"Fucked up big time, huh?"

She titled her head back to glare at
the wall, wishing she could glare at him instead. "I didn't screw
up!"

"
Fucked up
. I said fucked up," he
sighed heavily as if reminding her somehow pained him.

"Same damn thing," she said, still
glaring.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

"
Nope
," he said, making the word
pop.

She growled. "You know you're
annoying, right?"

"Yes," he said unconcerned.

"You were dropped on your head as a
child, weren't you?"

"Once or twice," he mused. "Now, you
were telling me how you fucked up and got fired," he
prompted.

"No, I wasn't," she said,
frowning.

"Are you sure? Because I distinctly
remember you saying, 'Let me tell you how I fucked up, Trevor' and
then stopping only to tell me that I'm the best landlord that
you've ever had."

"Oh yeah, you rock," she said dryly,
her lips twitching despite herself.

"I know," he said on a long drawn out
sigh. She couldn't help but roll her eyes. The man truly was
arrogant. Not that she could blame him with his chiseled bad boy
good looks, killer green eyes and a body that didn't exactly hurt
the eyes.

"So?"

"So what? I'm sleeping. Go away," she
grumbled, not exactly in the mood to recap one of the stupidest
things she'd ever done.

"No, you're not."

"How do you know?"

"Believe me I know when you're
sleeping. You snore."

"I do not!"
she practically screeched. She didn't. She would
know.

He laughed.

The bastard.

"Go away."

"Can't," he simply said. "I still have
half a pizza left."

She groaned. "Look, if I tell you,
will you shut up and leave me to wallow in self-pity?"

"Sure," he readily agreed.

Zoe worried her lip as she ran her
fingers over Mr. Cuddle's head. After a few minutes she said, "A
few months ago I came across some inconsistencies in one of our
audit programs. So for the past few months I've been following a
money trail and yesterday I discovered that it lead straight to one
of the owner's wives."

When he didn't say anything she
continued. "I told my supervisor, who told everyone else so the
owner actually heard the rumor before I was able to file my report
this morning. He was angry to say the least, but I didn't think he
was mad enough to fire me."

"Clearly you were wrong," Trevor
mused.

"Clearly," she repeated dryly, again
wondering why the hell she was talking to him? Oh, that's right,
because she had absolutely no one else in the world to talk to and
she was probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"So, what are you going to do now?" he
asked.

"I thought you were going to leave me
alone if I told you."

"I lied."

She sighed. "I have absolutely no idea
what I'm going to do now."

When he didn't say anything for a long
time she figured that he'd finally left. Even though it was nice to
talk to someone, she couldn't help but feel relieved. She didn't
want to sit around talking or thinking about how she was going to
fix her screwed up life. There was plenty of time to do that
tomorrow. Right now she wanted to pull on her favorite Red Sox tee
shirt and go to bed and forget this mess, at least for a little
while.

"Look, there's this job in the office
at my uncle's construction company," he suddenly announced,
breaking the silence. "I can't guarantee you'd get it, but they're
pretty desperate for some help. The pay is pretty good and so are
the benefits. If you're interested, you could swing by in the
morning and I could put a good word in for you."

She couldn't help but feel a little
touched. "Why would you do that? You don't even know
me."

"Well," he said, yawning loudly, "you
could use the work, my uncle needs the help, and you don't piss me
off as much as my other tenants do."

"Oh," she said, feeling slightly less
touched.

"And as a thank you for hooking you up
with a job you'll of course return the favor by ordering pizza from
Black Jack's at least once a week for me," he said, sounding quite
pleased with himself.

She couldn't help but roll her eyes at
that little announcement even as her curiosity got the better of
her. "How exactly do you get banned from a pizza delivery
place?"

"Hey, don't judge me! Those bastards
had it out for me!"

Chapter 4

"Aw fuck," Trevor muttered when he
opened the fridge to grab his packed lunch only to remember that he
didn't have one. He'd forgotten to go to the store last night.
"Damn it."

Looked like he was hitting the coffee
truck today, he thought unhappily. They never stocked it with
enough food. He grabbed his tool belt and hardhat and headed for
the door, already in a pissy mood at the prospect of starving. His
only hope was that his cousins and uncles bagged their lunch so
that he would have a chance at getting a decent lunch today. He
hated competing with those bastards for food, especially his uncle
who wasn't above kicking everyone's ass for a damn
cupcake.

It was really kind of pathetic, he
thought even as his stomach rumbled, liking the idea of a dozen or
so cupcakes for breakfast. Perhaps he'd stop by Mary Lou's on the
way to work and pick some up.

He stepped out of his apartment,
trying to be quiet and not wake up his little tenant. It was kind
of funny how after last night he was more conscious of all the
noise he made. Before last night he honestly hadn't given it much
thought. He quietly closed the front door behind him and scooped up
her newspaper so he could look at the picture highlights from last
night's game and carried it to his truck, deciding he'd be more
considerate in small steps.

Halfway to his truck he paused and
frowned as he watched some asshole reaching into Zoe's
car.

"What the hell do you think you're
doing?" he demanded, resuming his pace and hurrying towards the
jackass. The man noticeably started as he stood up. He took one
look at Trevor and dropped the armful of CD's he was holding and
took off at a dead run.

"Don't let me catch you around here
again, asshole!" Trevor called after him, wishing he had the time
to go after the piece of shit and knock some sense into
him.

He walked back to his truck and threw
his shit in and slammed the door shut, wincing when he realized how
loud it was and hoping he hadn't woke her up since he had a pretty
good idea that she'd stayed up most of the night pacing.

There was a lot more shit in her life
besides losing her job and he had no interest in finding out about
any of it. It was bad enough that he actually asked about her work
drama, and that had only been because he'd felt bad about what he
said. He didn't want or need to find out about any of the other
shit.

He walked over to her car and cringed
as he picked up her CD's. What kind of sick bastard listened to
Phil Collins? God, this woman needed more help than he thought, he
mused as he collected her CD cases and tossed them in her car. A
dark frown crossed his features as he took in the soaked driver's
seat and open window.

What in the hell was she thinking
leaving the window down last night? he wondered as he looked at his
watch. He really didn't have time for this, but he couldn't just
leave her car here, knowing that bastard would come
back.

With a resigned groan he walked back
to the house and let himself inside and knocked on her door. He was
just about to run up to his bedroom to see if he could wake her up
through the wall when her door opened.

"Zoe,
I--
Oh God
!" he
said, clutching his chest and stumbling back.

"What?" she asked, looking anxiously
around herself as she held a large brown muffin against her
chest.

With a shaky hand he
pointed at the offending item that she dared bring into his
house.
"What the hell is that?"

She looked down and frowned. "My
muffin?"

"How could you?"
he demanded hoarsely as he shook his head in
disgust.

"What the hell are you freaking out
about?" she demanded, looking around again.

"That shirt!" he said, pointing wildly
towards the Red Sox shirt that she dared to wear in his presence.
"What the hell were you thinking?"

She sent him a look that clearly
stated that she thought he was crazy. He inwardly snorted at that.
He wasn't the one sporting a fucking Red Sox shirt.

"I was thinking that it was cute and
comfortable," she said, shrugging as if it were no big
deal.

Oh, god, he was going to be sick. He
stumbled forward and snatched the muffin out of her
hand.

"Hey!"

"I need sustenance to deal with this,
woman!" he snapped before taking a huge bite of her muffin. It took
a split second before the taste hit and when it did he ran past her
and headed for the small wicker basket trash can she had by her
couch and spit the entire bite out, but that wasn't enough. The
horrible taste was still in his mouth.

"It wasn't that bad, was it?" she
asked, worrying her bottom lip.

He threw her a disbelieving look as he
rushed past her into the kitchen. He threw open her refrigerator
and nearly wept with relief when he spotted the nearly full gallon
of orange juice. He grabbed the jug, tore the cap off and tossed it
into the sink behind him as he started chugging the orange juice,
hoping that it would take that god awful taste out of his
mouth.

"Okay, now you're just exaggerating,"
she said, sounding exasperated, but the nervous look on her face
told another tale.

He narrowed a glare on her as he
finished off half her orange juice. Gasping, he pulled the gallon
away from his mouth and cringed when he tasted a hint of that scary
muffin. When she opened her mouth to say something, he held up a
hand to stop her and chugged the rest of the orange
juice.

"What the hell did you just try
poisoning me with?" he demanded, still panting.

"Hey," she snapped, placing her hands
on her generous hips. "No one told you to steal my
muffin!"

"I needed nourishment after the scare
that you gave me! How could you wear a Red Sox shirt in front of
me?" he demanded, jumping back when he spotted the large plate of
dark brown muffins on the counter. "And what the hell kind of
muffins are those?"

"Apple," she mumbled, worrying her lip
again.

"Apple?" he repeated in disbelief. His
eyes shot back to the things that had no business being called
muffins and shook his head in disbelief. He'd never seen a brown,
almost black apple muffin before and he was a man who knew his
muffins.

She threw up her hands and let them
drop by her sides. "I'm not a good cook. Okay? Are you happy
now?"

He looked between the plate of muffins
he swore just moved and her tee shirt that needed to be incinerated
and shook his head. "I'm truly at a loss for words here," he
muttered.

Zoe blew a strand of hair out of her
face as she continued to glare at him. "Is there a reason you came
knocking on my door at six-thirty in the morning besides to remind
me that I can't cook?"