Perfection: A Neighbor From Hell Novel

by R. L. Mathewson

  The fork in his hand dropped with a loud clink as his uncle's words sank in. "She doesn't have any family?" he asked, wondering why the hell she never told him.

  "She grew up in foster care," Haley said softly.

  He shoved away from the table, holding back several choice words as he shared a look with an equally stunned Jason.

  "Well, let's go get her then," Jason said, handing his baby girl over to Jared and swiping a roll off Haley's plate before heading for the door.

  Trevor was about to tell him that he didn't need any help, but then he realized that having a witness just might stop him from throttling Zoe's pretty little neck.

  ************

  "Don't worry I ordered a little something special for the two of you," Zoe said as she hung up the phone. Toby and Max gave her little puppy barks of approval as she gave them each a quick pat and headed back upstairs to grab a pillow and a blanket.

  As she headed downstairs her stomach growled loudly, demanding food and making her groan. She really hoped she was able to keep down her special Thanksgiving lunch. It was something she looked forward to every year and something she allowed herself to have whether she was on a diet or not.

  P.B. Chang's was the best Chinese food in the area and something she normally didn't allow herself because she usually couldn't afford it, which is why she only treated herself to it twice a year. It also didn't hurt that the two days she allowed herself the treat were also the two days P.B. Chang's automatically doubled the amount of food for free. While other people were going to be eating turkey for several days she'd be eating Chinese food.

  "Let's get set up, guys," she said cheerfully, earning several barks of approval.

  After depositing her blanket and pillow on the couch she took the dogs out for a quick walk and quickly changed into a Red Sox tee shirt, baby pink flannel pajamas and a pair of Trevor's thick white socks. She was just sliding the first disc of her "X-Files" DVD collection into the DVD player for her Thanksgiving Day "X-File" marathon when a knock sounded at the door.

  She grabbed her wallet and headed to the door, giving the dogs a stern look to stay put. With small groans they did just that. As she opened the door the aroma of fried chicken fingers, pork fried rice, and beef teriyaki hit her hard and made her mouth water. She could not wait to tear into her food, which was a good thing considering how much food there was. Maybe she'd ordered too much, she thought as she frowned down at the two large brown paper bags that were overflowing with food. She may have gone overboard ordering this year, forgetting that they'd double whatever she ordered, but that was okay because she was starving.

  It was only after the delivery boy left that she realized that he didn't bring her orange soda, not that she could complain. She paused the movie and quickly grabbed two cold cans of Coke, knowing she'd go through them and returned to the living room to find her boys sniffing around the bags.

  "Be good and I'll give you something yummy," she said teasingly as she opened the bags and quickly found the beef and broccoli she'd ordered for them. After she split the small carton between them she sat on the couch, pulled the coffee table closer and hit the "Play" button as she got comfortable.

  After Trevor's little announcement this morning she really needed this. She wasn't sure what was going on with Trevor, but she knew that she couldn't go much further with him before she broke. She loved him so much that she was actually afraid to take any chances on him.

  Not that it was much of a risk considering that he hadn't exactly offered his undying love or anything. The only thing he'd offered her was convenience, whatever that meant. She loved him and she was pretty sure that he cared about her, more than just for the arrangement, but he didn't have anything else to offer her and she'd be stupid to sit here depressing herself over something that she had no control over at the moment.

  At least she could drown her sorrows in extra duck sauce, she thought, reaching over to start on the bag closest to her.

  "Oh, look at that, Jason. She got us a little snack for the ride," Trevor suddenly said, scaring the living hell out of her.

  Gasping for breath, she pressed a hand to her chest and wondered if her heart was ever going to be able to stop pounding against her chest. "Stop doing that to me!"

  "Doing what?" Trevor asked, never taking his eyes away from her as he crouched down to greet the excited dogs.

  "Scaring the hell out of me!" she snapped.

  Trevor shrugged as he continued to pet the dogs.

  Jason threw the dogs a curious look as he stepped further into the apartment only to come to an abrupt halt when he spotted the label on the brown paper bags.

  "Is that," he noticeably swallowed, "P.B. Chang's?"

  "Yes," she said, gesturing towards the bags, "would you like some?" The words were barely out of her mouth before she found herself moving quickly out of the way as Jason sat down next to her with a carton of chicken fingers in his hand and one already in his mouth.

  Shaking her head in wonder, she turned her attention back to Trevor to find the man glaring at her, but that didn't bother her since he seemed to glare at everyone.

  "Aren't the two of you supposed to be with your family?" she asked, cautiously reaching out to grab a chicken finger only to pause halfway when Jason shifted the box away from her with a murderous glare. With a small groan, she let her hand drop. Even though she was starving and it was P.B. Chang's it wasn't worth losing a finger or two over.

  "We were, but we had to leave to come get you," Trevor bit out, looking angrier than she'd ever seen him before. Then again he had left a Thanksgiving meal to come here and she could only imagine the insane amount of food served at a Bradford get-together.

  "Why?" she asked, reaching out to open the bag closest to her only to pause halfway there. She threw Jason an incredulous look. "Did you just growl at me?"

  He gave her a sheepish smile and a shrug. "Sorry, habit."

  With an eye roll and a few muttered words about Bradfords and their food obsession she pulled the bag closer to her, throwing Jason a cautious glance only to find the man leaning back on the couch, watching television as he devoured a large carton of beef teriyaki.

  Didn't he just have chicken fingers? With a mental shake she forced herself to focus on the really pissed off man.

  "Well, since I didn't ask you to come the two of you can return to your Thanksgiving dinner and I can go back to mine....." Her words trailed off as she looked at Jason.

  Wasn't he just eating the carton of beef teriyaki? He ignored her questioning look as he dug into the large carton of noodles. Sighing, she went to grab her Coke only to find it and the backup she'd brought out only minutes earlier empty next to a large stack of empty food cartons.

  "You call this Thanksgiving dinner?" Trevor demanded, grabbing her attention from trying to calculate how much food Jason went through in a day. It was actually frightening, because it appeared that he ate more than Trevor.

  "No," she said, jabbing a thumb in Jason's direction, "I call this Jason's light snack."

  "Sorry," Jason mumbled, not really sounding sorry at all, but that was all right because unfortunately the scents she thought were enticing only a few minutes before were actually starting to turn her stomach.

  "Look, I don't have to time to fight about this. Run upstairs and throw some clothes on so that we can go," Trevor said, gesturing lazily towards the stairs.

  "Go where?" she asked, moving away from Jason, not only because he was actually starting to frighten her, but the garlicky odor from the noodles was starting to make her feel sick.

  "Go back to Thanksgiving dinner," he snapped.

  "Um, I was having Thanksgiving dinner," she pointed out, not bothering to add that she planned on sending the bags of food with the men, which was hopefully soon because she really wasn't sure how much more her poor stomach could take.

  She went to stand up only to have to sit right back down as a wave of dizziness hit her.

  "Are you okay?" Jason
asked around a mouthful of food.

  "Yeah," she said, taking a deep breath, "I'm fine."

  "Because you kind of looked a little pale there for a second," Jason pointed out as Trevor dropped to his knees in front of her.

  He cupped her face. "Are you okay?" he asked, pushing her hair out of her face.

  She pushed his hands away. "Yes, I'm fine. Now would the two of you just go back to your family dinner so I can go back to mine?"

  Not that she could eat anything at the moment. Between her stomach twisting and her head spinning she didn't think she'd be able to hold anything down for a while, never mind eat.

  "You need to-" Trevor began, but she'd had enough already. She was sick and tired of the games, and of this stupid arrangement which only made her want to cry herself to sleep most nights because she loved him so much and she was nothing to him. She shoved to her feet, forcing him to back up so that she could walk away from him.

  "No, you need to go," she snapped.

  "It's my goddamn house!"

  "No," she said, pointing in the direction of his apartment, "that's your goddamn house. This is my home."

  "It's one and the same," he said between clenched teeth.

  "No, it's not! I'm your tenant, you're my landlord! That's it! You have no business coming here and telling me what to do!" she yelled, feeling herself tear up, but she couldn't help it. She was so exhausted. She was physically tired, emotionally strung out from pretending not to love him. She couldn't take this anymore.

  "I'm a hell of a lot more than just your landlord!" he said, clenching and unclenching his hands by his side as though he were fighting back the urge to grab her.

  "What are you then?" she demanded, taking a step towards him. "Are you my employer? My friend? Or my fuck buddy? Because last time I checked none of those titles gave you the right to come in here and demand anything!"

  "Wow....this is so awkward," Jason mumbled, but instead of getting up and leaving like any normal person would he simply tore into the second bag, grabbed anther carton and gestured for the dogs to join him on the couch.

  Trevor on the other hand looked close to killing her. "You know damn well what I am," he bit out evenly.

  "Yeah, I do," she said, wiping at her face with the back of her hand as she made a decision. "You're my ex-landlord, ex-employer, and ex-fuck buddy. So get out," she said, rushing out of the room before she broke out into sobs.

  She made it to her room before the first one escaped and was sobbing hysterically by the time she stumbled into her bathroom to splash cold water on her face. By the time she'd realized what she'd done she was already blacking out and falling towards the edge of the bathtub.

  Chapter 27

  "Look, I can leave if you want," Jason said, moving to stand up as he grabbed the remaining bag of food, but Trevor barely heard him as paced the living room never taking his eyes off the stairs where Zoe raced up only minutes before after she destroyed his entire world.

  "Can you fucking believe her?" he demanded, but he didn't give Jason a chance to respond or if he did, Trevor didn't hear him.

  He couldn't believe she'd just done that. "After everything I did for her?" he said, shaking his head in disgust. While he'd been ready to move forward with her she'd been looking to get out. Well, fuck her, because he didn't need her.

  This wasn't going to last anyway. He'd have ended things in another fifty or sixty years with her. He'd never wanted anything permanent with her so this really didn't bother him. This was fine. This was more than fine, he thought as he drove his fist through the wall.

  "Whoa! Calm the hell down!" Jason said, getting to his feet.

  "You calm the hell down!" Trevor snapped, feeling ready to blow. "This is my fucking house!" he yelled, hoping she heard him. Never in his life had he been this angry.

  "I don't fucking need her," he said, resuming his pacing as he shook off the pain in his hand. "I gave her a fucking place to live, a part-time job, I helped her find a job and I took care of her and she didn't do a goddamn thing for me," he said, getting more riled up as he paced the room. "Not one fucking thing!" he yelled, half hoping she'd hear him and come running back down the stairs so he could yell at her and make her see that she'd made a mistake.

  "Maybe we should take this to your apartment," Jason suggested with a helpless shrug.

  Trevor shook his head. "I'm not leaving! You hear me? If you want me to leave then you get your ass down here and tell me to my face to leave, because I'm telling you right now, it's not over until I say it is!" he yelled.

  "Okay, time to go," Jason sighed as he grabbed Trevor and started pulling him towards the door.

  "Get your fucking hands off me!" he snapped, shoving his cousin away. "I'm not leaving until she talks to me."

  "Well, she's not going to talk to you if you keep yelling like some lunatic!" Jason snapped. "Calm the fuck down before you really mess this up. Right now she's just pissed and you can probably save this fucked up relationship, but if you keep acting like this and yelling she's going to call the cops and have your ass hauled out of here."

  "My relationship is not fucked up," Trevor bit out harshly, but in a more restrained tone. The last thing he needed was to get sent to jail and give Zoe a chance to leave.

  This wasn't over.

  Not by a long shot.

  She was his and she damn well knew it and she would remain his until he decided that he was done with her.

  "There's nothing wrong with our relationship," he bit out distractedly as he paced the room, never taking his eyes away from the stairs.

  "Oh, you don't think so? How about the fact that for the last two months the two of you have been trying to hide your relationship?" Jason asked, grabbing his attention in a big way.

  "How did you-"

  Jason rolled his eyes. "Puhlease, with the way that you were watching her, smiling whenever she was around or scaring every guy off that looked her way it was hard to miss."

  Trevor shot the man a glare.

  Jason simply shrugged. "Of course there were also the matching hickeys the two of you wore about a month back that kind of gave you away."

  He didn't remember that, mostly because they'd gotten carried away several times.

  "I was actually hoping that you wouldn't fuck this up. Zoe's good for you," Jason said, sitting back down and allowing the dogs to settle on his lap.

  Trevor had to snort at that. "She's not good for me. She doesn't even come close to what I'm looking for," he pointed out.

  "No, she's a thousand times better," Jason said quietly.

  "How the hell can you say that?" he demanded, throwing another wistful look towards the stairs.

  "Because you love her," Jason simply said, picking up a carton of beef and broccoli and offered some to the dogs.

  Trevor opened his mouth to tell his cousin he was full of shit, but he couldn't.

  On paper Zoe didn't meet any of his standards for a wife. She didn't come from a big family, but that didn't really matter to him anymore because he knew his family adored her. His uncle wouldn't have yelled at her if he didn't. She didn't have a lot of money, but that was okay because he did and he'd happily support her. He actually loved spoiling her and found himself looking for ways to please her.

  Other than Haley she didn't have a lot of close friends that she confided in, but that was also okay because she could always confide in him and bitch about anything she wanted and he'd happily listen. She also wasn't the type of woman who made men drool, besides him, and got the attention of every guy in the room, but that was okay because none of them should be fucking looking at her anyway.

  She also couldn't cook worth a damn, she sang off key, was a bit of a neat freak, bossy, demanding and perfect. He didn't need her to tell him that she loved him, because he knew by the way she looked at him and treated him that she loved him and he'd been a fucking idiot over the past two months. Instead of keeping the best thing in his life a secret he should have been dragging her out and
enjoying being with her instead of punishing them both for his stupidity.

  "What the fuck did I just do?" he whispered, wondering how he'd fucked this up and so fast. He'd treated her like shit and assumed she'd appreciate any attention he gave her. His father had been right all those years ago.

  He was a fucking idiot.

  "Besides put a hole in the wall and sending the woman you love crying hysterically out of the room?" Jason asked in an annoyingly calm tone. "You fucked up, but don't worry you'll do that a lot."

  "Gee, thanks," Trevor said dryly.

  "Not a problem," Jason said cheerfully as he started searching through the empty bags and containers. "Damn, it's all empty," Jason grumbled. "Could you go up there and grovel now so that we can get our asses back to my mother's house? I'm starving."

  "Yeah, cause it's all about you," Trevor said wryly, turning to head up the stairs.

  "It really is though," Jason readily agreed.

  "I really don't know how Haley puts up with you."

  Jason sighed heavily as he patted his own chest, "Adores. Me."

  "Uh huh," Trevor agreed absently as he tried to figure out the best way to grovel to a woman. He'd never done it before. Usually within the first thirty seconds of a fight with a woman he'd simply walk away, but there was no walking away from Zoe.

  She was everything to him.

  "I'd bring one of the puppies with you to butter her up," Jason said, standing with Max in his arms. "Here, take this one."

  Trevor took the puppy and started up the stairs only to pause halfway up. "Where are you going?"

  "To give you some privacy," Jason said, heading towards the hallway door. "And to rummage through your kitchen to find something to eat before I pass out. You people aren't taking very good care of me," he bitched as he left with Toby hot on his heels. By now the dog knew the signs of a Bradford on the prowl for food and was making damn sure that he was there to take care of any crumbs left behind.

  Petting Max, he slowly climbed up the stairs, wondering what the best way to go about groveling. Begging? On his knees? Promises to buy her the world? Because he'd do all that and more. He loved her and wanted to take care of her and show her how good it could be between them.