"Hey, David, I think that's her now!" one of the guys announced.
He watched with bored interest as Zoe hurried past the large dumpsters while hugging a large stack of folders in her arms. She headed towards the office, but was cut off by David.
"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, getting in her face.
Since it had nothing to do with him he blocked out their conversation and focused his attention back to the problem at hand. Should he just go ahead and eat the cake snacks Zoe packed now or wait for his afternoon break? Such a tough choice, he decided as he ripped open a chocolate cake package and devoured the tasty treat. As he ripped into another treat he resigned himself to sneaking into the office later and stealing some of the fruit that Zoe kept as backup.
He really didn't know how she did it. Two months without decent food was bad enough, but the shit she ate was downright torture. The diet was working. It was hard not to notice that, he thought as he looked up from ripping open another cake snack open to run his eyes over Zoe.
There was no arguing that she looked better than she had two months ago. She'd lost about thirty pounds, but she was still pleasantly rounded, but in a sexy way now. Her hair was shorter, shoulder length now, making her look less plain. Actually, with the light tan she was now sporting she actually looked cute and adorable, not in the cute and adorable sexy way Haley did, but still cute.
Just then she turned, giving him her back as she spoke quietly with the asshole and Trevor found his eyes dropping to that generous ass that even he had to admit was drool worthy. There was definitely no arguing with the results, but that didn't change the fact that he was actually getting a little worried about her.
He wasn't a doctor, but he didn't think the twelve hundred calories she was restricting herself to daily was healthy, especially since most of the time she didn't even come close to that limit. It wasn't as if he was counting her calories, he wasn't, but she kept her diet journal on the kitchen counter and he made it a point to sneak a peek at it every morning and what he saw had him seeing red.
Zoe was starving herself.
A few times he opened his mouth to talk to her about it only to end up shutting his mouth. It was none of his business what she did. If she wanted to survive on twigs and water that was her business. He had his own shit to deal with and didn't need to add the problems of his tenant onto the list.
"Damn, I was hoping she'd bitch slap him," one of the men muttered as David stormed away and Zoe walked into the office.
"There's always tomorrow," someone else said wistfully. Trevor didn't care enough to look up from packing his lunch back up to add to the conversation. It was a moot point since he really didn't think Zoe would ever have to raise her hand. With her quick tongue she'd never have to. She'd put any guy that fucked with her in his place and probably smile while she did it.
"Maybe she'll sit on him," Hank mused.
"Or eat him," Craig said, chuckling.
Now that had his attention. He looked up in time to see several of the guys butting fists and grinning like idiots over the pretty stupid comments.
"Real nice, guys," Trevor drawled, grabbing his empty water bottle.
"Uh oh, I think we just insulted Trevor's woman," Hank said, laughing.
"Knock it off, asshole. You know it's not like that," Trevor ground out. For the past couple of weeks the guys had been busting his balls with this bullshit. It had gotten old real fucking fast.
"Come on, man. It's okay. We all understand that fat chicks need love too," Craig said in mock sympathy, earning more chuckles and murmurs of agreement from the rest of the guys.
"Uh huh," Trevor said, grabbing his shit and walking away. Their bullshit annoyed him, but not enough to really care.
"Hey, Trevor, hold up!" Hank said, forcing Trevor to bite back a few choice words as he reluctantly stopped.
"What?" he snapped, not really caring that he was an asshole since he knew what was coming.
Hank stopped a few feet away from him, looking a little anxious. "I was just wondering if you were going to join the guys tomorrow night for a beer," he grumbled, but they both knew that wasn't the real reason he wanted to know.
He wanted Trevor to hang out with him so that he'd have a chance at a higher class of women. If he found out the jerk used his name one more time to pick up a woman he was going to throttle the bastard.
"I'm not sure yet," he said even though he'd already planned on going. He just didn't want to get this asshole's hopes up and have him hounding him all night and day about it.
"You should come out," Hank said, running a hand over his over-gelled hair to smooth it down as he gave the girl working the coffee truck, who couldn't be more than seventeen years old, a leering look.
With a snort of disgust he walked off, amazed that someone hadn't beaten the shit out of the bastard yet.
"Think about it!" Hank called after him. "It will do you a world of good to be around some women that don't outweigh you!" he said, laughing and making Trevor force himself to keep moving before he did something that would land his ass in jail.
* * *
"Zoe?"
"Yeah?" she said, pulling her attention away from the computer. Not that she'd been working. Nope. She'd been too busy trying not to die of embarrassment to get much of anything done.
Although it was already the first week of October it was still hot, but not hot enough to run the air conditioner so she'd foolishly opened all of the windows to let in cool air and unfortunately heard more than she wanted to.
"Zoe?" Jared said, drawing her attention. She looked up at her boss, hoping against hope that he hadn't heard.
"Yes?" she asked, hoping he wasn't going to try and comfort her. She hated pity more than anything.
"Are you going to eat that?" he asked, looking down at her salad with diced up chicken and licking his lips as if he were staring at fillet mignon.
Relieved that he hadn't heard, Zoe sighed as she looked down at her salad. She was pretty hungry, but maybe she shouldn't overdo it, she thought even as her stomach protested.
"No. Do you want it?" she asked. She'd barely finished asking when Jared reached out and snatched up her bowl. Well, at least she cut out two hundred and fifty calories off her diet, she thought with an inward sigh.
"Thanks," he said, already picking at her salad and snacking on a cucumber slice as he made his way over to the refrigerator. "I need you to run an errand," he said, grabbing a bottle of creamy French dressing from the fridge and smothering the salad in it.
She licked her lips hungrily as she imagined how good that would taste. For the past two and a half months she'd forgone any type of condiment on her food, telling herself that she didn't any extra calories. After what she'd just heard she had to agree.
"Sure. What do you need?" she asked, grabbing her purse, glad to have a distraction from what she'd heard.
"Could you run some contracts down to the animal shelter? They need us to build some new kennels and fix one of the buildings," he said around a huge bite of salad.
"No problem," she said, getting to her feet.
"After that you can take the rest of the day off," Jared said, surprising her.
"A-are you sure?" Zoe asked nervously, even though by this point she should be used to Jared's kindness and generosity. It seemed that nearly three months of kindness wasn't enough to make up for three years in hell, but she was working on it.
Jared simply chuckled. "Yes, I'm sure. Get the hell out of here and enjoy your weekend," he said as he made his way to the office to get the contracts, but not before he snatched her ice water up on the way almost as if he couldn't help himself.
As Zoe followed after him she couldn't help but wonder if there was a name for this little food obsession all the Bradford males seemed to suffer from. Although, she wasn't going to complain about it since it was helping her lose weight.
Chapter 9
"Please don't look at me like that," Zoe whispered, feeling helple
ss as large brown chocolate eyes looked up at her pleadingly.
"It would never work out between us," she added, wishing Tom, the animal control officer would hurry back so she could leave.
Toby simply cocked his head to the side and let out one of the most pathetic whimpers she'd ever heard, causing her to worry her bottom lip.
"I'm sure a very nice family will come along soon and take you home with them," she rushed on, hoping she'd be able to convince him to stop making her feel guilty. "I'm sure they'll have plenty of kids to play with you and sneak you yummy table scraps. I'm on a diet so anything I gave you would be gross and nasty. You wouldn't want that, now would you?" she asked, sounding hopeful.
Instead of losing interest, he wagged his tail and let out an adorable little puppy bark. She frowned. Could a forty pound dog really be considered a puppy? She didn't think so, but Tom had assured her that the German Sheppard-husky mixed dog was only a puppy. She'd have to take his word for it since she knew absolutely nothing about dogs.
"Please don't look at me like that," she whispered, feeling herself weaken. "I can't have a dog, buddy. I'm sorry," she explained, but the look of adoration on his face said that he simply didn't care. "I rent and my landlord was very specific in the lease that I can't have dogs and if I take you home I'll have to find another place to live and I really like my place so please stop looking at me like that. I'm sure you'll have a new home really, really soon, okay?" she said, having absolutely no doubt that someone would scoop up the adorable dog soon.
"Don't count on it," Tom said as he walked back into the kennel room.
"What do you mean?" Zoe asked, standing.
"He's scheduled to be put down today," he said with a shrug.
"B-but....he's just a puppy," she said, throwing a nervous look at the dog who was still watching her.
"I know," Tom said, not sounding happy about it at all. "But this is a city funded shelter and this little guy has been here too long. I don't have a choice in the matter," he said, frowning up at the clock on the wall. "Actually, he was scheduled to be put down twenty minutes ago, but you showed up just as I was getting the room ready."
As if he could understand, Toby let out a pitiful whine. Zoe tried not to look down at the dog, knowing she was so damn close to doing something stupid.
"Isn't there any way you could give him another week or two?" she asked, already dreading the answer.
"I wish I could," Tom said, gesturing for her to follow him back out to the front.
She threw one last look at the pitiful dog before she followed. It was sad, but this kind of thing happened every single day, she told herself. Besides she really didn't have a choice in the matter. Trevor had been very clear about the rules when she moved in, granted she hadn't known that he owned the house at the time, but there was still a long list of rules that she'd agreed to and one of them had been no pets.
Besides she really didn't know anything about dogs other than they needed to be fed and walked. Puppies needed to be housetrained and she didn't have a clue in how to go about that. There really was no choice in the matter, she decided as she said goodbye to Tom and headed for the door.
Just as she placed her hand on the doorknob Toby let out a pitiful howl. It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done and she knew she'd probably have to cry herself to sleep tonight, but she left, trying to ignore Toby's pleas for her to return.
* * *
"Where the hell is the food? I'm starving," Jason complained, again.
Trevor shot his cousin a glare. "Stop bitching."
"Just as soon as you feed me," Jason said with a sniff.
"I'm still trying to figure out who invited you," Trevor said, glaring at his three uninvited guests. Jason ignored him as he searched through the now empty bags of chips, mostly relying on his right hand for the job since three of the fingers on his left hand were still in finger braces. Brad shrugged and Mitch snagged a fresh beer as he tried to discretely text message his wife, again.
He was still trying to figure out how a man as corrupt as Mitch ended up a happily married bastard. He really hadn't seen that one coming. Not to mention the man's wife left him a little confused. She was nothing like the women Mitch usually went for. Instead of the curvy hot little numbers Mitch used to screw around with, Mary was tall, a bit thin and kind of pretty, but more plain than anything, but Mitch couldn't seem to get enough of her.
Thank god he had absolutely no plans on marrying for love. There was no way he was going to allow himself to become as pathetic as these three.
"Well?" he asked, snagging the beer away from Mitch. The man paused in mid-text to send Trevor a glare, but smartly kept his mouth shut and grabbed another beer only to have it stolen away from him by Jason.
"Thanks," Jason said, also ignoring Mitch's sad little glare. After a few seconds the man gave up and returned his attention to his phone. When he smiled like a love sick bastard, Trevor had to look away. It was either that or lose his lunch.
"Since when do I need an invite?" Jason asked, sounding truly confused as he popped the top off his beer.
"Whatever," Trevor said, in no mood to argue. He was fucking starving. The three bags of chips he'd devoured had barely taken the edge off his hunger. He would have had more if his cousin hadn't eaten him out of house and home.
"Maybe we should order some food," Zack, one of the new guys from work, suggested.
Jason snorted at that. "No one will deliver here."
"Why not?" Henry, another guy from work, asked as he looked inside an empty chip bag and frowned.
"Because we're banned," Trevor snapped, wishing they'd all shut the hell up so he could watch the game.
"How-" Zack started to ask only to get cut off by Brad.
"You really don't want to know," Brad stressed.
"But-"
"I'm serious."
"I've never heard-"
"Just let it go," Brad said.
"But, I don't understand how-"
"And you really never will. Trust me," Brad stressed.
After a short pause Zack shrugged his curiosity off, which Trevor appreciated. He was starving and in no mood to explain how the fast food industry had shunned them over a few minor misunderstandings.
"Hey, I thought you said that fat chick that works in the office lived next door and was going to order us some food," Henry said, sounding irritated.
Trevor just barely stopped himself from defending Zoe. He didn't think she was fat. Curvy? Hell yeah, but he knew better than to open his mouth to defend her. He had to deal with enough of the high school drama bullshit at work, he wasn't about to deal with it at home.
Jason snorted. "Haley will kick your ass if she hears you talking about her friend," he pointed out as he doubled checked the empty potato chip bags.
That kind of surprised Trevor, not that Haley would try and kick someone's ass since he'd heard plenty of amusing stories about her fighting skills, but that Haley considered Zoe a friend. Then again there was still a lot about Zoe that he didn't know about. Something that shouldn't bother him since she was really just a tenant and an employee of sorts, but it did.
"Why don't one of us order?" Zack said, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Won't work," Mitch said absently, never looking up from his phone.
"Why not?"
"Because they won't deliver here if a guy calls up," Brad said, leaning further back so Jason could reach past him to check the empty bowls on the end tables. "It has to be a woman."
"Look, you either go ask Zoe to order food or I'm going to start getting cranky," Jason snapped.
"Getting?" Brad repeated, chuckling.
"Shut up, damn it! I need food!"
"Anything to get you to stop whining," Trevor said, getting to his feet. Truth be told he was getting a little cranky. Zoe knew he was having the guys over and should have already ordered them food a couple of hours ago. She was usually on top of these things. He knew she hadn't forgotten tha
t he was having the guys over since she'd filled his counters with junk food and his fridge with beer and soda.
Speaking of junk food....
After she ordered them food she was going to have to run out and grab some more junk food and maybe after that he'd have her run out and hit the barbeque place over on Fourth Street and get them a couple buckets of ribs. His stomach growled at the idea even as he gave himself another pat on the back. Hiring Zoe really was the best thing he'd ever done.
Too bad she didn't cook, otherwise he'd have her cook him breakfast in bed. That would have made this arrangement perfect, but he'd settle for her running out tomorrow morning and picking him up a fresh coffee cake from Mary Lou's. Of course she'd have to head over there before seven otherwise they'd sell out quickly. He hadn't had Mary Lou's coffee cake in three years since they started making it only on Saturday morning and he was usually too damn exhausted and lazy to get his ass out of bed and go get it, but he no longer had to worry about that problem thanks to his little tenant.
He walked out into the hallway, not bothering to close his door and rapt once on her door before opening it only to find his entrance suddenly blocked.
"Hi, Trevor," Zoe said brightly as she tried to close the door another inch.
"What's going on?" he asked, curious since she never denied him entrance. Since they set up their little arrangement neither one of them bothered locking their doors. Leaving the doors unlocked made it easier for him when he needed a favor or grab his lunch and for her to clean his apartment and run his errands.
"Nothing," Zoe said even as she tried to close the door a little more. With a tired sigh he reached out and placed his hand on her door, easily stopping her. "Is there something I can help you with?" she asked with a nervous smile, he noted. She shifted to block his view into her apartment, well she tried, but since he towered over her she kind of failed.
"Well," he said, looking past her into her tidy apartment, "I was wondering if you could order us some food."
She suddenly looked over her shoulder and noticeably started.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, frowning as he leaned in to see what was going on only to find himself shoved back as Zoe swiftly stepped out of her apartment and closed the door before he could see what the hell was going on.
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