Chapter 3
Zoe felt her face burn and her eyes water as his words hit home.
“Oh, shit...” Trevor 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,” Zoe 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, all while wondering when she was going to learn how to keep her big, fat 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 was what finally broke her.
“What an asshole,” Zoe 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 that he’d said it because he was pissed.
She had kind of, sort of gone out of her way to embarrass him with that “You’re loud” bit, but that didn’t change the fact that what he’d said hurt like hell.
She’d lost count of how many times over the years she’d tried to lose weight. Sometimes the diets worked 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 planned or work depressed her more than usual.
Well, at least she didn’t have to worry about overeating after receiving another write-up for using too many paper towels in the women’s bathroom, Zoe thought dryly.
Being unemployed was depressing, but at least she wouldn’t have to worry about binge eating while she looked for another 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 only a few hours ago.
Why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? She’d heard some truly frightening stories about how they’d treated their employees, but she’d stupidly ignored them.
Had those horror stories stopped her from opening her big fat mouth?
Nope.
Stupidly, Zoe thought that they’d appreciate finding out where their money was going.
She’d 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 she really should have known better.
Telling her immediate supervisor, who in turn had told everyone else, that one of the partner’s wives was stealing from the company had been a dumb move.
She should have stuck with her original plan and anonymously sent the file, but Zoe thought the information would have been taken more seriously if there was a name behind the complaint.
She should have known that Mr. Sands would take it out on her.
Now, she was facing a future of living in her 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, but it was all she had.
“Zoe,” she heard Trevor say through the wall.
“Go. Away,” she said against the pillow, unsure if he could hear her and not really caring. She had enough problems to deal with at the moment.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he said louder.
She didn’t bother answering him as she lay there, hoping that he would just give up and leave. Of course, he didn’t.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he said again.
Frustrated that he wasn’t going away and angry at herself for crying, Zoe rolled over onto her side and demanded, “For what? For being a jerk or for calling me fat?”
“I didn’t call you fat!”
“What the hell would you call it?” Zoe 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 something,” Zoe mumbled sadly into her pillow.
“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,” Zoe said, half-expecting him to offer to share it.
“Thanks!” Trevor said brightly, and she could have sworn that he followed that up with what sounded like a heartfelt sigh, but she really couldn’t 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?” Zoe called back with a frown, glancing back at her bare lavender wall.
“What the hell happened to you today to set off that little breakdown?” Trevor asked as she heard a familiar hissing sound. Yup, he was eating her food and drinking her Coke, she realized with a resigned sigh.
“You don’t think the shit you pulled was enough to set me off?” Zoe asked as she rolled over onto her back and placed Mr. Cuddles on her stomach.
“No. Not really.”
“I just had a bad day at work,” Zoe said, wondering why she was talking to him.
“Is that why you said that you had to move out?” Trevor asked around what sounded like a mouthful of food.
She snorted. “You don’t think the crap you pulled 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, he still made her feel safe.
“So?” Trevor asked, still eating her damn pizza. It should piss her off, but after everything she’d gone through today, she realized that she didn’t care. Besides, she didn’t have much of an appetite anymore anyway.
“I was fired, if you must know. So, I won’t be able to pay rent past next month,” Zoe said, sighing heavily as she thought about everything that she was going to have to do. She really wasn’t looking forward to looking for a new job.
“What did you do?” Trevor 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 tilted her head back to glare at the wall, wishing that she could glare at him instead. “I didn’t screw up!”
“Fucked up. I said fucked up,” he sighed heavily as though reminding her of what he’d said somehow pained him.
“Same damn thing,” she said, still glaring.
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it really isn’t.”
She growled. “You know that you’re annoying, right?”
“Yes,” Trevor said, unconcerned.
“You were dropped on your head as a child, weren’t you?”
“Once or twice,” Trevor mused. “Now, you were telling me how you fucked up and got fired,” he prompted.
“No, I wasn’t,” Zoe 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,” Trevor 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,” Zoe 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.”
“No, I don’t!” she snapped in indignation.
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 alone to wallow in self-pity?”
“Sure,” Trevor readily agreed.
Zoe worried her bottom 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. For the past few months, I’ve been following a money trail and yesterday I discovered that it led straight to one of the owners’ wives. ”
When he didn’t say anything, she continued. “I told my supervisor, who told everyone else, so the owner actually heard the news secondhand before I was able to file my report this morning. He was angry to say the least, but I didn’t think that he was going to be mad enough to fire me.”
“Clearly, you were wrong,” Trevor mused.
“Clearly,” Zoe repeated dryly, again wondering why 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 after 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’d figured that he’d finally left.
Even though it had been nice to talk to someone, Zoe couldn’t help but feel relieved.
She didn’t want to sit around 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, 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,” Trevor suddenly announced, breaking the silence.
“I can’t guarantee that you’ll get it, but they’re pretty desperate for 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 in a good word 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 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 announcement even as her curiosity got the better of her. “How exactly did you get banned from a pizza restaurant?”
“Hey, don’t judge me! Those bastards had it out for me!”