Chapter 23
“Are you still pouting?” Zoe asked, already knowing the answer.
Trevor threw his truck in park as he sent her another glare. “I just don’t understand how you could betray me like this.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, getting out of the truck and heading for the restaurant sporting the “Grand Opening Weekend” banner, knowing that Trevor was probably close behind.
“Why did you have to tell her?” Trevor demanded as he caught up to her.
Zoe worried her bottom lip, wondering if he was going to throw his arm around her or hold her hand the way he did when they took Toby for a walk. Of course, when he didn’t, she forced herself not to be too disappointed. This was only an arrangement, after all.
She shoved her disappointment aside and answered him, knowing it was just a waste of time and energy to be upset over things that were never going to happen. “Why wouldn’t I tell Haley?”
“Because she’ll tell Jason,” Trevor said, not sounding happy at all as he opened the door and gestured for her to go ahead with the medium size black plastic shopping bag that he’d brought with him.
She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now she wondered if he was carting around his own condiments.
“And probably Jared and everyone else, too,” Zoe pointed out, feigning innocence.
Of course, Trevor probably didn’t need to know that she’d text messaged Jared with the name and location of the new buffet restaurant or that she’d made damn sure that everyone in his family knew about the buffet restaurant.
He’d be pissed when he found out, but that was okay since she’d been admittedly a little pissed when she did it.
She still couldn’t believe he’d called her beautiful.
While most women probably would have appreciated the compliment, she hadn’t.
If he had actually meant it, and she knew the odds of that happening were zilch, she would have savored it, but he’d only called her beautiful to make her feel better.
It was a nice gesture, kind of, but one that hurt more than anything.
It was hard enough knowing that this arrangement was never going to be anything more than just sex, and at first, she’d accepted it, welcomed it even, but now...
She wanted more. More importantly, she wanted more with Trevor, but she wasn’t delusional.
He didn’t want more with her and she wasn’t going to push for anything.
For however long this lasted, and she really couldn’t believe that it had lasted this long, she was going to enjoy it.
When it ended, she was going to take Toby and find a new place to live.
She hoped it wouldn’t kill her to have to see Trevor every day at work.
If she couldn’t handle seeing him, she’d already decided that she’d move out of state, maybe to Florida where she could get a fresh start.
“Would it have killed you to keep it a secret between us?” Trevor asked as they stepped into the long line for the cashier.
“It’s a buffet, Trevor. They would have found out about it soon,” she explained even though it was just common sense.
“Yes, but that would have been a week that I could have enjoyed the place before those greedy bastards get us all banned,” Trevor sighed, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” she mumbled, trying not to laugh.
Trevor slowly looked down at her. His eyes narrowed dangerously on her as she did her best to bite back her smile but lost that battle several times.
“Oh, my God, you sold me out!” he said, looking shocked and affronted, which was kind of ridiculous since, at this point, he really should be used to it.
“I wanted to see how an entire family could get banned from a restaurant,” Zoe admitted with a shrug.
Ever since she’d first heard that he’d been banned from most of the fast-food places in town, she’d been admittedly curious.
Of course, that curiosity only tripled when she’d discovered that the entire family had a history of being banned.
So, when she accidentally discovered this place last Monday, she’d thought that perhaps she could entertain herself with a live show.
“You sold me out for your own amusement?” Trevor demanded.
“And this shocks you, how?” Zoe asked, stepping up in the line.
When Trevor looked around before leaning down to whisper something in her ear, she fully expected a promise to spank her ass, but she got something entirely different instead.
“If I wasn’t certain that I’d be banned after today, you and I would be heading to the nearest hotel where I could fuck you until neither one of us could move,” Trevor whispered harshly in her ear, making her breaths come faster and her knees threatening to give out.
“I-I’m not that hungry,” Zoe stammered, more than willing to opt for plan B.
Well, she was hungry, but she was also feeling sick as well.
She was starting to get a little worried that she might have something worse than food poisoning like e coli.
“And I’m pretty sure that I spotted a few hotels close by. ”
“Too bad, you need to eat,” Trevor said, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek before stepping back so they could move up in line.
She opened her mouth to argue only to have Trevor give her a stern look and a shake of his head in warning.
He’d already warned her that he didn’t want to hear any more nonsense about needing to lose weight.
He’d told her that he would end things if she didn’t take better care of herself.
It was actually kind of sweet that he cared so much.
“Fine,” she sighed, stepping up to the front of the line.
“How many?” the friendly cashier asked with a huge smile and Zoe idly wondered how long the woman would be able to keep it up before that smile became painful.
“Two,” Trevor answered.
Zoe pulled out some money from her pocket to pay for her meal. She went to hand it to the woman when Trevor threw her a dirty look as he gently pushed her hand away. With a sigh, she put the money away, knowing that this wasn’t a date and really wishing that he’d just let her pay her own way.
“Over here,” Trevor said, placing a hand at the small of her back to guide her through the already crowded restaurant towards the booths closer to the long buffet tables.
“Oh, there’s Haley and Jason,” Zoe said, gesturing towards the opposite side of the room where Haley and Jason sat with their two little ones. Haley went to gesture them over, only to have Jason grab her hand and shake his head.
Frowning, Zoe raised her hand to at least wave to her friend, wondering what Jason’s problem was when she found herself in a similar situation.
“Don’t,” Trevor said, gently pushing her hand down as he continued to usher her towards a row of empty booths near the large bay windows overlooking the parking lot.
“I was just going to say hello,” Zoe explained as Trevor placed their receipt down to claim the table.
“You can’t,” Trevor said, giving her a little nudge in the direction of one of the buffet lines, the black bag still firmly in his left hand.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s with the enemy,” Trevor said tightly.
Zoe shot a look over at Haley to find Jason glaring in their direction.
“Jason’s the enemy?” Zoe asked, starting to feel a little confused.
She came for entertainment, but instead, she’d found a new level of insanity among the Bradford males.
Well, it was entertaining, but a different form of entertainment than what she’d been expecting.
“Now, you’re getting it,” Trevor said approvingly. “Every bastard from my family is a potential threat. We need to maintain our distance and watch our backs,” he said, sounding completely serious, which she found rather cute.
Really, who would have thought that a large paranoid man could be cute? She certainly hadn’t, she just couldn’t help but find the dirty looks he was sending his cousin anything but cute, especially the way he scowled when Jason discreetly flipped him off.
“Why exactly are they the enemy?” she asked, drawing his attention away from Jason, who appeared to be glaring down at his son as Cole grabbed another fistful of spaghetti from Jason’s plate.
“Because one of them is going to get banned today and if we’re not careful, he’ll take us all down with him,” Trevor said, handing her a plate. “Now, go get some food, some real food.”
With a soft sigh, Zoe took the plate from him and wandered around the long self-serve tables as she looked around to see how many Bradfords were here.
After Jason, she spotted Jared and his wife sitting at the far end, but they didn’t seem to see her, or rather, they didn’t acknowledge her in any way.
She spotted several of the Bradfords that either worked for Jared or stopped by the office from time to time and several large, devastatingly handsome men that could have passed for Bradfords.
As she walked along the buffet tables, trying to figure out what wouldn’t upset her sensitive stomach, she wondered which Bradford would get banned. That, of course, led her back to her earlier thoughts.
How exactly did someone get on a restaurant’s banned list? Or more importantly, how did an entire family manage to get on the list? The possibilities simply boggled the mind.
“You’re with Trevor?” a gruff voice demanded, drawing her attention.
She looked up from adding French cut green beans onto her dish and kept looking up until she saw a rather stern, yet incredibly handsome older man with peppered short black hair looking down at her and looking way too serious for a man with deeply etched laugh lines around his mouth and eyes.
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, we’re friends,” Zoe answered nervously.