Chapter 26 #2
After Trevor’s 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 with him.
Not that it was much of a risk considering that he hadn’t 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 their 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 least she could drown her sorrows in extra duck sauce, Zoe 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 after she’d stopped screaming hysterically, Zoe pressed a hand to her chest and wondered if her heart was ever going to be able to stop pounding. “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!” Zoe snapped.
Trevor shrugged as he continued petting 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,” Zoe 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, Zoe turned her attention back to Trevor to find the man glaring down 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?
” Zoe 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 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 dinner.
“Why?” Zoe asked, reaching over to open the bag closest to her only to pause halfway there. She threw Jason a questioning look. “Did you just growl at me?”
He gave her a sheepish smile and a shrug. “Sorry, habit.”
With a few muttered words about Bradfords and their food obsession, Zoe 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.
Wasn’t he just eating chicken fingers? With a mental shake, she forced herself to focus on the really pissed-off man in front of her.
“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...”
Her words trailed off as she looked at Jason.
Hadn’t he just been 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 for her, the scents that she’d thought were enticing only a few minutes earlier were actually starting to turn her stomach.
“Look, I don’t have 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?” Zoe 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,” Trevor snapped.
“Um, I was having Thanksgiving dinner,” Zoe pointed out, not bothering to add that she planned on sending the bags of food with them, 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 when a wave of dizziness hit her.
“Are you okay?” Jason asked around a mouthful of food.
“Yeah,” Zoe 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.
Trevor 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 that 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.
“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 and you’re my landlord!
That’s it! You have no business coming in here and telling me what to do!
” Zoe yelled, feeling herself tear up, but she couldn’t help it.
She was so exhausted. She was physically tired and 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!” Trevor said, clenching and unclenching his hands by his sides as though he were fighting back the urge to grab her.
“What are you, then?” Zoe demanded, taking a step towards him. “Are you my employer? My friend? Or my fuck buddy? Because the 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 another 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,” Zoe said, wiping 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’d 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.