Double Dare (Neighbor from Hell #6)(19)

Darrin considered beating the shit out of his brother, but at that moment the elevator doors opened, revealing the reason that they’d been called.

“I quit, mother f*ckers!” the plump middle-aged woman standing on the receptionist’s desk announced, adding a “Whoo-hooo!” at the end there just as she yanked off her blouse and waved it above her head.

Sighing, Darrin reached back, grabbed Reese by the back of his neck and shoved him towards the overly excited woman just as she tore off her bra and sent it flying.

“You’ll pay for this, you son of a bitch!” Reese hissed as the bra slapped him in the face seconds before the woman spotted him and decided to try her hand at stage diving.

Chapter 7

“But they asked for mint green,” Uncle Jared said, looking adorably confused as he looked helplessly around the large living room.

“We’ve been over this,” she said, gesturing for Bill, one of her crewmembers, to start work in the large foyer.

“They’re not going to be happy,” he said with a slight pout as he looked from the paint sample in his hand that the clients had picked out to the colonial green that now covered the walls.

“It was tacky and glowed. They would have been calling me to repaint the room within a week. This way I saved time and money by fixing their mistake now,” she said, glancing down at her watch with a scowl.

Where was that bastard?

“Yes, but-”

Sighing, she reached into her bag and pulled out the photo she’d printed out last night. “Give them this.”

He frowned down at the photo. “Is this the color they picked?”

“That would be the very one,” she said, grabbing her backpack and threw it over her shoulder as she headed for the front door.

“God, this is horrible,” Uncle Jared said, catching up with her.

“It’s an institutional color,” she pointed out, glancing around the large yard, looking for Darrin, but the bastard wasn’t there.

“Well, now you’re just exaggerating. This could be from-”

Too hungry and admittedly bitchy, she pointed at the caption at the bottom of the picture. “That’s from Riker’s Island.”

“Oh…”

“Just explain that this color will add more warmth and sophistication as well as complement their furniture and you should be all set,” she said, heading towards her truck, relieved when one of Uncle Jared’s employees managed to distract him so that she could make a clean break.

“Damn it,” she muttered pathetically a minute later when she turned on her car and saw the time flashing on the dashboard.

She was already ten minutes late for her appointment, starving, cranky, tired and sore from last night. All she wanted to do was go home, fill a bucket with ice and beer, pull out the kiddie pool she’d bought last summer for the kids, fill it to the brim with cold water and lounge in it for the rest of the night. But unfortunately for her that wasn’t an option. She couldn’t skip this appointment.

She also couldn’t put off lunch until after this appointment, because she was starting to feel lightheaded. Sighing heavily, she resigned herself to getting bitched out by Marge, the receptionist from hell, and headed towards Roy’s Roast Beef.

Thirty minutes later, she was juggling two large brown paper bags in her arms and trying to open the front door for Bradford Medical Associates. It took two minutes, some prodding and shoving before Marge finally walked over and opened the door for her.

“You’re forty-five minutes late,” Marge said with that same scowl that she’d been wearing since Marybeth was a kid.

“Traffic,” Marybeth said with a shrug, not bothering to apologize since she knew from experience that would only piss the receptionist off more.

Marge walked away with a long-suffering sigh. “You can wait in his office if you want.”

Leaning down just enough so that she could take a sip from the straw that was poking out from one of the bags, she looked around the small waiting room, noting that the only available chair was between a kid who seemed utterly fascinated with the content of his nose and a middle-aged man moaning miserably into a large bucket and decided to take Marge up on her offer to get rid of her. Still sipping her root beer, she walked towards the back hall. She paused at the first office door and tapped it with her foot.

Thirty seconds later the door opened and she was relieved of one of her bags. “Thank you, sweetheart,” Dr. Bradford, Darrin’s father, said with a warm smile as he closed the door behind him and returned to what sounded like a phone call with a surgeon.

Continuing to sip her soda, she walked down the hallway until she came to the door marked, “Dr. Aidan Bradford.” Hugging the remaining bag against her chest, she knocked on the door and waited. When there was no response, she opened the door and walked inside, making sure to close the door behind her.

She walked over to the leather couch by the large bay window, placed the bag overflowing with roast beef sandwiches and crinkly fries on the coffee table and pulled her drink out and sat down. Knowing that she didn’t have much time before Aidan caught the scent of roast beef and fries, she dug her sandwich and fries out of the bag and started eating.

Not even a minute later, Aidan walked into his office, sighing heavily as he tossed a folder on his desk. Without a word, he sat down next to her on the couch. He picked up her soda and took a sip as he reached into the bag and started pulling out the sandwiches that she’d ordered for him.