Perfection (Neighbor from Hell #2)(64)

He sighed heavily as he absently reached out and took her plate from her and starting piling it with food almost as if he wasn't aware of what he was doing. "Alright, sweetheart, you make sure you give Trevor the message and have yourself a nice Thanksgiving," he said, placing two large dinner rolls on the plate. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead and even more surprising, placed the large plate filled to the rim with food back in her hands.

"Thank you," she murmured, looking down at her plate and feeling her eyes tear up at the gesture. A Bradford giving up food? It was unheard of and very sweet, she thought as she made her way over to Trevor. Thankfully by the time she was sliding into the booth across from Trevor her eyes had dried up and her traitorous stomach was demanding food, which was a blessing after the weekend she'd had.

"What the hell did my Uncle Ethan say that upset you?" Trevor asked, starting to get up and presumably go have a word with his uncle.

Zoe rolled her eyes as she reached out and placed a hand on his arm. "Nothing. He was very sweet."

The glare he sent his uncle, who was now carrying a large plate of food to an area well away from Jared and Jason clearly stated that he didn't believe her. He looked like he wanted to tear his uncle's head off and that just made Zoe want to cry again.

"Are you crying?" Trevor whispered, sounding truly horrified.

"No!" she snapped, grabbing a napkin and dabbing at her eyes. "I'm just tired." Which was sadly true and she really couldn't understand it since she should be caught up on her sleep considering she'd slept most of the weekend away.

Trevor looked at her for a moment before letting out a heavy breath. "You need to make a doctor's appointment to make sure you didn't make yourself sick with that diet. You could be anemic," he said as he reached out and snagged one of her biscuits.

She frowned at the thought. She really hadn't considered that possibility when she decided to go on her diet, but she'd lost weight and while her energy had gone up in the beginning it was lagging most of the time now and she felt tired and weak lately. With her luck she'd probably made herself really sick with that damn diet.

"I'll make an appointment tomorrow," she promised. Hopefully they could get her in before the holiday weekend started on Thursday, because she really wasn't sure she could keep this up.

"Good," he said, giving her the look that meant he would spank her ass if she didn't.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said as she scooped up a bite of meatloaf.

"Shoot," he said, not bothering to look up from his plate while he ate or when his hand shot out and stole her second roll.

"What happened in Las Vegas and Disneyworld?

His fork stopped halfway to his mouth as his eyes shot to her. He pointed a mashed potato filled fork in her direction. "What did that bastard tell you? Did he tell you we got the family banned?"

"Well, he-," but he wouldn't let her finish.

"Because that's bullshit. Okay, maybe the Las Vegas thing was our fault, well mostly Uncle Jared's and Jason's fault, but it was supposed to be a twenty-four hour buffet," he explained. "And that Disneyworld thing," he shook his head in disgust, "was all a simple misunderstanding. There was no need to get the police involved," he said on a sniff.

"Um, okay," she said even more confused and admittedly a little frightened. Seriously, what had they done? And would they do it again so that she could see?

Chapter 24

"Wow, I've never seen Jason look so angry before," Zoe whispered.

He didn't bother looking up from his large plate of fried chicken, but he did smile. The look on Jason's face when he'd stolen the last piece of chicken off his plate was priceless and he may have rubbed it in Jason's face a little bit until he thought his cousin was going to lunge for his throat.

He probably would have too if Haley hadn't handed their infant daughter over to Jason. The murderous glare on Jason's face was instantly replaced by one of adoration as he pressed little kisses on the little baby girl's face. That is until he saluted Jason with a drumstick a minute ago.

Ah, good times, he thought, as he focused his attention on Zoe, who looked a little bored. If she was a Bradford she wouldn't be bored. This would be like winning the lottery to her, but alas she wasn't and he couldn't exactly encourage her to kill time by eating since she would probably bitch slap him for the suggestion, steal his chicken, and give it to Jason just to screw him over.

Granted, he wouldn't mind seeing her eat a little more food. He really missed how much fuller her curves used to be, he thought with a little inward groan. Then again she had been doing pretty good with that plate his uncle put together for her until halfway through she suddenly stopped eating, looking a little pale and pushed the food towards him as if she was afraid it was going to attack her.

Damn food poisoning.

Since he'd had food poisoning more than once in his life he could sympathize with her. It wasn't a whole hell of a lot of fun, especially not being able to eat. Although the cup of tea he went and grabbed for her did anything but calm her stomach she did manage to sip the glass of ginger ale he gave her.

"Is there going to be a riot?" she asked, looking and sounding hopeful. "Or a fight? How exactly do you guys get yourselves banned?"