The Game Plan (Neighbor from Hell #5)(9)

“I said f*ck off!” Danny snapped as the laundry room door crashed open and the only man in the world that could possibly make her day worse came storming in, carrying an overflowing basket of clothes and looking furious.

Chuckling, Trevor continued to walk past the laundry room door, seemingly oblivious to the panicked looks that she was sending his way. “See you bright and early tomorrow morning, Mr. Foreman!”

“I f*cking hate that bastard,” Danny muttered, focusing all of his attention on violently shoving the basketful of clothes into the only other washing machine in the room.

Deciding to take advantage of the fact that he hadn’t seemed to notice her yet, she placed her empty basket on the dryer that she was planning on using once the washing machine was finished, and walked out of the room casually, hoping that she didn’t draw his attention. When he didn’t say anything to make her want to bash her laundry basket upside his head, she walked down the hallway and let herself into her apartment. She set the timer on her phone for thirty minutes and was just about to dig into some of the Ben and Jerry’s that she’d bought herself on the way home when the rolled up city trash bags that she’d also purchased at the gas station caught her eye.

It was trash night, which meant that her date with Ben and Jerry’s was going to have to wait a little while, unfortunately. Then again, she could always do it later……

No, no she couldn’t, she thought, knowing that the longer she put off taking the trash out front, the more likely that she was going to decide to put it off until tomorrow morning and then forget to do it all together. Since her two assigned trashcans were surprisingly filled this week, she didn’t have much of a choice. If she didn’t get the trash out tonight then she’d have to wait until next week to get rid of it. She’d also have to put her trash from this week in front of her barrels. That would lead to getting hit with a warning for breaking one of her lease agreements and risking her bags being ripped into by animals, which she would be responsible for cleaning or risk another warning.

Since she doubted that she’d be able to find an apartment this nice for so cheap, three hundred dollars cheaper now, she decided to just suck it up and get off her ass and get it done. Grabbing the roll of city trash bags, she left her apartment and headed to the back entrance. Five minutes later she was standing in front of her assigned trashcans, frowning down at the overstuffed bags filling her cans.

She really didn’t remember filling the bags that much. For a second she wondered if someone else had shoved a bag in her can, but just as quickly she dismissed it. For one thing, even though most of the guys that lived here were arrogant bastards, they weren’t pricks. They wouldn’t do that to her. Well, Danny probably would, she thought, pursing her lips up, but she knew that he hadn’t stuffed her cans full because he used black trash bags while she used the small white kitchen bags.

Realizing that she must have had more trash than she thought, she pulled a city trash bag off the roll and opened it, shaking it loose so that she could fill it with her bags. As she grabbed the first bag, and almost fell over from the weight of it, she couldn’t help but think that it was pretty messed up that the city charged two bucks a bag for trash removal when they paid taxes that were specifically allocated for the sanitation department. It just seemed a bit ridiculous to her. The city shouldn’t be able to double charge-

“Oh my God!” she shrieked as the bag that she’d been in the process of pulling out of the trashcan suddenly ripped open. The sudden difference in weight threw her off balance. It caused her to stumble back several feet as the gooey contents of the bag spilled out and covered her just as the most repulsive odor that she’d ever smelled hit her, making her gag just before she stumbled back another step, slipped on some goo and went flying, landing on her ass in a big puddle of the smelly, gooey goop.

Too stunned and admittedly busy trying not to vomit, she sat there, staring down at herself in horror, wondering how such a thing could happen when her night suddenly got a hell of a lot worse.

“What the hell are you doing?”

*-*-*-*

“I’m going to say this as nicely as I possibly can,” Tinkerbelle said as he caught a whiff of a vile odor that was vaguely familiar. “If you even think about calling me Tinkerbelle or say anything even remotely annoying right now I will kill you!”

“I see,” he murmured absently as he took in the scene and in less than thirty seconds he realized that his cousin had seriously f*cked up.

Bradfords didn’t normally throw away food. It just wasn’t in their DNA to waste food even if it was past its expiration date and growing penicillin. They simply scraped the fungus off, covered it in ketchup and savored it. They didn’t believe in wasting food, none of them did, but since Trevor had fallen in love with Zoe and married her……

Well, they’d made an exception to that rule since none of them had the balls to tell Zoe that her cooking sucked, especially the bastard that married her. Most nights Trevor was able to force himself to eat what his wife cooked, but some nights like the other night, the man couldn’t force himself to do the impossible. When those nights came, Trevor took the coward’s way out and found a way to throw the leftovers out without Zoe finding out.

Since he couldn’t throw the food away at his house and take the chance of his wife finding out, Trevor usually brought the waste to one of his apartment houses and dumped it in one of their cousin’s trashcans, which was no doubt why Trevor had been here today. The only problem it seemed was that Trevor had royally f*cked up tonight and placed the trash bags filled with toxic waste in Tinkerbelle’s barrels.