Perfection (Neighbor from Hell 2)

Tomorrow she would find a new place, a smaller place that she'd be able to afford with her savings for the few months that she wouldn't be able to work. She didn't have to ask to know that Trevor would help her financially, at least where the kids were concerned. It was more than her mother ever had so at least she wouldn't ever have to worry that she wouldn't be able to support her kids, because Trevor wasn't the kind of guy to skip town just to get out of child support like her own father had.

If worse came to worse she could always ask Trevor to rent her one of his apartments. It wouldn't be an ideal situation, especially once he got married, but if she had no choice she'd suck it up for her kids. This really wasn't the way she wanted to start a family, but none of that mattered now. What was done was done.

Tonight was her one special night with Trevor and she was going to enjoy it, she decided as she pulled on her green blouse and fixed her hair. Everything was going to be perfect.

A small knock at her door caught her attention. She gave her hair another look and decided there just wasn't any way to hide the small white bandage of her forehead. Taking a deep breath she shoved away her disappointment that she wasn't more of a girly girl and opened her bedroom door and forgot how to breathe as she came face to face with a bouquet of baby pink roses held by one of the best looking men she'd ever seen and tonight he was all hers.

Tonight was going to be perfect.

*********

"This is my date," Trevor bit out tightly, gesturing towards her and looking more irritated than he had a minute ago when the hot brunette came sauntering over to their table and started flirting outrageously with him.

So much for her one perfect night, she thought with a small sigh as she picked up her apple juice and took a sip and looked around for their waitress. When she spotted her across the room, Zoe gestured for the woman, deciding that she'd waited long enough to place their order. Since they walked into Joe's Tavern forty-five minutes ago they hadn't been able to say more than two words to each other because of the constant flow of either women coming over to flirt with him or guys from work coming over to chat with him.

If they saw her sitting at the small round table with Trevor they didn't show it. While most of them smoothly stepped in front of Trevor to block her out, a few guys had invited him to join them at their tables with the rest of the guys and one woman had actually asked Zoe for her seat so she could sit next to Trevor. When Trevor explained that he was with someone, a.k.a. her, a few had looked a little stunned, one guy had laughed like it a was a joke until he caught sight of Trevor's glare and sadly more than a few women had told Trevor how sweet it was to see a man spend time with his sister and left their numbers on the table for him.

"Oh, really?" the woman asked, looking her over and frowning down at her before she clearly dismissed her and went back to flirting with Trevor.

Oh, well, she thought as she gave the woman and Trevor her back and placed her order with the waitress. Trevor tried to get the waitress' attention, but the bombshell next to him wasn't giving up so easily so Zoe just went ahead and ordered him the "All you can eat chicken wing" platter.

"I'm sorry. I can't serve him that item," the waitress said, only somewhat surprising her since she had a pretty good idea why.

"Why not?" she found herself asking anyway out of curiosity to see if she was right and to have something to do to kill some time since it appeared that Trevor was busy trying to get the woman to leave.

"Because he's a Bradford," the woman explained with a shrug.

"Okay, can you bring him two cheeseburger platters then?" she asked, knowing if she didn't there was a good chance that he'd steal her food and for the first time in weeks she was ravenousness and wasn't about to share her food.

"Sure, it will be about a half hour," the waitress said, taking their menus.

A half hour? She was starving. She was pregnant with Bradford twins for god sake's and she was very much afraid that for the next seven months she'd be in a state of constant hunger as she tried uselessly to satisfy the Bradford appetite.

She really wasn't sure how she was going to survive this pregnancy or more importantly survive another thirty minutes without food. That nausea pill had done wonders for her body and she wanted, no needed, food or she was pretty sure she would die.

"If I order an appetizer is there any chance I can get it quickly? I'm two and a half months pregnant with a Bradford," she said, not mentioning it was twins because the thought was actually starting to scare her and she hadn't told Trevor yet and didn't want him finding out this way. She just hoped the woman understood because she was close to crying. Judging by the slightly startled look on the woman's face she did.

The waitress shook her head. "No, you're right. You probably won't be able to survive the wait," she said, sending Trevor, who was still trying to get the woman to leave, a glare. "I'll bring you out a bowl of clam chowder followed by chicken fingers, they'll only take a few minutes to prepare. Will that work?"

Zoe nodded solemnly. "You are my hero."

"I'll put a rush on your food," the waitress said before walking away.

"Bless you," Zoe said, fighting the urge to kiss the woman. She was starving. She really couldn't remember ever being this hungry before. Was this how it felt to be a Bradford? she idly wondered as the woman who'd been flirting with Trevor stormed off in a huff.

"I'm really sorry about that," Trevor said, sighing as he rubbed the back of his neck, looking frustrated.

"It's fine," she said, shrugging it off.

There really wasn't anything he could do about it. As much as she would have liked one perfect night with him she wasn't too angry. It was probably for the best that they didn't have a perfect night together so that she didn't have something truly wonderful to reminisce over and have "what if?" thoughts about later.

"No, it's not. This is our first date," he said, reaching over and took her hand into his. She tried to pull her hand away, but he wasn't having that. Holding on to her hand tightly, but not enough to hurt, he shifted his chair closer to her.

"Maybe we should just focus on having a nice time out as friends instead of trying for the impossible," she said, trying to pull her hand away only to find herself tugged forward and her mouth covered.

He brushed his lips over hers several times before pulling back just far enough so that he could look into her eyes as he spoke. "This is a date, Zoe. Don't try to downplay what we've got going on just because you're afraid to see where this is headed," he said softly.