NFH 02 Perfection (2 page)

She opened the door, spotted her now
mud caked puppy welcoming mat and let herself into her apartment,
praying that her next door neighbor took it easy on her tonight
since she really wasn't sure that she could handle much
more.

Doing her best not to ruin her
landlord's carpeting, she made her way over to the phone, deciding
that she needed the ultimate pickup after the day she had. She knew
she shouldn't, especially since she would have to live off what
little savings she had, but she just couldn't help herself. She
called up Black Jack's Pizzeria and ordered the special, a two
liter bottle of Coke, a large order of chicken fingers with extra
honey mustard sauce, and an extra large, extra thick Chicago style
pizza called, The Monster.

For once the customary one hour wait
for delivery didn't bother her. She pulled off her mud soaked shoe
and stockings and made her way upstairs to her bedroom and grabbed
a change of clothes as she headed for the bathroom, praying that
her surprisingly quiet neighbor remained that way.

She quickly pulled off her soaked,
coffee stained, and mud splattered skirt suit and looked it over.
As long as she pretreated it and got it into the wash tonight it
should be fine, at least she hoped it would. She didn't exactly
have the funds needed to go out and buy a new suit for job
interviews. This one, with the aid of many interchangeable blouses,
had lasted for three years and she'd been counting on it to last
another two.

After a five minute search she found
her bottle of generic stain pretreatment behind the box of condoms
she bought, what was it now? Three years ago? Or was it five? The
realization that she hadn't had sex in over five years was rather
depressing, she thought, tossing the condoms back under the
bathroom sink so she wouldn't have to look at the depressing
reminder that her love life, social life, and professional life
just plain sucked.

She liberally sprayed her suit, only
wondering if the pretreatment chemical would harm her suit after
she sprayed it. Knowing her luck, the chemical would probably chew
through the imitation silk shirt and stain the suit jacket with
large weird shaped polka dots.

With a resigned sigh, she left the
suit on the sink counter and climbed into her bathtub and turned on
the shower. For the first time all day she felt herself relax. She
stood beneath the hot spray for several minutes just enjoying the
hot water before she applied shampoo to her hair.

A loud squeal escaped her as the water
pressure suddenly dropped and the water went from comfortably hot
to excruciatingly hot in seconds. Startled, she jumped back,
slipped, landed on her butt, and cringed as shampoo seeped into her
eyes.

"Ow, ow, owie!" she mumbled
frantically as her eyes began to burn and her butt throbbed. She
wasn't entirely sure which one bothered her more at the moment, but
she knew which one she could fix.

Taking a deep breath, she shoved her
head under the hot water, silently cursing the low water pressure
that was actually pushing more soap into her closed eyes. At least
the water began to cool, she thought on a sigh before she squealed
again seconds later when the water went ice cold and she was forced
to stand up, hoping that would help the still low water pressure
rinse her hair out faster.

It didn't.

Gasping, she ran her fingers through
her long thick hair and tried to hurry the process. Minutes later
she was jumping out of the shower and cursing the bastard next door
for not only flushing the toilet, but for taking a shower at the
same time as her. The least the jerk could have done when he
realized that she was also taking a shower was wait for her to
finish.

Still grumbling five minutes later and
thankfully dressed in warm clothes, Zoe grabbed her basket of dirty
laundry, a roll of quarters and her damn near empty bottle of
laundry detergent and headed downstairs. Unfortunately she didn't
have a private entrance to the basement so she was forced to
balance her basket of laundry while she did her best not to step in
one of the dozen or so mud splotches that decorated the hallway
floor.

She walked to the door at the end of
the small hallway and flicked on the light switch for the stairs
all while hoping that the jerk hadn't tracked mud down the stairs,
because she really didn't need to fall on her ass again tonight.
Zoe sighed in relief when she spotted the clean pine stairs and
headed down them to the small laundry room.

It wasn't until she placed her basket
on the washing machine that she realized that she'd forgotten her
suit. She half-debated leaving it for another day, but she didn't
want to take the chance of landing an interview tomorrow and having
nothing to wear but jeans.

With a tired sigh, she left her basket
and headed upstairs. At least she had Black Jack's pizza to comfort
her later, she reminded herself.

Chapter 2

How in the hell had he run out of
food? Trevor wondered as he looked in the freezer again, hoping
there was something hiding behind the ice cube trays to
eat.

There wasn't.

Well, there was a box of baking soda
that his Aunt Megan had shoved in there a few months ago when he
bought the place, but he wasn't willing to risk having his stomach
pumped, again. With a frustrated groan he closed the freezer door
and looked out the kitchen window.

He really didn't feel like going out
in this shit, but he was starving and he didn't have any choice. Of
course he could order food, except for the fact that he was still
on the banned list for most of the delivery places.

Bastards.

As tired as he was he knew he had to
move his ass if he was going to make it to the grocery store before
it closed. He headed upstairs, stripping off his sweat soaked tee
shirt, work boots, and jeans as he went, noting that it looked like
every piece of clothing he owned was scattered around his
apartment.

Time to do the laundry, he mused as he
walked into the bathroom. After he relieved himself and flushed the
toilet he could have sworn he heard a squeal. Shrugging it off, he
turned the shower on and cursed up a storm at the low water
pressure. He'd have to fix that, but right now he was just glad
that the water was nice and hot, helping to relieve the ache in his
sore muscles.

Another loud squeak had his eyebrows
arching. It wasn't like his normally quiet tenant to blast the
television, but as long it didn't interrupt his sleep he'd let it
go. After a quick shower he pulled on a semi clean pair of jeans
and grabbed his mesh laundry bag and started collecting clothes off
doors, counters, the back of the toilet and headed
downstairs.

"What the fuck?" he mumbled when he
saw the mud all over his newly tiled hallway floor. Had he done
that? His eyes darted to the ugly ass welcome mat his tenant had
placed near the front door and felt his lips pull up into a shit
eating grin. A few more weeks and he'd have the damn thing
completely covered.

He made his way towards the basement
door, wondering why the hell she'd bought the damn thing. The
inbred looking dogs with buggy eyes gave him the fucking creeps. A
few weeks ago he threw the damn thing in the trash and replaced it
with a Yankees floor mat only to have his aunt toss his floor mat
away and return that hideous fucking thing. It didn't matter that
he owned the house. His aunt thought the mat was "cute" and it was
staying or she would never cook for him again.

He was really starting to get sick of
women trying to control him through food. Not that he was going to
bitch and risk losing out on his aunt's chicken pot pie, he wasn't
a fucking moron after all, but it would be nice if women would stop
using his weakness against him. The Bradford appetite was a
disability, damn it and should be treated as such.

It seemed that every girlfriend he'd
ever had from Jenny in the fifth grade to whatever the hell her
name was last year all tried to control him with food once they
discovered that it was his weakness. Although, he could forgive
Jenny for bribing him with candy bars to beat the shit out of her
brothers, they were assholes after all, but the rest of them truly
pissed him off.

Not that he could fault them for
wanting to marry him, he couldn't. He was a Bradford after all, but
he didn't appreciate their fucking games. How many times had a
woman hinted at marriage while she held a casserole under his nose
or woke him up with breakfast in bed, musing how nice it would be
to do that for him every day? Then when he didn't drop down on one
knee and propose they'd withhold all those tasty treats they'd
promised him. When a woman started the marriage bullshit he sat
them down and explained that they didn't quite live up to his
standards, which for some reason always earned him a slap and a
denial for more delicious tasty treats.

When he got married, and he would one
day, it would be to his perfect woman, the woman who met each and
every one of his requirements. So far no woman had come
close.

His perfect woman would be the best
cook. She'd be able to whip him up a cake at a moment's notice and
would never deny him any of her delicious treats no matter how
badly he pissed her off, and he probably would, every day. She'd
also be tall, hot, and have a body that left him panting for
more.

She'd also have to be financially well
off. Not that he minded supporting his wife, he wouldn't. He just
didn't want a woman too dependent or needy. He wasn't interested in
being anyone's sugar daddy. He wanted a wife that could function
completely without him and wouldn't give a damn when he made last
minute plans to go to New Hampshire for some fishing or decided to
stay out late with the guys. She'd have to come from a big family
so she wouldn't rely on him too much and so she'd have someone to
bitch to at the end of the day and leave him the hell
alone.

His stomach rumbled loudly, reminding
him that he needed to move his ass. He made his way to the laundry
room and dropped his bag by the machine and ran his fingers through
his damp hair to push it out of his eyes. That reminded him that he
needed a haircut. If he didn't get held over tomorrow night, which
wasn't looking very likely since they were trying to bust their
asses to complete the Madison project, he'd swing by Henry's and
get his customary cut.

After dropping his quarters in the
machine he removed the basket left on top of the washer, not really
giving it much thought, and went to pick up his bag of clothes only
to realize that he was out of laundry soap and would have to pick
some up tonight. He really didn't feel like staying up half the
night doing laundry since he had to be up by six in the morning and
have his ass at work by seven.

With a shrug he grabbed the laundry
soap out of the basket, figuring that she'd never miss it and
quickly poured the soap into the washing machine.

"Oops," he sighed when he realized
that was the last of it. With a careless shrug he tossed the now
empty container back on the basket, making a mental note to pick up
another bottle for her at the grocery store.

He quickly dumped his clothes into the
washing machine, not bothering to let it suds up since he was so
damn hungry and made his way back upstairs just as his neighbor was
stepping out of her apartment with a handful of clothes.

"How's it going?" he said, heading for
his door and not really in the mood to speak with her. Not that he
was a snob, he wasn't. He just didn't like to deal with tenants.
That's why he had his aunt deal with all their bullshit. He owned
four apartment houses and only made an appearance when something
needed to be fixed or he found out one of them was giving his aunt
shit.

When he bought this place he'd planned
on leaving the second unit empty until he found some time to
remodel it, but after his aunt suggested that one of his pain in
the ass cousins should move in, he'd decided damn quickly to rent
it out. He'd given his aunt a list of strict rules and this woman
was the only one who'd been willing to agree to them.

From what he heard a lot of the people
that looked at the place bitched and whined over his list, but he
didn't give a fuck. This was his house and he wasn't about to put
up with any bullshit. If they wanted to have their friends over at
all hours of the night, have parties, or blast their music then
they could keep fucking walking, because he wasn't having it. After
working a twelve hour day all he wanted to do was come home to a
nice quiet house and relax.

Thankfully this woman followed his
rules so he never had to bother her or kick her ass out. He had to
admit that the extra income was nice. Granted it only covered half
his grocery bill, but hey, every little penny counted.

"Hi," she mumbled quickly as she
walked past him. He paused to look over his shoulder and frowned.
She was short, chubby, pale, and plain, but she was without a doubt
the best tenant he'd ever had. Maybe he should make that the
requirement for all his tenants, he thought with a
chuckle.

He was just about to open his
apartment door when a knock at the front door caught his attention.
Grumbling, he walked over to the door, hoping his tenant wouldn't
be making a habit of having people over after eight, and opened the
door. He nearly swallowed his tongue when he spotted the familiar
pizza logo on the guy's shirt.