He spotted a note on his counter with a small pile of money and frowned. He’d given her three hundred and fifty dollars to fill his kitchen up with food and she’d only spent a hundred and fifty of that. He’d have to tell her to spend it all next time, otherwise, she’d be making multiple trips to the store every week for him.
Wondering what she bought, he opened the fridge door and felt his mouth drop open. His fridge was completely packed with food. He moved onto the freezer and cabinets and couldn’t believe that she’d managed to buy twice the amount of food that he usually bought with less money.
Zoe rocked, Trevor decided as he returned to the fridge and pulled out items to make a sandwich. After he scarfed down three sandwiches and half a bag of chips, he headed upstairs and took a shower. He was just about to head downstairs for that ice cream he’d been dreaming about when he thought he heard movement next door. He needed to look into getting the walls insulated, he decided.
“Zoe?”
“Yeah?”
He looked around his clean room, noting the freshly made bed, the laundry basket full of folded clothes and felt like he should say something. “Thank you for everything you did today,” Trevor said awkwardly, feeling pretty damn stupid.
She chuckled. “You’re welcome, and don’t worry, I’m keeping track of my hours, although I was tempted to charge you hazard pay after I saw your bathroom.”
He actually cringed at that. It had been pretty bad and if she was anything more than a tenant or an employee, he’d probably be embarrassed, but she wasn’t. So, it didn’t really matter, Trevor decided with a careless shrug.
“Let me know how many hours you got and I’ll pay you on Friday,” Trevor said, already dismissing her and heading for the bedroom door.
“Okay,” she said, laughing and making him pause at the door.
“What are you laughing at?” Trevor asked out of curiosity. In the past two months that she’d lived here, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her smile or hearing her laugh before.
“Huh? Oh, just something in this book that I’m reading,” she said, sounding relaxed, which he guessed was nice, and of course, because of him since he’d improved her life with his generosity.
“What are you reading?”
“Twilight.”
Why did that name sound familiar? It took him a minute before it came to him. “Is that the vampire series they made into a movie?” he asked. He’d heard a few good things about the books and kept meaning to buy the audio file so he could listen to it, but he’d never found the time.
“Yes, I’m reading it for the fifth time.”
Fifth time? Now, he was intrigued. That meant it had to be good.
“Read some for me,” Trevor said, walking over to his bed and laying back, resting his arms behind his head, waiting expectantly for her to read to him.
She sighed heavily. “You can borrow it after I’m done.”
He snorted at that suggestion. It would take him years to read a book and he just didn’t have the time or patience for that.
“I won’t have time and you’re reading it now, so it just makes more sense to save time and read it out loud, don’t you think?” Trevor said, slipping into old habits. He’d never had a problem convincing anyone that doing something for him was actually to their benefit before.
So, he wasn’t too surprised when she said, “Fine,” sounding put out, but that didn’t bother him as long as she did what he wanted.
“You’ll start from the beginning, right?” he said, grinning when she let out a surprisingly cute growl.
“Fine,” she snapped.
“There’s lots of sex in this book, right?”
“Oh, yeah, there’s lots of sex in this book,” Zoe said brightly.
“Excellent.”
Chapter 7
“Um, are you going to move?” Zoe asked when he hadn’t moved in over two minutes. “I kind of have to get in there,” she said, tentatively pointing past him towards the office trailer. If he didn’t move soon, she was going to be late and she didn’t want to start her first day on the job by getting yelled at.
A muscle ticked beneath Jason’s eye as he continued to glare down at her. It was rather unnerving and she had to wonder how such a sweet woman married him. Zoe considered trying to walk around him but knew that it would be pointless. He’d just move to block her, again.
