“Jared’s a very good man,” Zoe mumbled, feeling close to crying. When the hell had she become this pathetic woman where everything made her cry? Last night, when she was watching television and one of the old Snuggle fabric softener commercials came on with that cute little bear, she found herself bawling her eyes out. Thank God Trevor hadn’t been there, but poor Toby hadn’t fared as well. She’d hugged the dog, crying into his fur until he’d managed to break free and run to the safety of Trevor’s apartment.
The man looked at her curiously. “Will we be seeing you this Thursday?”
“For Thanksgiving?” Zoe asked, wondering why the man would think that she’d be joining a family dinner. When he nodded, she said, “No, I have plans.” The same plans she had every year since she’d turned fifteen. It was a tradition, mostly because she’d never had another choice, but one that she actually enjoyed immensely.
He sighed heavily as he absently reached out and took her plate from her. He started piling food on the plate. “Alright, sweetheart, you make sure that 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, Zoe thought as she made her way back to Trevor. Thankfully, by the time that 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 two large plates overflowing with food to the other side of the restaurant 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!” Zoe snapped, grabbing a napkin and dabbing at her eyes. “I’m just tired.” Which was sadly true. She really couldn’t understand why she was feeling this exhausted since she’d managed to sleep away most of the weekend.
Trevor looked at her for a moment before letting out a heavy breath. “You need to make a doctor’s appointment to make sure that 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 hadn’t considered that possibility when she’d decided to go on the diet. She’d lost a lot of weight and while her energy had gone up in the beginning, but it was lagging most of the time now. Lately, she felt exhausted no matter how much sleep she managed to get. With her luck, she’d probably made herself really sick with that damn diet.
“I’ll make an appointment tomorrow,” Zoe promised. Hopefully, they could get her in before Thanksgiving because she wasn’t sure that she could keep this up.
“Good,” Trevor said, giving her the look that meant he would spank her ass if she didn’t.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked 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 that 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,” Trevor 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,” Zoe said, even more confused and admittedly a little frightened. Seriously, what the hell happened? And would they do it again so that she could watch?
Chapter 24
“Wow, I’ve never seen Jason look so angry before,” Zoe whispered.
Trevor 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 had been 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 Trevor saluted Jason with a drumstick a minute ago.
Ah, good times, Trevor thought as he focused his attention on Zoe, who looked a little bored. If she had been born 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, Trevor thought with an inward groan. Then again, she had been doing pretty good with the plate his uncle put together for her, until halfway through, she suddenly stopped eating, looked 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 that he’d grabbed for her had further upset her stomach, she was doing okay with the glass of ginger ale he got for her.
“Is there going to be a riot?” she asked, looking really fucking hopeful. “Or a fight? How exactly do you guys get yourselves banned?”
