Read Fire & Brimstone: A Neighbor from Hell Online
Authors: R.L. Mathewson
Fire & Brimstone: A Neighbor from Hell (6 page)
Chapter 9
Two soul-crushing weeks later…
“What if we put a couple of computers on the tables by the back corner?” his own personal version of hell asked distractedly as she continued to gaze around the large open dining area, looking for more changes to make.
“No,” he said evenly, taking a bite out of his cheeseburger as he looked over last night’s sales, hoping that she would take the hint and leave him alone.
“It might bring in a new customer base,” she said, using the three words that she seemed to have fallen in love with over the last two weeks.
“No, it wouldn’t,” he said, wondering why she couldn’t leave him alone for five minutes so that he could enjoy his after lunch snack in peace.
“But, it might if you gave away free internet and-” she started to explain in that excited tone of hers that she’d developed recently, the one that told him that she was about to try to explain her latest idea in under thirty seconds as though that would somehow make him say yes.
It wouldn’t.
What it did do was give him one hell of a headache.
“It’s not happening,” he said, hoping that she would let it go.
She really needed to stop before he lost his goddamn mind, he decided as he reached for his drink only to find it empty. Glaring at the bartender busy at the other end of the bar, he grabbed her Coke instead and finished it off. Not seeming bothered by the fact that he’d stolen her drink, she simply walked around the bar and refilled both their glasses while she continued to look for new ways to improve his restaurant.
Then again, over the past two weeks he’d been forced to steal her food since she was always bugging the shit out of him. At first she had simply stood there, shifting her gaze from him to the food he’d stolen and back again before she’d inform him that he’d stolen her food. When he pointedly kept his gaze locked with hers and helped himself to the rest of her food, she shrugged it off with a sigh and returned to her sale’s pitch.
“Have you given any more thought to the brunch buffet?” she asked as she placed his soda back in front of him.
Picking up his glass, he repressed a shiver of revulsion at the idea, and said, “No.”
“It’s a good idea,” she said as she returned to looking around the restaurant, once again determined to prove that he needed her.
He really didn’t and he would point that out, but that would probably only encourage her to try harder and he definitely didn’t want that. Today was the day that he was going to be proven right and she was trying to do everything in her power to show him that she was an essential part of the team so that he wouldn’t fire her ass.
The last part was a summarization of what she’d said when he’d asked her why she was driving him out of his fucking mind. She was worried that once they found out the test results that he would immediately fire her. Normally he would probably do that, because she did have a tendency to annoy the shit out of him, but he’d once again found himself in a moral dilemma.
Firing her after she’d agreed to do something that she hadn’t wanted to do felt…
wrong
. He couldn’t explain it and he didn’t like it, but there it was. He wasn’t going to fire her and he should have probably told her that so that she wouldn’t have to worry, but that would only create more problems. It was for the best that she didn’t know that her job was safe, otherwise he would probably have to deal with the devious woman pulling more shit behind his back and to be honest, he liked her better this way.
Even though she was still bugging the shit out of him, she was on her best behavior. So far, in the past two weeks she hadn’t gone behind his back and did anything major, tried managing him with that damn clipboard or that innocent little smile of hers.
It had been fucking perfect.
“New dessert menu?” she suggested, obviously getting desperate if she was starting to repeat herself.
“There’s nothing wrong with the dessert menu,” he said, shifting his attention back to the paperwork in front of him even though he was already thinking about changing the dessert menu. Not that he would tell her that since it would only encourage her.
“It needs pie,” she said matter-of-factly.
“It doesn’t need pie.”
But, it really did.
Damn it, now he wanted pie.
“Shouldn’t you be working?” he asked, wondering if he had time to go down the street and get a few pies before his brother showed up with the test results.
“Today’s my day off,” she said with a heavy sigh as she walked back around the bar and sat down on the barstool next to him.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Killing time and covering for Jane and Erin so they could take a break,” she said with another one of her shrugs as she stole a fry off his plate, making him wonder if she was suicidal.
Momentarily distracted by the fact that she’d had the audacity to come within twelve inches of his plate, he looked up from his paperwork and glanced around the dinning room. The dinning area was packed, but the customers were smiling, had their food, their drinks were filled and there wasn’t a waitress in sight.
“There should be four waitresses on right now,” he mumbled to himself, wondering where everyone was.
“Yes, yes there really should be,” Rebecca readily agreed. “But Tammy called in sick and Jenny quit last night so-”
“Jenny quit?” he asked, trying to picture her face, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember who she was.
“Ummm, you made her cry yesterday?”
No, that still didn’t help. “And she quit?” he asked, wondering how he kept ending up hiring waitresses that couldn’t handle a little criticism.
“Yeah, imagine that,” she said dryly as her attention shifted to the door where two of his waitresses were walking in, smiling and carrying a plastic takeout box.
“Thank you so much for covering for us, Rebecca,” Jane said with a warm smile as she placed the takeout box on the bar in front of Rebecca, which is where his focus may have shifted.
“You’re welcome,” he vaguely heard Rebecca say as he sat there, glaring down at the box, trying to figure out why he was smelling apples, cinnamon, pumpkin and vanilla.
“Melanie thinks that your brother is going to tell me that I’m diabetic,” she explained as she reached over the bar and grabbed some silverware.
“They would have already caught that,” he pointed out, wondering if it was some kind of Danish.
“That’s what I said, but she’s determined that’s what it is,” she said with a heartfelt sigh as she flipped the cover open and-
“Oh, God,” he groaned as he took in the beautiful sight before him.
Three, no four, large slices of pumpkin and apple pie topped with a massive amount of French vanilla ice cream. All that flaky, buttery crust just begging for his attention…
“Here,” she said, stabbing a second spoon in the ice cream.
Not needing to be told twice, and willing to overlook the fact that she expected him to share, he dug in.
Digging into a slice of pumpkin pie, she said, “She’s been going nuts on WebMD and is convinced that all my symptoms are a perfect match for Type II diabetes.”
“She’s that convinced, huh?” he asked as he stole a bite of her pumpkin pie.
God, this was good. He was going to have to find out where they got this pie from and start ordering from there for the restaurant.
“Yeah, she’s so sure that’s what this is that she’s promised to go on a diabetic diet with me, cutting down on the sugar and all that crap.”
“Doesn’t she have a sweet tooth?”
Shaking her head, she finished the bite of pie that she was working on and said, “No, she’s addicted to carbs, like cakes, cookies, muffins, donuts, that sort of thing. She’s decided to cut back on those if I have diabetes to be supportive.”
“That’s nice of her,” he said absently, not sure that he’d be willing to give up one of the five food groups for anyone.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, absently breaking apart a small piece of crust as she sat there, gazing down at the pie, looking lost in thought.
“Is that why you’re binging on pie? Just in case it comes back positive?” he asked, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
She shrugged as she continued turning that piece of crust into a small pile of crumbs. “I have a tendency to eat too much when I’m stressed.”
“I see,” he said, wondering if it would be considered rude if he finished off the rest of the pie and ice cream and wondering why he suddenly cared.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, starting to look a little pale.
“Are you okay?” he asked when it became obvious that she wasn’t. He knew that look well enough to know that she was about to race to the nearest bathroom, making him wonder if Melanie was right about her being diabetic.
He reached over and pulled her stool out for her, nodding when she gave him a muttered, “Thanks,” and watched as she raced towards the back of the restaurant where the bathrooms and the backstairs leading upstairs were located.
Sighing, he returned his attention to the pie, absently stabbing it with his fork as he made the decision to kick his brother’s ass if he didn’t figure this out before it broke her.
Chapter 10
“Mojo, move,” she said weakly as she dropped on the bed and curled up on her side, not at all surprised when Mojo ignored her request and did the opposite, stretching out and nearly shoving her off the bed.
“Thanks,” she said dryly as she curled up, kicking herself for not grabbing a can of Coke on the way to her bedroom so that she could die in comfort.
“Mojo, go get Mommy a Coke,” she said as she closed her eyes and curled up into herself, thankful for the small space the dog allowed her.
Maybe she should look into obedience class again, but at nearly two years old he was probably set in his ways. Maybe if she promised to let him have all the leftovers in the fridge he’d let her have the bed? It was worth a shot, she decided as she mentally prepared herself for the grueling task of crawling off the bed and walking the thirty or so feet to the kitchen and back.
She really needed to look into getting a mini-fridge for her room.
Groaning, and no, she really didn’t care how pathetic she sounded at the moment, she opened her eyes and tried to roll over onto her back, but Mojo’s massive paws stopped her. Deciding that it was just too much work after all, she closed her eyes, curled back onto her side and tried to think about anything other than how much her stomach hurt.
“Mojo, move,” Lucifer, a man that she was pretty sure that she hadn’t invited into her bedroom, never mind her apartment, said.
Too sick to open her eyes, she grumbled, “He’s not going to listen,” just as she felt the massive dog that clearly didn’t understand the meaning of loyalty, move away from her. A few seconds later, she heard Mojo grunt as he climbed off the bed.
“You left the door unlocked,” he said as she felt the bed dip next to her, which of course led to her next question.
“Tell me that you didn’t just climb in bed with me,” she said, praying that she was mistaken.
“Fine. I wont,” he said, but she knew that the large son of a bitch had done exactly that.
“Get out,” she said, too tired to play this game with him.
“Can’t do that.”
“And why’s that?” she asked, wishing that she’d trained Mojo to attack, but with her luck, he probably wouldn’t listen to her anyway.
“Because I’m not done with my pie yet,” he said around a mouthful of
her
pie.
That would teach her for sharing, she thought bitterly with a wince as her stomach cramped up, forcing her to wrap her arms around her stomach and try to breathe through the worst of the pain. You’d think that she would be used to this, but every time the pain hit, it felt worse than the last time. The only thing that even remotely helped was a hot bath, but right now it would hurt too much to try and climb into the tub right now.
Besides, she was saving all of her energy to throw her unwanted guest out.
“I’ll be right back.”
She opened her mouth to tell him not to bother only to gasp in pain as the move caused more pain to tear through her stomach. Okay, so maybe right now was not the best time to kick him out, she decided as she squeezed her eyes shut tightly and pressed her arms more firmly against her stomach to stop the pain from spreading.
“Here,” Lucifer said, taking her hand and placing it on something cold, but more pain instantly shot through her stomach. Shaking her head, because she thought that she was going to be sick again, she pulled her hand back and placed it on her stomach.
She heard him mutter something and then, she felt him climbing back on the bed and-
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, going completely still as she told herself that she was imagining this.
“Is it helping?” he demanded instead of explaining why he’d thought that it was a good idea to climb in bed with her and spoon her, wrapping his arms tightly around her and pulling her closer.
“It’s definitely creeping me out!” she snapped, because she couldn’t tell him that it was actually helping her and that some of the pain was subsiding.
“That didn’t answer my questions,” he said, adjusting his hold around her and making the pain bearable.
It didn’t go away, but at least she didn’t feel like she was seconds away from screaming in agony anymore.
When she didn’t answer him, because she stubbornly refused to admit that anything he did was helping, he started to pull his hand away. “I guess if it isn’t helping…” he said, letting his words trail off as he continued to pull his hand away.
Glaring at the wall and hating the bastard for toying with her like this, she grabbed his arm and yanked it back in place. “It’s helping! Are you happy?”
“Overjoyed,” he said with a chuckle that she refused to find pleasing as he wrapped his arms back around her and held her close.
“Asshole,” she mumbled even though it delighted her to hear him chuckle again. It was definitely something that he didn’t do often, but when he did, she couldn’t help but smile even when all she wanted to do was cry.
*-*-*-*
“Do you want the Coke I brought you?” he asked, noting that she’d tightened her hold over his arms before he had a chance to finish that sentence, letting him know just how much pain she was in.
“Do you have to let go in order to get it?” she asked after a slight pause.
“Yes.”
“Then no,” she said, shifting against him to get more comfortable.
He sighed as he glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand. He really should be downstairs preparing for the dinner rush and looking into hiring a new waitress, but here he was holding the biggest pain in the ass that he’d ever known. He still wasn’t sure what had possessed him to come up here and check on her in the first place. She wasn’t his responsibility, but for some reason he felt protective of her and he couldn’t quite explain it.
“Do you want anything?” he asked, hating to see her in this much pain and wondering what the fuck was wrong with all those doctors that told her that this was all in her head.
He wasn’t a fucking doctor and even he could see that there was something wrong. She was always exhausted, sick and in pain. He felt like an ass for even thinking that she was faking. She never tried to get special attention or used it as an excuse to get out of doing something. In fact, she usually got pissed if someone pointed it out and always tried to pretend that she wasn’t sick even when it was more than obvious to everyone around her that she was.
“I’m fine,” she said tightly and he knew just like always that she was trying to hide how much pain she was in.
God, he was a fucking moron.
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
Sighing, he shifted behind her so that her head was right beneath his chin and found himself giving her an honest answer. “I don’t know.”
“You do realize that you’re ruining your reputation as an asshole, don’t you?”
“Not if no one finds out,” he said, hoping to tease a smile or a laugh out of her, but instead she simply yawned.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said around another yawn as he debated leaving her to nap so that he could get some work done, but the way she wrapped her hand over his had him accepting the fact that he would be here, at least for a little while longer.
He’d wait until she fell asleep and then he’d go downstairs and make sure that everything was taken care of so that he could be here when his brother delivered the test results, confirming that he really had been an asshole.