R. Mathewson - Perfection

He looked away from Trevor to send her a faint smile. "That doesn't mean we didn't care. I lost count how many times I asked Sarah to allow Trevor to come live with us, but she was damn determined to raise the boy on her own, of course Jared just ignored her wishes and made sure they had everything they needed and that included keeping Trevor in line."

"Jared's a very good man," Zoe mumbled, feeling close to crying. When the hell did she become this pathetic woman where everything made her cry? Last night when she was watching television one of the old Downy commercials came on with that cute little bear and she found herself bawling her eyes out. Thank god Trevor hadn't been there, but poor Toby didn't fare as well. She'd hugged the dog, crying into his fur until he managed to break free and run to safety in Trevor's apartment.

The man looked at her with a little more than curiosity. "Will we be seeing you this Thursday?"

"For Thanksgiving?" she asked, wondering why the man would think 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 was fifteen. It was a tradition mostly because she'd never had another choice, but one she actually enjoyed immensely.

He sighed heavily as he absently reached out and took her plate from her and starting piling it with food almost as if he wasn't aware of what he was doing. "Alright, sweetheart, you make sure 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, she thought as she made her way over to Trevor. Thankfully by the time 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 a large plate of food to an area well away from Jared and Jason 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!" she snapped, grabbing a napkin and dabbing at her eyes. "I'm just tired." Which was sadly true and she really couldn't understand it since she should be caught up on her sleep considering she'd slept most of the weekend away.

Trevor looked at her for a moment before letting out a heavy breath. "You need to make a doctor's appointment to make sure 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 really hadn't considered that possibility when she decided to go on her diet, but she'd lost weight and while her energy had gone up in the beginning it was lagging most of the time now and she felt tired and weak lately. With her luck she'd probably made herself really sick with that damn diet.

"I'll make an appointment tomorrow," she promised. Hopefully they could get her in before the holiday weekend started on Thursday, because she really wasn't sure she could keep this up.

"Good," he said, giving her the look that meant he would spank her ass if she didn't.

"Can I ask you a question?" she said 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 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," he 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," she said even more confused and admittedly a little frightened. Seriously, what had they done? And would they do it again so that she could see?

"Wow, I've never seen Jason look so angry before," Zoe whispered.

He 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 was 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 he saluted Jason with a drumstick a minute ago.

Ah, good times, he thought, as he focused his attention on Zoe, who looked a little bored. If she was 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, he thought with a little inward groan. Then again she had been doing pretty good with that plate his uncle put together for her until halfway through she suddenly stopped eating, looking 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 he went and grabbed for her did anything but calm her stomach she did manage to sip the glass of ginger ale he gave her.

"Is there going to be a riot?" she asked, looking and sounding hopeful. "Or a fight? How exactly do you guys get yourselves banned?"

"I cannot believe you took advantage of our weakness for your own entertainment," he said in mock disgust since it actually turned him on and he'd been struggling off and on with the desire to drag her adorable ass to his truck where he could show her just much it turned him on, but that would have to wait until the restaurant closed down for the night or they kicked him out, whichever came first.

She rolled her eyes as she gestured to the buffet tables. "I get entertainment and you get food. I really don't see what the problem is."

"I would have gotten at least a week's worth of the buffet if you hadn't told everyone," he grumbled, giving her his best pout.

"Would it make you feel better if I promised not to tell anyone but you about the next time that I spot a new buffet restaurant?"

"Yes, yes it would," he said, feeling somewhat appeased.

"Fine, you big baby," she said, sighing as she looked around the restaurant again. "Do you think it would be okay if I went over and asked Haley if I could borrow one of her books so that I have something to do while I wait for my entertainment?" she asked, gesturing across the room to Haley who had a small stack of paperback books on the table next to her.

"I'm not entertaining enough?" he asked, biting into a large juicy breast.

"Sadly no."

Even though he was damn entertaining and she knew it, he decided to take pity on her. "Here," he said, picking the black shopping bag off the seat next to him and handed it to her.

"You're giving me your condiments?" she asked, looking confused as she took the bag.

"Not that you deserve it after what you pulled today," he said, gesturing to the bag, "but I got you a little something. It's fully charged and it has a hundred dollar balance on it so you can start downloading whenever you're ready."

Nibbling her bottom lip in that nervous way of hers, Zoe shot him a curious look before placing the bag on the bench next to her and opening it. The stunned look on her face pleased him greatly.

"You're giving me an e-reader?" she asked softly.

He nodded, rather pleased with the wobbly smile she was giving him. "You mentioned how much you wanted one so I picked one up yesterday morning when I ran out to do errands," he explained, not mentioning that he called Jason up for help.

His cousin had been a little shocked by the call, but pleased. He hated asking for help and thankfully his cousin understood that which was why he called him. Out of all the people who knew about his problem, and there weren't that many, only Jason and his Uncle Jared made him feel comfortable about it. His aunt babied him and the rest of his family was too damn overprotective of him.

Although Jason was a little surprised that he wanted an e-reader, he didn't really question it. For two hours they looked around until they found one they both liked. He liked the look and the easy features that Jason read to him and Jason liked the rest of the technical nonsense so he bought one for Haley that he planned on surprising her with later.