While everyone else ran to get help, Jason took it upon himself to beat the shit out of the man. Jared and the rest of his mother's brothers came running out of the house minutes later and had to tear Jason off the man so that they could get in their hits.

To this day he wasn't sure if it was the embarrassment of getting his ass kicked by a fifteen year old kid or the shame of having him as a son, but he hadn't seen or heard from his father since. After that day he stopped trying in school and gave up on everything, content to sit back and watch as his cousin Jason kicked ass in life.

As much as he tried when they were kids he just couldn't hate Jason. He was a funny, laid back guy, who could be an asshole and embarrass the ever loving shit out of him, but he was always a decent guy and Trevor loved him, not that he would ever admit that. He'd never begrudged his cousin anything in life because he was family and even though the bastard was insanely smart and a Harvard grad to boot he never acted like it, making it easier for Trevor to be around him and not feel like the loser that he knew he was.

After Jason met Haley he'd changed. He became more serious and cut his asshole ways for good and made Haley the center of his world. As a result Trevor no longer knew how to relate to his cousin. They no longer hung out and Trevor avoided the man at work just so he wouldn't be reminded that the man with the perfect like was slumming so he could save up enough money to build the wife that he loved and adored the perfect house. How the hell could he relate to that?

He couldn't and had absolutely no plans to try. Marriage for him wasn't going to be about love, romance, and fairytales. It was going to be about finding the woman of his dreams and keeping her. His wife was going to be the one thing in his life that everyone envied and she was going to be absolutely perfect.

"Where are you going?" Jason asked.

"To your house?" he meant that as a statement, but truth be told he had absolutely no idea where his cousin lived, which was kind of sad since he'd helped him move.

"Take a left at the next set of lights," Jason said, chuckling softly. "You'd know where I lived if you took us up on the dozen or so dinner invitations we shot your way each month."

"I've been busy," he lied.

"Uh huh," Jason said unconcerned. "So, your girlfriend seemed nice. Totally wanted me by the way, but that's understandable."

Trevor couldn't help but frown, wondering who the hell Jason was talking about. "Who?"

"Zoe," Jason said, gesturing for Trevor to take a right turn. "She seemed a little shy, but I liked her," he simply stated. "Cole liked her, too."

Trevor just barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "First off, she's not my girlfriend and I'm actually pretty insulted that you'd think I'd date someone like her. Secondly, I don't date woman based on your son's opinion."

Jason snorted. "You should. My son has great taste."

He threw the man a sideways glance, wondering if he was high. "Are you trying to tell me that you found Zoe hot?" If he said yes, Trevor was turning the truck around and taking the man to the nearest emergency room to have him tested for drugs.

"I didn't say that. I said she was nice. Not at all like the women you usually date," Jason said.

"What the hell's wrong with the women I date?" he demanded, feeling pretty damn insulted. All the women he dated were fucking perfect, well almost.

"They're all ice bitches," Jason stated.

"No, they're not," Trevor argued, but they usually were. Not that he'd admit it to his perfect cousin. Besides all the women Jason dated before Haley were all stuck up, annoying bitches so he really didn't think his cousin had any room to talk.

"It's the next house," Jason said, gesturing to a beautiful two story ranch with a perfectly manicured lawn. Not that Trevor was surprised.

"Why don't you come in? I'll fire up the grill and we can have steaks by the pool?" Jason suggested.

"Can't. I have plans tonight," Trevor said, suddenly feeling exhausted. It was kind of funny how that happened these days. Ten years ago he would have taken his cousin up on his offer, eaten him out of house and home, and hit the bars until three in the morning before he picked up a piece of ass to keep him company for a few hours and he'd still have his ass at work on time. Now all he wanted to do was get his haircut without falling asleep, go home, shower, rub some muscle gel on his aching shoulders, and fall asleep in front of the television.

Getting old fucking sucked.

Jason looked like he was going to argue, but in the end just nodded as he got out of the truck. "If you change your mind the offer is on the table."

"Thanks."

"I still say Zoe is nice and that you could do a lot worse," Jason said conversationally as he grabbed his tool belt.

There was no way he was going to put up with the suggestion that he should settle on someone like Zoe so he did what he had to do.

"You do know that Zoe's a Red Sox fan, right?"

The look on Jason's face was priceless and he found himself still laughing about it an hour later when he pulled into his driveway. He parked next to Zoe's piece of shit car and headed for the door, running his hand through his now thankfully short hair.

He glared at the freshly cleaned floor mat, pissed that woman had wrecked his hard work and was tempted to go back outside and stomp around in the dirt just so he could cover those freaky looking puppies again, but he was too damn tired at the moment to try. Tomorrow, he promised himself as he walked into his apartment and froze.

It was.......

Clean.

Not only was it clean, but it smelled like lemons. The rug was vacuumed, the furniture polished, dirty clothes, and food wrappers were gone. It looked damn good, he decided as he gave himself a mental pat on the back for coming up with such a great plan. He walked into his kitchen and nearly wept with joy when he spotted the empty sinks and counters. She'd even put away the dishes.

He spotted a note on his counter with a small pile of money. At that he frowned. He'd given her two hundred and fifty dollars to fill his kitchen up with food and she'd only spent a hundred of 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, he 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 really had to look into getting the walls reinsulated, he decided.

"Zoe?"

"Yeah?"

He looked around his clean room, noting the freshly made bed, laundry basket full of folded clean clothes and felt like he should say something. "Thank you for everything you did today," he 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 and now an employee he'd be pretty embarrassed, but she wasn't. So it didn't really matter, he decided with a careless shrug.

"Let me know how many hours you got and I'll pay you on Friday," he said, already dismissing her and heading for the bedroom door.

"Okay," she said, laughing, making him pause at the door.

"What's so funny?" he asked out of curiosity. In the past two months that she lived here he couldn't remember ever seeing her smile or hearing her laugh.

"Huh? Oh, just something in this book 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 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 mp3 file so he could listen to it, but he 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," he 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?" he said, slipping into old habits. He'd never had a problem convincing anyone that doing something for him was actually to their benefit.

So he wasn't too surprised when she said, "Fine," sounding totally put out, but that really 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 little growl.

"Fine," she snapped.