Perfection

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 really 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 really rather unnerving and she had to wonder how such a sweet woman married him. Zoe considered trying to walk around him, but knew it would be pointless. He'd just move to block her yet again.

"Look," he finally said, "just tell me he lied and we can pretend that none of this ever happened and I won't have to upset my wife with the news."

She looked over her shoulder, hoping someone would come give her hand or at least give him the medication that he obviously needed. When it didn't look like any help was forthcoming she reluctantly looked back at Jason.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she admitted, taking a nervous step back when he started mumbling to himself.

"Please tell me that my cousin lied to screw with me and that you're really not a Red Sox fan," Jason said, staring at her intently as he waited for the answer.

"I-I'm not a baseball fan," she stammered nervously, hoping that was the right answer. "I really don't know much about sports in general."

His eyes narrowed on her. "Then why did he tell me that you were a Red Sox fan?"

"Because I have a Red Sox tee shirt," she explained, discretely taking a step to the side so she could walk past him only to be cut off as he stepped in front of her.

"Why do you-"

With an exasperated roll of her eyes she snapped, "Because the tee shirt is cute. Now can I please go to work?"

"Cute?" he repeated as if he couldn't believe what he heard. "There's nothing cute about those bastards."

"Except their shirts," she pointed out, biting back a smile at his horrified expression.

He looked like he was about to say something else, but then threw his hands up in the air and finally walked off in disgust.

So nice to make friends on the first day, she thought dryly as she hurried inside the trailer. Just as she placed her purse on the desk Jared stepped out of his office. Zoe's eyes automatically sought out the clock. Her stomach churned when she realized that she was a minute late.

She'd always hated being yelled at by her bosses, but she had a feeling that being yelled at by a Bradford was going to be ten times worse. This really was not the best way to start her first day.

"Good morning, Zoe," Jared said, smiling, making her even more nervous.

"Good morning, Mr. Bradford," she said, trying not to shift nervously.

"It's Jared," he reminded her, still smiling as he headed for the kitchen counter and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Would you like some?" he asked, holding up the coffee pot.

"No thank you, sir," she mumbled.

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head good naturedly as he walked back towards his office. "It's Jared, not Mr. Bradford and certainly not 'sir'. Just relax, Zoe. You'll do fine," he promised with a wink.

"Okay, thank you," she said, forcing a small, albeit, nervous smile.

"Yell if you have any problems," he called out from his office.

Zoe slowly exhaled the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and walked towards the fridge to put her lunch away.

"You can't put that in there."

Great. Not even five minutes into her first day and she was already screwing up. She felt her cheeks burn as she turned around. "I'm sorry. I thought it was the employee refrigerator," she explained to Haley, who was walking, well more like wobbling, towards her.

"Oh, it is," Haley said, smiling. "But if you put it in there it will be gone within ten minutes." Zoe watched as she pulled several ice packs from the freezer. "I have a system for this," she said.

Curious, Zoe followed her to the desk and watched as Haley sat in the chair and unlocked one of the large bottom desk drawers, revealing a really large box of tampons. Zoe felt her lips twitch as Haley shot her a mischievous smile.

"I've tried other things, but in my experience tampons are the best deterrent for the food thieves, although cleaning supplies have been known to work in a pinch," Haley explained as she handed Zoe an ice pack. In an unspoken agreement they both hurried to place the ice packs in their bags and placed them in the large drawer, shutting and locking it seconds before Jason came storming into the office.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, eyeing them suspiciously as they huddled behind the desk.

"I was just about to show Zoe the computer system," Haley said, smiling sweetly up at her husband as she turned the computer on.

"Look," Jason said, running his fingers through his short mussed hair, "I didn't want to do this, but she," he pointed an accusing finger towards Zoe, "has a Red Sox tee shirt and thinks it's cute."

Haley blinked. "They are."

"They...what....what the hell?" Jason sputtered, pressing a hand to his chest in what Zoe was quickly beginning to recognize as a typical Bradford overreaction, even if it was cute to watch. It was funny how she never really thought of large muscular men as cute before, but after meeting the Bradford men there really was no other way to describe them, well other than studly and hot that is.

"Can we get back to work now?" Haley asked, sounding innocent, but Zoe didn't miss the woman's lips twitching or the humor sparkling in her eyes. Something told her that this woman truly enjoyed torturing her husband.

"For god sake's, my little grasshopper, you love the Yankees more than I do! What the hell is going on?" He turned accusing eyes on Zoe. "How dare you brainwash my wife?" he hissed.

"Are you going to leave so that we can get some work done?" Haley demanded, turning her attention to the computer.

"No," he said stubbornly, folding his arms over his chest, glaring at them.

"Buttercream frosting," Haley said softly, never taking her eyes away from her computer screen.

Jason licked his lips as he looked his pregnant wife over hungrily. "Tonight?" he croaked out.

"If you're good," Haley said, with a small shrug. "But you have to leave-"

"Bye," Jason said quickly, cutting her off and rushing out of the trailer just as fast as he came.

"I'm really sorry about him," Haley said, looking at her over her shoulder, giving Zoe a sheepish smile.

"I thought you weren't going to apologize for him," Zoe reminded her, smiling. There was just something about Haley that made her relax, which was a little discomforting since she couldn't remember the last time she felt relaxed at work.

"You're absolutely right, but he does entertain me so," she said on a dreamy sigh.

"A sign of a good husband," Zoe agreed.

"Exactly," Haley said, beaming.

As much as she was enjoying talking with Haley she couldn't help the nagging feeling that she should get back to work. At her old job idle chit chat was not tolerated and since Zoe had been there for three years the concept of solely focusing on work was well ingrained.

"What should we go over first?" Zoe asked, hoping the abrupt change didn't dampen the easy going comradely they seemed to be sharing. She hadn't had many friends in her life over the past couple of years and talking with someone as kind as Haley was a nice treat for her.

"Sure, I'll show you everything, but it will of course be up to you how you want to handle everything," Haley said, still smiling warmly, Zoe noted with relief. "I've only been filling in over the summer so that Dad had some help. I really haven't been able to get a system going so however you want to do this is totally up to you."

"Okay, that sounds good," Zoe said, practically jumping to the side as Haley stood up and waddled past her.

"Have a seat."

"Are you sure?" Zoe asked, a little uncomfortable with the idea of taking a pregnant woman's seat.

"Definitely," Haley said, placing a hand on her stomach as she made her way around the desk. She walked over to the sitting area and proceeded to grab a chair and drag it.

"Wait!" Zoe said, practically running around the desk to stop her. "Let me do that for you."

"Thank you," Haley said, smiling sweetly as she followed Zoe back around the desk. She switched her comfortable office chair out for the sturdy waiting room chair. Haley looked like she was going to argue, but Zoe wasn't having it. She gestured for the woman to sit down in the comfortable chair.

With a muttered, "slave driver" that startled a surprised laugh out of Zoe, Haley sat down. She couldn't remember the last time that she laughed at work. Zoe had to admit it felt nice and she hoped it was a sign that things were going to improve.

"Haley, could you take a look at this printout. Something isn't adding up. I just got off the phone with Robinson and that jerk is giving me the runaround again. Could you look this over and see......," Jared's words trailed off as he looked up from the large pile of ledgers and folders he was carrying when he spotted Haley curled up on the couch, sleeping.

Zoe cringed as she stood up, ready to defend the poor woman who struggled until ten minutes ago to keep her eyes open. Normally she would have woken Haley back up, but the poor woman was pregnant and obviously exhausted and Zoe hadn't had the heart to wake her. Instead she'd been keeping an ear out so that she could wake the poor woman before she got caught sleeping on the job.

Unfortunately by the time she heard Jared's approach he was already in the room speaking a mile a minute and she couldn't wake Haley without drawing attention to the fact that Haley was sleeping. She knew the man had an obvious soft spot for his daughter-in-law, but that didn't mean he'd appreciate her wasting company time and money.

Her stomach coiled with dread as Jared placed the stack of books on the corner of her desk and approached Haley. She shifted nervously as she tried to decide what she should do. In her old job she would have just kept working and minded her own business, but Haley had been really nice to her, not that Jared hadn't, but she just couldn't stand by and let the woman get in trouble for this.

She opened her mouth to make an excuse for Haley when Jared shocked the hell out of her by leaning over and pressing a kiss to the top of Haley's head. Zoe watched in shock as the large man gently removed Haley's glasses and pushed an errant strand of hair out of her face.

"Poor thing is exhausting herself," he mumbled, sighing before he stood up and walked quietly away from Haley. He ran his hand through his hair as he exhaled slowly, looking deep in thought.

After a moment he looked up at her and gave her a small smile. "I hate to say this, Zoe, but I'm not sure that Haley is going to be able to train you and I'm afraid my wife's been out of the office for so long that I don't think she'd be much of a help."

Zoe nodded, wondering what the plan was going to be. She hoped she wasn't about to get canned.

"She has a photographic memory," Haley muttered drowsily, slightly startling her since she thought the woman was asleep. "And she catches on very quickly. She was able to fully take over the job two hours ago." She yawned loudly before adding, "And she caught us up on everything."

Jared's eyebrows arched in surprise. "Seriously?"

"Mmmhmmm," Haley grumbled seconds before soft snoring filled the room once again.

Worrying her bottom lip, Zoe nodded. She still remembered the moment her last boss realized how fast and efficiently she worked. He smiled just before he added his daily workload to hers. After that he shoved anything and everything on her that he didn't want to do and took the praise for her work.

At first she went along with it because she foolishly thought that he'd at least mention her role in all the work. She also thought by helping her boss out that she'd be on the fast track to a management position. Six months into her job she realized she wasn't going anywhere and all the raises that her boss was getting should have been hers. When she'd confronted Ted, her ex soul sucking boss, about it he merely shrugged it off and added more work to her load and a few dozen write ups to her file.

After that she learned to keep her mouth shut and do her work and his without complaint. Actually, now that she thought about it she wondered how he was managing his work now that she wasn't there to do it. With a small sigh she realized that he probably just pushed it off onto someone else.

"Do you think you could look this over and call the bank to have them fax over another copy?" Jared asked, sounding hopeful.

"Of course," Zoe said, not only because it was her job, but because for the first time in three years she had a boss who asked her to do something instead of slamming more work on her desk as he gave her a dirty look. It was a rather nice change, she thought as she picked up the thin packet.

"I would really appreciate that," Jared said with a warm smile. His eyes shot to the clock. "But it can wait until after your lunch break. I'll cover the phones for you," he offered and before she could thank him he walked back into his office, leaving her stunned.

She got a lunch break? she thought with a smile, but then her eyes landed on Haley. Maybe she should-

"I'm going to call Jason to come get Haley," Jared said, popping his head out of his office long enough to tell her.

"Okay," Zoe said, taking a seat behind her desk. By the time Jason stepped into the office she'd already gone through the packet, making notes of the figures that didn't add up.

He stepped into the office quietly, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm, acknowledging her with a smile and a nod as he walked over to where his wife slept.

"Hey, my little grasshopper, are you ready to go home?" he asked in a hushed whisper as he laid his hand over the swell of Haley's stomach and gently caressed his unborn child. The gesture was so sweet and romantic that Zoe found herself biting back a content little sigh. She might question his sanity, but she sure as hell couldn't question his devotion to his wife.

"Go away I'm working," Haley mumbled, absently swatting at her husband as she tried to snuggle deeper into the couch.

"I see," Jason said, chuckling softly. "And you're doing a really great job of it, but it's time to go home."

"I'm too tired to go home," Haley said around a small yawn.

Jason leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth. "I'll carry you."

Haley was quiet for a moment before she responded. "Do I have to be awake for you to carry me?"

He chuckled. "No."

She sighed heavily. "Fine. You may carry me then," she said regally, not bothering to open her eyes.

"That's very generous of you," Jason mumbled, grinning.

"It is, isn't it?" Haley said sleepily as Jason scooped her up into his arms. She curled up in his arms and Zoe had no doubt that she was already asleep before Jason finished standing.

Zoe quickly walked over and opened the door for them. He nodded his thanks to her as he stepped out of the trailer. After she shut the door she walked over to the large stack of ledgers and prayed that the results weren't as disastrous as the last time she looked into bank accounts that didn't add up, because she was pretty sure she'd miss this place if she had to leave.