The Game Plan Read online

Page 7

 

  It was trash night, which meant that her date with Ben and Jerry’s was going to have to wait a little while, unfortunately. Then again, she could always do it later……

  No, no she couldn’t, she thought, knowing that the longer she put off taking the trash out front, the more likely that she was going to decide to put it off until tomorrow morning and then forget to do it all together. Since her two assigned trashcans were surprisingly filled this week, she didn’t have much of a choice. If she didn’t get the trash out tonight then she’d have to wait until next week to get rid of it. She’d also have to put her trash from this week in front of her barrels. That would lead to getting hit with a warning for breaking one of her lease agreements and risking her bags being ripped into by animals, which she would be responsible for cleaning or risk another warning.

  Since she doubted that she’d be able to find an apartment this nice for so cheap, three hundred dollars cheaper now, she decided to just suck it up and get off her ass and get it done. Grabbing the roll of city trash bags, she left her apartment and headed to the back entrance. Five minutes later she was standing in front of her assigned trashcans, frowning down at the overstuffed bags filling her cans.

  She really didn’t remember filling the bags that much. For a second she wondered if someone else had shoved a bag in her can, but just as quickly she dismissed it. For one thing, even though most of the guys that lived here were arrogant bastards, they weren’t pricks. They wouldn’t do that to her. Well, Danny probably would, she thought, pursing her lips up, but she knew that he hadn’t stuffed her cans full because he used black trash bags while she used the small white kitchen bags.

  Realizing that she must have had more trash than she thought, she pulled a city trash bag off the roll and opened it, shaking it loose so that she could fill it with her bags. As she grabbed the first bag, and almost fell over from the weight of it, she couldn’t help but think that it was pretty messed up that the city charged two bucks a bag for trash removal when they paid taxes that were specifically allocated for the sanitation department. It just seemed a bit ridiculous to her. The city shouldn’t be able to double charge-

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked as the bag that she’d been in the process of pulling out of the trashcan suddenly ripped open. The sudden difference in weight threw her off balance. It caused her to stumble back several feet as the gooey contents of the bag spilled out and covered her just as the most repulsive odor that she’d ever smelled hit her, making her gag just before she stumbled back another step, slipped on some goo and went flying, landing on her ass in a big puddle of the smelly, gooey goop.

  Too stunned and admittedly busy trying not to vomit, she sat there, staring down at herself in horror, wondering how such a thing could happen when her night suddenly got a hell of a lot worse.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  *-*-*-*

  “I’m going to say this as nicely as I possibly can,” Tinkerbelle said as he caught a whiff of a vile odor that was vaguely familiar. “If you even think about calling me Tinkerbelle or say anything even remotely annoying right now I will kill you!”

  “I see,” he murmured absently as he took in the scene and in less than thirty seconds he realized that his cousin had seriously fucked up.

  Bradfords didn’t normally throw away food. It just wasn’t in their DNA to waste food even if it was past its expiration date and growing penicillin. They simply scraped the fungus off, covered it in ketchup and savored it. They didn’t believe in wasting food, none of them did, but since Trevor had fallen in love with Zoe and married her……

  Well, they’d made an exception to that rule since none of them had the balls to tell Zoe that her cooking sucked, especially the bastard that married her. Most nights Trevor was able to force himself to eat what his wife cooked, but some nights like the other night, the man couldn’t force himself to do the impossible. When those nights came, Trevor took the coward’s way out and found a way to throw the leftovers out without Zoe finding out.

  Since he couldn’t throw the food away at his house and take the chance of his wife finding out, Trevor usually brought the waste to one of his apartment houses and dumped it in one of their cousin’s trashcans, which was no doubt why Trevor had been here today. The only problem it seemed was that Trevor had royally fucked up tonight and placed the trash bags filled with toxic waste in Tinkerbelle’s barrels.

  The weird, oddly discolored slime covered her from head to toe, the ground that she was struggling to get off, her trash barrels and the trash that had spilled out from the bag. He’d seen a lot of things in the Marines, but this was easily the grossest fucking thing that he’d ever come across. It was also probably one of the most embarrassing moments for little Tinkerbelle, he realized with a reluctant sigh as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone.

  “What are you doing?” Tinkerbelle nervously demanded as she suddenly stopped trying to find a way to get out of the slimy mess so that she could watch his every move.

  “My duty,” he explained with a heavy sigh as he opened the camera app and did what was expected of him.

  “You son of a bitch!” Tinkerbelle screamed as she lunged for him, slipped and landed right smack dab in a large puddle of goo.

  “Say it with a smile,” he said, chuckling when she looked up. Well, tried to at least, but with all that goo weighing her hair down in front of her face it was kind of difficult.

  “Put the camera away, Danny!” she demanded, struggling to get to her feet only to once again slip in the goo, landing smack dab in the middle of it and forcing him to jump back to avoid the goop that was sent flying into the air with her fall.

  “It’s not a camera,” he felt obligated to point out as he angled the phone to the side so that he could catch the goo smeared glare that she was sending him. “It’s a---son of a bitch!” he shouted as a big handful of chalk white slime sailed through the air and nailed him in the shoulder.

  “Put the phone away,” Tinkerbelle said, swiping up another handful of that slime that he was going to kill his cousin for.

  Any other man would have accepted defeat, put the camera away and made a quick retreat, but he was a Bradford as well as a Marine, which meant that he was going to aggravate the shit out of her for the sheer pleasure of it. Chuckling, he ducked out of the way as the goop sailed through the air, snapped a dozen more shots, not really caring if they were good shots or not. The only thing that he cared about right now was pissing Tinkerbelle off.

  “Damn it!” she snapped as she once again slipped in the goo, this time landing on her pretty little ass, causing the glob of goo in her hand to slide down her arm, adding an extra layer of slime to her skin and clothes that was going to be a bitch to clean off. When she let out a defeated groan, he couldn’t help but feel bad for her.

  With a sigh, because he knew that he was going to miss out on some really good photo opportunities, he put his phone in his back pocket. “Do you want some help?”

  “Not from you,” she bit out as she tried to wipe her hands off on her pants, but by this point it was hopeless. She was covered from head to toe in the nasty goop.

  “Oh, and why’s that?” he asked, glancing at the garden hose and wondering if he should hose down this mess before the smell seeped inside the apartment house.