Fire & Brimstone (Neighbor from Hell 8)

It actually amazed him that she took his shit without complaint when everyone else usually broke down after only a few angry syllables left his lips. Rebecca would either take his shit with a smile or distract him to the point that he was forced to question his own sanity. She’d never tried to play him with tears before. It was the one thing that he’d always respected about her, which was why the thought of her suddenly trying to play him with tears pissed him off.

Before she could close the door in his face, he slammed his hand against it, forcing her to keep the door open and stopping her from running away before he got a few answers.

“What the hell is going on, Rebecca?” he asked, pushing the door open wider.

“I’m fired. I get it. Now, can you go away so that I can feel sorry for myself in peace?” she demanded, sounding pissed at him as she moved to shove the door shut, but he wasn’t having that.

Not until they’d settled this.

“We’re not done here,” he said evenly, which earned him a shake of the head and a muttered, “I give up,” as the woman who’d made his life a living hell turned around and walked away, leaving him to either stand there like an idiot or follow her like a fucking moron.

Apparently he was a fucking moron, because he followed her over to the couch where someone was apparently camping out. Grabbing a Hostess pie off the coffee table, she climbed onto the couch covered in blankets and pillows, curled up onto her side and pulled a majority of the blankets up to her chin as she let out a pathetic little sigh and began to stare blindly at something already playing on the television.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, because…shouldn’t she be trying to manipulate him? Make him feel bad? Turn up the water works until he apologized for being an asshole and promised that she wasn’t fired?

“Wallowing in self pity,” she muttered, gesturing for him to get out of the way, because he was apparently blocking her view of-

“Child’s Play?” he asked with a frown, because he really didn’t understand this woman.

“It soothes me,” she explained with a sniffle before adding, “Now, you may leave.”

“Child’s Play soothes you?” he asked slowly, almost positive that he’d misheard her. “A serial killer trapped inside a doll soothes you?” he asked, deciding that perhaps it would be best if he clarified this for his own sanity.

“Yes!” she hissed in aggravation with another sniffle as her hands appeared out from beneath the blanket, holding that Hostess pie that was actually looking pretty good…

“What the hell?” she snapped as he reached down and snatched the pie from her, because as far as he was concerned, she owed him for all the bullshit that she’d put him through over the years.

“I need this more than you do!” he snapped right back, using the Bradford mantra that usually ended arguments over food pretty quickly.

“Asshole,” she muttered angrily as she reached over and grabbed another pie, this one looking just as good.

“Oh, come on!” she snapped in outrage as he helped himself to the second pie.

“You going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked, deciding that he could pretend that he actually cared since she’d so graciously shared her fruit pies with him.

Shifting her attention back to the television, she muttered, “It’s not important.”

“Then why are you upset?” he asked, glancing around the large apartment for that damn dog and her wingman so that he could push her off onto them and make his escape now that he knew that he wasn’t the cause of her mental breakdown.

“Because it’s my right as a woman to get pissed off for absolutely no reason,” she said with a shrug as she stared blindly at the television.

“Uh huh,” he said absently, wondering why Melanie wasn’t here to handle this.

“She took Mojo out for a walk after I threatened to kill her if she didn’t stop bugging the shit out of me,” she said, answering his unasked question and letting him know that there would be no escape for him, because he couldn’t leave her like this.

Could he?

Well, he could, but he was pretty sure that would make him an asshole and right now, being an asshole somehow felt…wrong.

*-*-*-*

“Don’t you have a restaurant to run?” she asked, wondering why he hadn’t left yet.

He was really wrecking this for her.

He ignored her question and asked one of his own. “When’s Melanie coming back?”

“Well, since she’s attempting to take a two hundred and sixty-five pound dog for a walk by herself, I’m guessing that we won’t be seeing her until she calls and asks for a crane to help drag Mojo back,” she said absently while she continued to stare numbly at the television as Chucky slashed and diced his way through another bad joke, wondering why Lucifer was still here.

As soon as she’d given him what he wanted he should have left, satisfied with the knowledge that he’d finally managed to kick her out of his restaurant. Actually, as soon as he’d realized that she was crying, he should have shown her the door and washed his hands of the whole situation. It was something that she’d seen him do in the past when he had to fire a waitress and they’d foolishly decided to see if they could manipulate him with a few tears to change his mind. It usually had the opposite effect on him.

The same could be said for the women that he’d dated over the last few years that thought pretty little pouts and a few crocodile tears were enough to wrap him around their little fingers. They actually seemed to have the opposite effect on him as well. Not that she’d been paying attention.

Okay, so she had probably paid a little too much attention to his love life, but then again, who hadn’t? It was hard not to! The women that he dated brought endless hours of entertainment to them all and for that alone, they would always have a special place in her heart.

Every single one of the women that he’d dated, and there had been quite a few over the years, seemed determined to bring him to heel. For whatever reason they all seemed to look at him as some poor wounded soul hiding behind an asshole exterior that only they could break through.

They were wrong, but she never had the heart to tell them, mostly because that would have meant putting an end to the entertainment that they provided and there was no way in hell that she would ever do that. Not when their obvious attempts seemed to really annoy Lucifer and put a smile on her face.

She wasn’t sure if it was the challenge of breaking Lucifer or the fact that he was incredibly hot that had women going nuts over him. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter to her just as long as they didn’t stop doing it. There was really nothing like watching a woman try to break Lucifer so that the rest of the world could see what a kind, generous, and caring man he really was.

It was always fun watching him prove that he wasn’t.

“What’s really going on, Rebecca?” he asked, rudely disturbing thoughts of happier times and making her wonder why it mattered.

It wasn’t like he didn’t already know. So, what was the big deal admitting it?

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a hypochondriac,” she said with a shrug as she continued to stare blindly at the television, surprised at how little she cared any more.

Chapter 7

“Get up,” Lucifer snapped, wondering why he had to repeat himself.

“Fuck. Off,” Aidan, the laziest fucking bastard in the world, said as he buried his head beneath his pillow in a useless attempt to escape the bright bedroom lights that Lucifer had turned on so that he wouldn’t trip over all the medical books, clothes and empty food wrappers thrown everywhere.

“Get up,” he said, hating to repeat himself and his brother knew it.

“No,” Aidan said, reaching blindly for the quilted comforter and yanked it up, over his head to help block out the light and further pissing Lucifer off, because he really didn’t have time to play these games. He was supposed to be going over second quarter taxes tonight, but instead he was here, de

aling with this lazy bastard.

“Are you going to stay in bed all fucking night?” he had to ask, because this was really starting to get fucking old.

“All fucking night? It’s barely two in the morning, you asshole!” the fucking prima donna of the family snapped, sounding unreasonably pissed.