When she tried to close the window she received another little surprise when the window slid up noiselessly. Well, that's a relief, she thought, grabbing her purse and climbing out of the car. She was really afraid she'd have to pay three hundred dollars to have her windows fixed, again. She closed the door and turned to walk across the street when an odd swooshing sound caught her attention.

Praying that is was just her imagination, Zoe turned around and frowned. Why did her window look weird? She pushed her wet hair out of her face and leaned forward to get a better look. It didn't take long before she realized that her window had come off its tracks.

She wiped her wet hands on her soaked skirt and gripped the edge of the window and tried to pull it up only to have the window slip through her hands and slide further down.

"Oh no you don't," she muttered, dropping her purse and grabbing the window and doing her best to yank it back up. The last thing she needed was for the window to slide down into the door where it would have to stay until she could scrounge up the money to have it fixed. With no job and no prospects that wasn't happening any time soon and since there was a very good chance that she'd be living out of her car soon she wanted to keep it dry and mold free.

It took several minutes, but she managed to pull the window up several inches. One last pull should do it, she decided, gripping the window tightly and pulling as hard as she could. When the window slid up easily she couldn't help but chuckle. Finally things were-

Her hands slipped and before she could grab the window it slid down quickly into the door and if the noise that followed was any indication, cracked. She stared numbly at the empty window for a long moment before she picked up her purse, not at all surprised when the strap broke off, or when the heel on her left shoe snapped off a minute later.

Clutching her ruined purse to her chest, she wobbled towards the front door, only getting stuck in the mud twice and losing one shoe, the right one, before she found herself on the front stoop, searching her purse for her keys. By the time she found them she was shivering violently from the cold and close to crying for the first time in five years.

She opened the door, spotted her now mud caked puppy welcoming mat and let herself into her apartment, praying that her next door neighbor took it easy on her tonight since she really wasn't sure that she could handle much more.

Doing her best not to ruin her landlord's carpeting, she made her way over to the phone, deciding that she needed the ultimate pickup after the day she had. She knew she shouldn't, especially since she would have to live off what little savings she had, but she just couldn't help herself. She called up Black Jack's Pizzeria and ordered the special, a two liter bottle of Coke, a large order of chicken fingers with extra honey mustard sauce, and an extra large, extra thick Chicago style pizza called, The Monster.

For once the customary one hour wait for delivery didn't bother her. She pulled off her mud soaked shoe and stockings and made her way upstairs to her bedroom and grabbed a change of clothes as she headed for the bathroom, praying that her surprisingly quiet neighbor remained that way.

She quickly pulled off her soaked, coffee stained, and mud splattered skirt suit and looked it over. As long as she pretreated it and got it into the wash tonight it should be fine, at least she hoped it would. She didn't exactly have the funds needed to go out and buy a new suit for job interviews. This one, with the aid of many interchangeable blouses, had lasted for three years and she'd been counting on it to last another two.

After a five minute search she found her bottle of generic stain pretreatment behind the box of condoms she bought, what was it now? Three years ago? Or was it five? The realization that she hadn't had sex in over five years was rather depressing, she thought, tossing the condoms back under the bathroom sink so she wouldn't have to look at the depressing reminder that her love life, social life, and professional life just plain sucked.

She liberally sprayed her suit, only wondering if the pretreatment chemical would harm her suit after she sprayed it. Knowing her luck, the chemical would probably chew through the imitation silk shirt and stain the suit jacket with large weird shaped polka dots.

With a resigned sigh, she left the suit on the sink counter and climbed into her bathtub and turned on the shower. For the first time all day she felt herself relax. She stood beneath the hot spray for several minutes just enjoying the hot water before she applied shampoo to her hair.

A loud squeal escaped her as the water pressure suddenly dropped and the water went from comfortably hot to excruciatingly hot in seconds. Startled, she jumped back, slipped, landed on her butt, and cringed as shampoo seeped into her eyes.

"Ow, ow, owie!" she mumbled frantically as her eyes began to burn and her butt throbbed. She wasn't entirely sure which one bothered her more at the moment, but she knew which one she could fix.

Taking a deep breath, she shoved her head under the hot water, silently cursing the low water pressure that was actually pushing more soap into her closed eyes. At least the water began to cool, she thought on a sigh before she squealed again seconds later when the water went ice cold and she was forced to stand up, hoping that would help the still low water pressure rinse her hair out faster.

It didn't.

Gasping, she ran her fingers through her long thick hair and tried to hurry the process. Minutes later she was jumping out of the shower and cursing the bastard next door for not only flushing the toilet, but for taking a shower at the same time as her. The least the jerk could have done when he realized that she was also taking a shower was wait for her to finish.

Still grumbling five minutes later and thankfully dressed in warm clothes, Zoe grabbed her basket of dirty laundry, a roll of quarters and her damn near empty bottle of laundry detergent and headed downstairs. Unfortunately she didn't have a private entrance to the basement so she was forced to balance her basket of laundry while she did her best not to step in one of the dozen or so mud splotches that decorated the hallway floor.

She walked to the door at the end of the small hallway and flicked on the light switch for the stairs all while hoping that the jerk hadn't tracked mud down the stairs, because she really didn't need to fall on her ass again tonight. Zoe sighed in relief when she spotted the clean pine stairs and headed down them to the small laundry room.

It wasn't until she placed her basket on the washing machine that she realized that she'd forgotten her suit. She half-debated leaving it for another day, but she didn't want to take the chance of landing an interview tomorrow and having nothing to wear but jeans.

With a tired sigh, she left her basket and headed upstairs. At least she had Black Jack's pizza to comfort her later, she reminded herself.

Chapter 2

How in the hell had he run out of food? Trevor wondered as he looked in the freezer again, hoping there was something hiding behind the ice cube trays to eat.

There wasn't.

Well, there was a box of baking soda that his Aunt Megan had shoved in there a few months ago when he bought the place, but he wasn't willing to risk having his stomach pumped, again. With a frustrated groan he closed the freezer door and looked out the kitchen window.

He really didn't feel like going out in this shit, but he was starving and he didn't have any choice. Of course he could order food, except for the fact that he was still on the banned list for most of the delivery places.

Bastards.

As tired as he was he knew he had to move his ass if he was going to make it to the grocery store before it closed. He headed upstairs, stripping off his sweat soaked tee shirt, work boots, and jeans as he went, noting that it looked like every piece of clothing he owned was scattered around his apartment.

Time to do the laundry, he mused as he walked into the bathroom. After he relieved himself and flushed the toilet he could have sworn he heard a squeal. Shrugging it off, he turned the shower on and cursed up a storm at the low water pressure. He'd have to fix that, but right now he was just glad that the water was nice and hot, helping to relieve the ache in his sore muscles.

Another loud squeak had his eyebrows arching. It wasn't like his normally quiet tenant to blast the television, but as long it didn't interrupt his sleep he'd let it go. After a quick shower he pulled on a semi clean pair of jeans and grabbed his mesh laundry bag and started collecting clothes off doors, counters, the back of the toilet and headed downstairs.