Fire & Brimstone (Neighbor from Hell #8) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,95

of things in perspective.

Before today she could have honestly said that she saw absolutely nothing wrong with being a waitress for the rest of her life, but now she realized that had been a little shortsighted. While she still saw nothing wrong with working in a restaurant for the rest of her life, she realized that working as a waitress who was completely dependent on tips was not going to give her the stability that she needed or the future that she wanted.

She needed more and if working in a restaurant was really what she wanted to do, and she was absolutely positive that it was, then it was time to get serious about it. She needed to learn how to run a restaurant and the best way to do that was to finally get off her ass and go back to school. She could enroll in an online program and work towards her degree. It would take some time, but at least by the time that she had her degree she would have options, which was honestly more than she had right now.

“I’ve never been to a karaoke bar before!” his mother said with a huge smile, which was probably the only reason that Lucifer, his father and brother weren’t dragging them out of there right now.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Rebecca promised her with a huge smile just to irritate the man sitting next to her, glaring…just glaring.

She had to admit that it was a little unsettling.

When Aidan mouthed the words, I hate you, she wasn’t sure whether he was talking to her or Lucifer. Not that she really cared since she’d found the perfect way to get mind off of things for a while. She just wished that Melanie had been able to join them, but she had too much work to catch up on.

At least, that was the bullshit excuse that Melanie had given her when she’d called to invite her to join them. Since this was normally the type of thing that Melanie would drop everything for, screwing people over and not the karaoke part, she knew that Melanie probably needed some time to herself to figure things out. Since they still had plenty of time to talk about everything going on, she picked up her menu and wondered what the odds were of getting all the Bradford men up on the “stage” to sing a Katy Perry song were.

Probably not that good, but she was going to damn well try.

Thankfully the very limited and incredibly disappointing menu helped take her mind off that depressing realization and onto something else equally as depressing. As she glanced through the menu, searching for the small gluten-free sign that would let her know what was safe to eat, she realized something very important.

She was going to starve.

“Oh, everything looks so good,” Mrs. Bradford said while Rebecca sat there trying to decide between…

Well, there really was nothing to decide since the only thing that was gluten free on the menu was a hamburger, minus the bun, with a side salad, minus the croutons and salad dressing. Since that really didn’t sound appetizing, she decided that she’d fill up on Coke and make something to eat when she got home later.

If she had known that her food choices were going to be limited coming here…

She still would have come, she decided with a sigh as she closed the menu and focused back on her intended victims. This was going to be so much fun, she mused, barely managing to keep a smile off her face. For five years she’d entertained herself by finding new and interesting ways to torture Lucifer, but even she had to admit that things had become a little stale there at the end.

Finding new and exciting ways to torture him while working under some serious limitations had been something of a challenge. Since she’d been limited to only torturing him at work and through run-ins in the hall she’d had with him under the capacity of the landlord/tenant relationship, she really hadn’t had much to work with. But now that they spent time outside of work together the possibilities had become endless. It also didn’t hurt that her relationship with Lucifer had brought her new victims to torture.

Speaking of her new victims…

“What song are you going to sing?” she asked Aidan, deciding to focus on him first as a favor to Melanie, who’d made her promise to make his life a living hell since she wasn’t