Takedown Teague (Caged #1) (10 page)

“Liam!  Liam, wait!”

I stopped right in the gutter, turned to see Tria running toward me, and wondered if some sort of prayer had been answered.  I stepped back up onto the curb and watched her run up to me.  As soon as she was close enough, I could see the tears running down her face.

Did all girls cry so much?

“What’s wrong?” I asked.  It hadn’t been more than five minutes since I watched the door close behind her, and I couldn’t fathom what could have happened in such a short amount of time.

“Stan,” she gasped.

“What did he do?” My words sounded like a snarl.  I was trying really hard not to yell, but if she didn’t come out with it, I was going to beat his ass.  I reached out and grasped her by both shoulders, making her turn to face me.

“He…he…he
fired
me!” Tria cried.

She was completely hysterical, and I couldn’t make out a single syllable after that.  I eventually gave up trying to understand her, bent down, and picked her up in my arms.  She squealed at first but then just let me carry her all the way home while she soaked the shoulder of my shirt.  Once I got her into her apartment with a glass of apple juice in her hand, she calmed down enough so I could understand her words.

“There was a new girl there,” Tria told me.  “I think he called her Jessica.  I’ve never seen her before, but she had huge tits that were practically hanging out of her top, and…and…”

She sniffed loudly and rummaged around in Hagrid’s Haversack, grabbing a whole mess of tissues out of it.  She wiped her eyes and nose before continuing.

“He said she had more experience, and he didn’t need me there anymore,” she said.  “He said he was sorry, and he’d keep my number just in case someone quit or something.”

She turned toward me, and the look in her eyes tore right through my chest.

“What am I going to do?” she asked.  “I can’t survive here without a job.  I just barely have enough to make rent.  I have books I still need to buy for one of my classes, and they’re over a hundred dollars!  I can’t pass the class without the books!”

“Can’t you find them at the library or something?”

“They’re all checked out,” she said.  “And I’m fourth on the waiting list.”

“Fuck,” I muttered.  I wanted to be able to tell her the perfect solution, but I was nearly as stunned as she was.  I wasn’t shocked that Stan Fin made such a shitty move—that didn’t surprise me because most bar owners were assholes—but that she had gone from having everything in order to being totally screwed in a matter of minutes.

“I’ll have to move back,” Tria said quietly.  “There’s no way I’ll be able to make it without that job.  Rent is due the day after tomorrow, and I barely have enough to pay it.  I won’t have enough for food, or the electric, or
anything
if I don’t get tip money.  But if I don’t pay, I’ll get thrown out.”

One thing about our landlord—he didn’t put up with late payments, and he didn’t have any sympathy for anyone’s sob story.  She was completely right thinking that he’d throw her out, and he wouldn’t give her any thirty days’ notice, either.  Leases were month-to-month, and anyone who didn’t pay by the second was out on the street by noon.

“They were right,” Tria said.  Her voice cracked a little.  “They were all right. I never should have come here.  I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” I corrected.  “Look how well you have already done.”

“I probably would have been killed in the street the second week I was here if it weren’t for you.” Tria scoffed as she wiped at her eyes.  “I haven’t done anything.”

“Yes,” I said emphatically, “you have.  You’ve been going to school, and I bet you are spending a whole lot of time studying, and you are probably getting great grades, aren’t you?”

She looked at me through her lashes, then lowered her head a bit and nodded.

“So you can do it, and it’s not like you got fired for doing a shitty job.  You got fired because Fin is an asshole, and I just might have to give him a coupon to amateur night in the cage.”

Actually, I kind of liked that idea.  I wondered if he could be coaxed into it.  The thought was really, really intriguing, but Tria’s words took me in a completely different direction.

“I can’t keep doing this, Liam,” she said so softly I could barely hear her.  “Not without a job, and I don’t have time to find one.  I’m pretty much screwed here.  I have to move back to Beals.”

Knowing what she said was absolutely true, and also knowing how few and far between decent jobs were around here, I couldn’t really argue with her.  The very idea that she would have to give up on her dream so quickly was bad enough, but adding that to knowing that if she moved back home, I’d probably never see her again was more than I could take.

I didn’t think. I didn’t consider.  I didn’t even realize what I was saying.

“Move in with me.”

I was never one for impulsiveness, but the words just leaped from my mouth.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I was starting to hate that phrase.

“I’m not,” I insisted.  I was still trying to figure out what the hell I had just said.  There was a little voice in the back of my head telling me I had asked her to move in with me, but I knew that couldn’t be right.  I never lived with a woman before, and I barely knew this one.  I couldn’t have said that.

Oh yes, you did.

Fuck.

I had to take it back, didn’t I?  But I couldn’t do that.  I mean—she hadn’t answered yet, but I had already offered.  It would be rude to take back the extended hand at this point, wouldn’t it?

Why didn’t I ever pay attention to all those etiquette lessons I was forced to endure as a child?

Besides, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to take it back at all.  Yeah, this was definitely out of the norm.  There was no denying that, but that didn’t mean it was a bad idea.

Of course it was.  It was a fucking awful idea.

“It’s the perfect answer.” I felt my mouth open, and words spewed forth on their own.  “You wouldn’t have to find a job right away.  You would still be able to get to school, and we’d only have to carry your stuff upstairs.”

“Liam, I am not a mooch!” Tria insisted.  “I’m not going to move in with you and have you take care of me like some child!”

“It wouldn’t be like that,” I said.  My arms and shoulders tensed up.  I was losing this battle, if that’s what it was, and I didn’t want to lose it.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted her with me.  No matter how stupid the idea was, I wanted to figure out how to make it work so she would stay.

“Oh, really?  How would it be then?” she asked, the anger flashing through her eyes.

I wasn’t exactly sure what she was thinking, but I had the feeling she had the wrong idea.  I was also dealing with a certain amount of pride here.  She didn’t want anyone to think she couldn’t succeed on her own.

“We’d just be…you know…roommates.  Help each other out, right?”

“Roommates?” Tria echoed.

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod.  “Lots of people have roommates to help with expenses.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  I help you; you help me.  Even if you paid half the rent, that would give you two months before you would need to have another job.  We’d share food and shit, so that wouldn’t cost as much.”

“Roommates,” she said again.  Her tone was rather deadpan, but there was still a hint of ire underneath it.

“Right.  It’s actually kind of perfect for me, too.  I could use the help, I guess.”  I had no fucking clue what I was babbling about, but it seemed to be working.

“I’m still paying half the rent, though,” she said as she looked up at me.  “I’m not negotiating on that.”

“Sure,” I said with a shrug.  I really didn’t care if she paid rent or not. I was just glad she seemed to be considering it.

“What about the utilities?”  She was just trying to come up with excuses now.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Liam.”  She sighed.

“Pay me back later.  Whatever.”

“This just doesn’t sound right.”

“You wouldn’t have to quit school,” I reminded her.  “You’ll have time to find a job that isn’t too far away, and then you can pay me back, or we’ll split the bills or whatever.  It’s just temporary, you know?”

Holy shit, did I really just say that?

“You know, until you’re back on your feet.”

“Temporary,” she repeated softly.

Obviously, that made the plan sound a lot better to her, so I went with it.

“Just until you’re back on your feet with a new job, ya know?  You could stay in school, and you wouldn’t have to go back to Maine.  Once you’ve found another job, you can save up a bit and do whatever you want. “

Her eyes widened, and I had the feeling the tide had just turned.

“I’d pay half your rent for this next month, right?”

“Sure,” I said.  “I mean—that helps me out, too, right?  Not at all moochy.”

Tria looked up at me, and I could see her gaze darting between my eyes.  Her mouth tightened a little as she kept looking at me intently as if she were trying to find the perfect answer written in my irises.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Positive.”

She nodded slightly then, and all the tension in my body flooded out so fast I was surprised I managed to keep myself from falling over.

“So, you’ll do it?”  I felt the need to hear her say the actual words.

“If you are sure it’s okay,” Tria answered.  “I don’t feel good about it.”

I was pretty sure I felt good enough about it for the both of us.

*****

I had been completely right about one thing: moving all her stuff out didn’t take a lot of time.  It was a good thing, too.  I went with Tria to tell the landlord she was moving out of her place and into mine, and I had the idea he would have been a lot shittier about it if I hadn’t been there.  As it was, he was very insistent she be out pretty much immediately because he needed to move another section eight family in, or he wasn’t going to get something or other from the government next month.  He basically gave her until three in the afternoon, or she wouldn’t get her deposit back.

We didn’t waste any time but went straight back to her place and got to work.  Tria shoved items into some empty beer crates I brought over from Feet First, and I carried them up to my apartment—
our
apartment—and stacked them in the living room.

Our apartment.

I smiled a little at the thought as I set a crate of freaking heavy books down next to my rowing machine in the living room.  Though it was staying cool outside, I was sweating up a storm going back and forth, carrying boxes between apartments.  I pulled up the edge of my T-shirt and wiped it over my face, and then I headed back downstairs.

We had both agreed the best thing to do was just to get stuff moved so the landlord would have no excuse to keep her security deposit.  The extra money would come in really handy if she were to get it back.  I had my doubts, but I knew the landlord wouldn’t return a nickel if she wasn’t totally out of the place on time.  Sure, there were laws about evicting people, but you had to be able to afford to take the landlord to court.  No one in this building could manage that.  Given that it was the last day of the month, there was no chance of leniency, so we focused on just getting everything out as quickly as possible.

“This is just about it,” Tria said as I walked back in.  “There are a few more things in the bathroom to pack up, but I should be able to fit them in here.”

She held up the Beast Bag.

“Well, if I had known we could pack stuff in that thing,”—I grinned—“I wouldn’t have bothered to bring those crates from the bar.  Here, let me shove the fridge in there…”

I moved across the floor and wrapped my arms around the front of the refrigerator and acted as if I were going to pick it up.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Tria sighed, but she also smiled slightly and shook her head at me.  “There are two more boxes in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, and the bathroom stuff.  I think that’s it.  I’ll just need to clean everything off and then tell the landlord I’m out.”

“I’ll get this stuff upstairs,” I said.  I picked up the kitchen boxes, dropped them off on my kitchen table, and ran back down for the last bits.

Tria was already vacuuming the floors when I got there, and she spent the next hour cleaning the whole place up.  She seemed to think having it nice and clean was going to make any difference in the landlord’s decision to return her deposit.  I wasn’t so sure, but we had plenty of time before three o’clock, and it certainly couldn’t hurt.

I went upstairs, grabbed two beers, and brought them back down.  I popped the caps off and handed a beer to Tria, who paused from cleaning the countertop to sit and eye the bottle a bit before shrugging and having a drink.

“Better than apple juice?” I asked, teasing.

“No,” she replied seriously.  “Not really.”

I laughed because she was right.  The beer was cheap and not very good.  It was cold, though, and there was something about beer and physical labor that just went together.

“Oh!  I almost forgot!” Tria jumped up and opened the refrigerator.  She brought out a small paper plate with two large, red apples coated in caramel.  There was a big Popsicle stick shoved into the top of each one.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Caramel apples!” Tria announced.  “I thought they would be appropriate, and it
is
Halloween.”

“Oh yeah,” I said with a nod.  I hadn’t really thought about it, but I couldn’t argue with the date.  The apples were crunchy, and the caramel was gooey and sweeter than I remembered from childhood.  “This is different than the ones I’ve had before.”

“How so?” Tria asked.  She looked up at me through her lashes, appearing apprehensive.

“The caramel is different,” I said.  “It’s…sweeter, maybe?  Definitely stickier.”

“Is that bad?”

“No,” I replied, “I like it this way.”

“Good,” she said as she smiled.  “I made it from scratch.”

“You made caramel?”

“Yep,” she said, and she licked a bit off her lip.

I could have helped with that.

“So, you really do like it?”

Yeah…I’d definitely like to lick the caramel off…

“Liam?”

“Hmm?  Oh…sorry.”  I swallowed the mouthful of apple and tried to focus.  “What did you say?”

Tria gave me a weird look and shook her head minutely.

“I asked if you liked the apple.”

“Yeah!  It’s awesome!”

“See, I was thinking about this whole mooching off you thing,” she said, but I interrupted her.

“I told you, it’s not mooching,” I said.  “We’re just helping each other out.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Tria said dismissively.  She waved her hand around a bit, trying to make her point.  “It’s seriously lopsided, but I’m not going to argue about that any more.  Anyway, I thought maybe I could even it up a little by doing the cooking.”

“Cooking?”

“Yes,” she said as she looked through her lashes again at me.  I tried not to focus on her when she did that because it did funny things to my cock.  “I like cooking, but it never seems worth it for just me.”

“Cooking,” I said again.

“You do realize there’s more out there to eat besides veggie burgers and protein shakes, right?”

“Sounds kind of familiar,” I said with a nod.  For a moment, I wondered how she knew so much about my normal meal plan, but figured I had probably talked about it a couple of times on our walks.

Tria laughed.

“So, what do you think?”

I was still kind of focused on her sticky lips and had no idea what she was asking me.

“About what?”

“Food.  Cooking.  Me cook you food,” Tria said in short, clipped syllables and then began to laugh.  “Did you zone out on me?”

“Um…sorry,” I said.  “I guess I’m a little tired.”

“Well, what do you think about me doing the cooking while I’m staying with you?”

“I think I haven’t had a decent meal since my mom was cooking for me.”

“How long has that been?” Tria asked.

I went stiff almost immediately.  I straightened my back in the chair and looked quickly at the window to stare at nothing.  I tried to make my mind match the blank image in my eyes.  I had no idea why I had made that comment.  I didn’t want to think about, talk about, or even broach a tangent conversation regarding my family.

“You never talk about your family,” Tria said softly.

I clenched my jaw and grit my teeth.  I didn’t look at her, and I didn’t respond.  After a moment, Tria reached part way across the kitchen table but stopped moving as I sat back and pulled away.

“Long time?” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” I replied.  I kept staring out the window until I felt a little more in control.  I tightened my fingers around the neck of the beer bottle and quickly tilted it up to my lips to drain it.  “We better get this shit finished.”

I stood immediately, and Tria was just a fraction behind.  She seemed to want to say something else, but I wasn’t going to give her the chance.  I started cleaning up again, and she took the hint.

Tria wiped down the inside of the refrigerator while I gathered up the apple cores and beer bottles into a big trash bag and hauled it out to the dumpsters behind the building.  After tossing the bag into the bin, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

The conversation about meals and the mention of my mother had left me on edge.  I didn’t want to go back in feeling like that.  I didn’t let that shit get to me because I just didn’t think about it.  I didn’t want to be thinking about it now, either, but I couldn’t help but remember the last meal I shared with my family.

Breaded veal cutlets, mashed potatoes, and green beans seasoned with those tiny, round onions.  Mom and Dad drank wine from crystal glasses, and Mrs. Carter served crème brûlée for dessert.  No one said a word while we ate, and at the end of the meal, Dad had dropped his glass heavily on the top of the carved cherry table.