Takedown Teague (Caged #1) (14 page)

Walking home was a lot quieter than our walks had been in the past.  I wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and Tria just seemed to be in some kind of deep thought or something.  Unlike some of the times we had spent a block or two in silence as we went from home to work or work to home, this one felt very uncomfortable to me.

Tria had definitely not liked the fight.  No doubt about that at all.  I was pretty sure that’s what she was thinking about, and I was also pretty sure I didn’t want to know the details.

Back at the apartment, I opened the door and held it for Tria.  She smiled up at me as she walked in, but there was no sparkle in her eyes like there usually was when she smiled at me.

Tria collected her sweats and T-shirt and headed into the bathroom to shower and change.  It was freaking cold in the place, and I decided to break down and turn the heat up.  In the hallway, the little thermostat read sixty-two, which I bumped up to sixty-eight and listened to the fan kick on.

Maybe it would keep me from trying to spoon my roommate after I fell asleep.

I dropped my clothes to the floor and pulled a pair of sweats up my legs.  Glancing at the floor and rolling my eyes a bit, I kicked the dirties into the pile in the corner before hauling myself out the window for a smoke.

Krazy Katie didn’t look at me, and after all the bullshit she was spouting the other day, I didn’t even say hello to her as I leaned against the rail and watched ash fall to the ground below me.  She didn’t say anything either though she kept making little huffing sounds out of her nose.

When I went back inside, Tria was done in the bathroom and sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapping her separated hair into braids.

“Hey, I was thinking,” I said as I scratched at the back of my head and looked off to the side of her.  “Maybe it would be better if I was on the other side of the bed.  I do think I prefer it.”

“Sure,” Tria responded.  She used a little black twisty band to hold the end of her hair in the braid and tossed it over her shoulder.

She got in on the side closer to the window, and I got in closer to the door.  The whole side of the bed still smelled like her, and I was already pretty sure it was going to work out just fine.  That is, until Tria asked for her pillow back, and I reluctantly handed it over and accepted my own in exchange.

It still smelled like her a bit but not as much.

Rolling to my side, I faced the door and tried to hold on to the edge of the blanket as tightly as I could.  I could feel Tria right behind me, situating herself into a comfortable position and tugging slightly at the blanket as she did so, but my grip did not falter.  She let out a long sigh and went still.

For the longest time, I just lay there with my eyes open, watching the partially closed door to the bedroom and wondering what the fuck I was doing.

Only a few hours after I finally dozed off, I woke up warm, content, and surrounded by that heavenly scent.  I knew exactly where I was and what I was doing and didn’t even to pretend to think I was dreaming.

The length of my body was lined up flush with hers, and my arm was wrapped around her waist.  My fingers curled over the swell at her hip, and my thumb had found its way inside the hem of her shirt and pressed lightly into her warm skin there.

I opened my eyes, and her face was so peaceful and serene, it took my breath away.  Her head was tilted slightly toward me so that her forehead was pressed into my shoulder.  I had again managed to get my arm underneath her to complete the embrace and make it really damn hard to move away.

I didn’t want to anyway.

For some time, I just watched her.  For the most part, she was still as she lay in my arms, but sometimes her fingers would twitch a little or her eyes would move under her lids.  I watched her chest rise and fall and tried not to think about how easy it would be to spread my fingers and reach up to touch her breast.

To keep myself from even considering it anymore, I pulled my hand from her side and used it to brush off of her forehead a stray piece of hair that had escaped from the braid.  With a quiet sigh, I dug my arm out from under her and rolled back to my own, cold side of the bed.

An hour later, I did the whole thing again.

*****

We fell into a routine.  Tria had classes through the week and spent her evenings studying.  Every morning she made breakfast though she made lighter fare than she had the first day.  She told me she’d make pancakes on Sundays since I should have a couple of days to recover from all those carbs and syrup.  I’d run daily, work out with Yolanda every other day, and fight Tuesdays and Fridays.

Tria didn’t come back to the bar to watch me fight again, but she was also claiming it was just because she had to study for midterms.  I wasn’t surprised that she came up with the excuse, but I had hoped she might at least give it another try.  Yolanda asked me about it, and I offered to take her into the cage to put an end to her questioning.

She glared but left me alone.

I was taking my morning run and swinging around the single tree Tria still hadn’t seen in a sea of concrete when I noticed a guy hauling a bunch of shit out of one of the buildings and tossing it up into one of those large industrial dumpsters.  The contents of the large cart he was pushing caught my eye.

“Hey, dude!” I called out as I altered my course and jogged easily over to him.  He had graying dark hair and kept coughing into his hand.

“Damn dust,” he muttered as I approached.  “They don’t pay me enough for all this dust.  Probably asbestos in there, too.”

He pointed his thumb over his shoulder toward one of the abandoned warehouses.

“You just throwing this out?” I asked him.

“Cleaning out the old ball bearings place,” he said.  He looked me up and down and took a step back, appearing tense.   “There isn’t much left in there, and they said just to haul out whatever was there.  I ain’t stealing anything.”

“I just wondered if you were going to pitch the wood,” I said.  “If you are, I was going to take it.”

His shoulders relaxed a little.

“It’s just going in the dumpsters,” he said.  “Once it’s in there, it’s fair game, I guess.”

A few minutes later, I had several pieces of plywood and a two-foot section of a two-by-four over my shoulders.  I didn’t head directly back to the apartment but took the alleyway over to Feet First instead.

It was way too early for the bar to be open, but I pounded on the back entrance until Stacy opened the door.

“Liam!” she scolded.  “What are you doing out here?”

“Do you have a hammer and some nails around someplace?” I asked.  “I want to build something.”

She looked at me skeptically, shook her head slowly, and opened the door wide.

“There’s a toolbox in the kitchen,” she told me, “but you can’t take all of that in there—there is no room for it.  Take it to the locker room, and I’ll bring the box.”

I offered to go get the box myself, but she waved me off and muttered something about not being all
that
old.  I shifted my load from one shoulder to the other and then hauled it all downstairs.  I lay the pieces down on the cement floor and looked them over.

There were four decent-sized, mostly flat pieces of plywood, and the section of two-by-four was a little over two feet long.  In my head, I tried to picture what a bookshelf looked like and thought about that Tangelos game my Dad used to play with me when I was a kid.  You would get all these different-shaped pieces and have to fit them together into a certain arrangement, and you’d try to do it as fast as possible.  Using scrap wood to make serviceable furniture wasn’t too different.

Stacy brought a large toolbox down the stairs, dropped it at my feet, and asked if I wanted lunch.  I declined politely before I began to rummage through the box.  Hammer, nails, a hack saw, sandpaper—I didn’t think I would need much more than that.

I spent the entire afternoon sawing, hammering, and sanding.  I cut the two-by-four into eight small pieces to serve as feet and tops and then shaped the plywood into four similarly sized pieces.  They weren’t perfect, but when I started putting it all together, it worked out pretty well.  It at least stood up straight without wobbling.

It was definitely useful, but it didn’t look like much.

“I made you a sandwich,” Stacy said as she pushed open the door and dropped a plate down in front of me.  “You’ve been down here for hours, and I know you have to be hungry.”

“Dordy’ll be pissed.”

“He’s not in yet, and I doubt he’s going to miss a couple slices of cheese and bread.”

I looked up at her and gave her a smile.

“Thanks,” I said.  “I am kind of hungry, now that you mention it.  What time is it?”

“Nearly four o’clock,” she replied.

I nodded and looked at my little project a bit more closely.  It needed a lot more sanding.

“Are you taking up a new hobby?” Stacy asked, snickering.  “Joining a book club?”

“Nah,” I said with a headshake.  I was pleased that she at least recognized my creation for what it was supposed to be.  “I got a roommate, and she’s got a lot of books.  My apartment doesn’t have a bookshelf or anything, so they’re still in a couple boxes.  I saw this shit…um…”

I glanced up at the older woman, who had her hands on her hips as she stared down at me.

“Stuff,” I said, correcting myself, “in the dumpster.  I thought I could make it into a place for her books.”

“Liam Teague!” Stacy exclaimed.  She placed her hand over her chest.  “Do you have a lady friend?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“Roommate, Stacy.  That’s it.”

“Hmm…” she murmured as she turned around and headed back up the stairs.  “I always wanted a boy who would make me bookcases.”

“You asking me on a date?” I asked, snickering.

“If I was thirty years younger, you wouldn’t be able to fend me off,” she called as she disappeared around the corner.

I laughed and wolfed down the sandwich before I went back to sanding.  Stacy came back a few minutes later to collect my plate, and as she did, she handed me a small can.

“Not sure if there will be enough,” she told me as she walked back out, “but it’s a pretty color blue, and we don’t need the extra paint for anything.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.  I stared at the little can of paint in my hand before tilting it from side to side to try to determine how much was left.  It was a quart can and maybe half full.  I thought that would be enough to cover the bookshelf pretty nicely, but I’d definitely have to get it sanded down better first, which meant I wouldn’t be able to get it done today.  Tria was going to be home from school within an hour, and she told me she was going to try some new vegetarian recipe she found in a book she got at the college library.

Tria did not cook just pancakes.  She could make almost anything and had been trying out various vegetable-centered dishes to cook for me though I told her she didn’t have to.  She continued to state that it was her part of the living arrangements, so she was going to learn to cook what I would eat.

I cleaned up the mess I had made and set the little bookshelf up in the corner farthest from the shower.  I wasn’t sure if humidity would do anything to it or not, but it seemed like a good idea.  I made it back to the apartment with about ten minutes to spare before the Hoffman College transportation van rolled up in front of the building.

“I have to run to the grocery,” Tria announced as soon as she got in the door.  “I found this new cookbook at the library, and it’s perfect.”

She yanked the giant-ass, full-sized cookbook out of Black Hole Briefcase and flopped it down on the kitchen table.  She flipped through the pages of the vegetarian cookbook and came to a recipe for Swedish Bean Balls.

“Bean balls?” I asked skeptically.

“Look at what’s in it.  I think it might be good.”

I looked over the list of ingredients—kidney beans, rice, onions, breadcrumbs—and nothing sounded bad at all.  The book said to put it all over mashed potatoes with some vegetarian gravy.  I wasn’t really sure what it would all taste like, but I said I would at least give it a try.  Tria wrote down a list of things to buy, bitched about me giving her the cash for it, but eventually relented and took the money.

I glanced over the recipe again and was glad I didn’t have to fight for a couple of days because it was going to be some heavy stuff.  Yolanda would probably want to kill me if she saw me eating a big pile of mashed potatoes and gravy.

Since Tria was going to be gone for a while, I jumped on the opportunity to head into the shower and take care of business.  I’d always had pretty regular daily jerk-off sessions, and having Tria living with me had certainly made that a little difficult.  Waking up spooning her every night didn’t help, either.

What also didn’t help were the images in my mind whenever I took my dick in my hand.

It wasn’t even a matter of trying to think about her; as soon as there was flesh-on-flesh, her face was in my mind.  The chick from my favorite porno getting a spit roast no longer did a thing for me.  I only thought of Tria’s eyes, Tria’s lips, and Tria’s body as I ran my hand up and down my shaft.