Takedown Teague Read online

  “Hmm…interesting.” Erin flipped her hair over her shoulder and tilted her head as she looked at me. “I’ve never seen the inside of a cage fighter’s locker room before.”

  “First time for everything,” I said. “Shall we?”

  I offered her my hand and quickly made my way around the cage. I nudged past Gary, who winked at me as we went by, and I led Erin down the ramp to the locker room.

  As soon as we were inside, I slipped the lock through the ring in the metal plate on the door, turned, and grabbed Erin by the waist. I lifted her easily and spun us both around before pressing her back against the door and covering her mouth with mine.

  She pressed her hands against my stomach and then slipped them lower to the buttons of my jeans. I reached my hands inside the back of her shirt where I found and released the clasp of her bra. Our tongues tangled together in her mouth, and she moaned as she pressed her crotch up against mine.

  She tasted like lipstick.

  Her hair didn’t feel right. Too smooth. Too straight.

  She didn’t smell right, either. The scent of chemically induced roses or whatever made my nose sting.

  Her hand found its way inside my boxers.

  Her mouth stopped moving.

  “Everything okay?” she said quietly.

  “Yeah,” I said quickly. “Fine…just, um…here—”

  I shifted her a little, bringing her legs around my waist and grinding against her a bit.

  Nothing.

  “Maybe I’m a little drunk,” I shrugged.

  “You’ve had two beers,” she reminded me.

  I swallowed and then started kissing up the side of her neck. She wrapped her hands in my hair and tugged at it a bit.

  I didn’t like it.

  “Don’t,” I mumbled. I reached up behind my head and pulled her hand down to my shoulder instead.

  She looked at me with disbelief in her eyes, and I slowly lowered her to the ground. I moved in to kiss her again, but she brought up her hand and placed it against the center of my chest, holding me off.

  I remembered how another hand felt against my chest, and I liked that one better.

  Erin let out an exaggerated sigh.

  “Look, Liam, you are totally hot, but I’m not one to pursue a guy who obviously”—her eyes darted down and then back up again—“isn’t into me. So, let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay?”

  “I just…I never…”

  “Shush,” she said as she placed her cheap, plastic, fake nails across my lips. “If I had to guess, there’s someone else you would much rather have in here with you right now. I can deal with that. Maybe you need to deal with it yourself, hmm?”

  With that, she reached behind her back to re-hook her bra, lifted the lock on the door, placed it in my palm, and left.

  Taking a couple of steps backwards, I plopped myself down on the bench by the lockers and dropped my head into my hands. I had no fucking clue what just happened. I had never, never had any issues with my cock standing straight and tall for any woman I had even the slightest interest in fucking. Never, ever, ever, not even once.

  Well, once now.

  I leaned back against the cool metal for a moment, sighed disgustedly at myself, and then started buttoning up my pants. I dug my hands around in my hair while I wondered what the hell was wrong with me. Even strung out, I could still get it up. Couldn’t come most of the time, but performing was never an issue. Maybe Katie’s crazy was contagious or something.

  With nothing better to do, I left early and hung around outside of Fin’s for an hour until Tria was done with her shift. She was pretty tired after hauling greasy food around for hours and didn’t have a lot to say on the way home.

  If I really thought about it, I would have to admit that she’d been somewhat uncommunicative since we had the little heart to heart on her couch the other night, and I hoped I hadn’t pushed her too much. She didn’t seem like she was mad at me, more like she was introspective.

  I was distracted myself, thinking about what Erin had said to me and wondering just how close to the truth she might have been. It made me wonder about the whole big brother thing and if I should maybe consider turning that around. I mean, we obviously weren’t related and had only known each other for about a month and a half. Considering she had a thing with a guy she actually grew up with, maybe she wouldn’t have an issue reconsidering the sibling status we had established.

  Say that shit ten times fast.

  We were halfway back, and I realized we hadn’t said two words to each other.

  “Everything okay tonight?” I asked.

  “Hmm?” Tria cocked her head to the side to look at me. “Oh, um…it was fine, I guess. Nothing very exciting.”

  “No crazy diners tonight?”

  “Not really,” she said. “There was one who sent his food back three times, but that’s not very exciting.”

  “He didn’t like it?”

  “Guess not.”

  That was about the extent I was getting out of her for conversation, and it was starting to tick me off a little. This was my favorite part of the day, and she wasn’t at all cooperative about it. That, coupled with the generally shitty way my night had gone, was making me pretty pissy.

  “What’s up with you?” I demanded.

  “What?” she asked, startling slightly.

  “Talk to me or something!” I was practically growling at the poor girl. I sounded ridiculous, and I didn’t care. “Tell me more about screwing around with your siblings or something.”

  Yeah, that crossed a line.

  Tria glared at me, looked like she was about to say something, but quickly closed her mouth instead. She started to walk ahead of me, like she was going to escape into the building and avoid me altogether. I took a couple of quick steps and placed my hand over the door, obstructing her entry. Tria growled through her teeth and clutched at Gorilla Gucci.

  I ignored the bag and its potentially frightening contents.

  “Get out of my way!” she snapped.

  “Fuck, Tria, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know exactly what you meant! I thought maybe you weren’t going to be like that, but I can see you are! So get the fuck out of my way before I slap you!”

  A little chill went through my body, and the boner I couldn’t seem to find earlier started shoving painfully against the buttons of my jeans.

  Holy shit, why did I find that hot?

  “Stop it!” I yelled as my heart beat furiously in my chest. I ached to grab her, slam her up against the door, rip off her shorts, and do her in front of the neighborhood. “I didn’t mean it like that! It just…it just came out wrong.”

  I moved further between her and the door as I took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “You think I’m fucked up just like everyone else in school did,” she said. I didn’t have to see the slight tears welling up at the corners of her eyes; I could hear them in her voice.

  “Fuck, Tria. I didn’t mean it that way, I swear.” Well, I did think it was fucked up, but I hadn’t meant to direct that toward her. “So you dated a guy you grew up with—what’s it to me?”

  She glanced at me, her expression telling me immediately that she didn’t believe a word coming out of my mouth.

  “Look, Tria,” I said quietly. I reached out and placed one hand on the door frame and leaned a little closer. “I’m not going to lie to you and say it isn’t a little…surprising. It doesn’t mean I think any less of you. Besides, you aren’t with him anymore. You don’t even live there anymore.”

  “Why don’t you just say what you want?” she asked. The anger was gone from her voice, but her words stung more. “Tell me I’m a freak. Tell me I’m going to hell. Tell me what a horrible person I am. I’m used to it.”

  “I don’t think that,” I told her.

  “Don’t you?”

  “No!” I narrowed my eyes, my own ire returning. She didn’t have any reason to
doubt me. I had never lied to her.

  She took a step back and covered her face with her hands. A moment later, she let out a loud growl, shook her head, and then looked back at me. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I tried not to think filthy things about how awesome it looked.

  Her shoulders sagged as she let out a long breath.

  “I wasn’t expecting people here to find out and judge me for it.”

  “I’m not judging you.”

  “Judgment day! Judgment day!” A singsong voice called out from above us.

  “Shut up, you crazy bitch!” I yelled.

  Tria snickered, and the tension between us instantly faded away as Krazy Katie threw her still-lit cigarette out over the edge of the fire escape and toward us. It dropped to the cement in front of me, and I bent over to pick it up.

  “Thanks!” I said as I took a long drag off of it.

  “Even she knows now,” Tria muttered.

  “Krazy Katie isn’t going to tell anybody anything, are you, baby?” I yelled up at her. I smiled as I looked back at Tria. “Even if she did, no one would believe a word of it.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Tria asked quietly, as if Krazy Katie would care if she heard anything Tria said.

  “I told you before—she’s crazy.”

  “But what kind of crazy?” Tria asked. “Is she schizophrenic or something?”

  “Hell if I know,” I responded with a shrug. “All I can tell you is she doesn’t make any sense about ninety-five percent of the time. Then the other five percent of the time, she says something you think is absolutely brilliant.”

  “Like what?” She looked up at the fire escape with wide eyes.

  I could feel a smile creep over my face as she stared toward the fire escape. She was beautiful in the faded light from the one and only functional streetlight around, and I was thrilled she hadn’t stayed mad at me. It made me feel…giddy.

  “Like mares eat oats, and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy…”

  “Liam!” Tria smacked me on the arm and laughed.

  “What?” I placed my hand on my chest and tried my best to look shocked. “I looked it up on the internet! It’s true! All of it! The lambs, the mares—everything!”

  Tria shook her head and laughed again. It was a wonderful sound, and I was glad we weren’t ending the night with any more talk of her ex-boyfriend-brother, Keith Harrison.

  We headed into the building, said goodnight at Tria’s door, and I went up to my own apartment for my date with a handful of lather and my fingers wrapped around my cock.

  *****

  The following Wednesday, our walks came to an abrupt end.

  I had just dropped Tria off and was already wishing it were time to pick her up again. The nights were a lot longer when I wasn’t working, but she was. Stepping over the little brick border around a half-dead bunch of annuals, I hopped off the curb to cross the alley behind Fin’s, figuring I’d spend my time at Feet First even though I didn’t have any spare cash for dinner or a drink. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my smokes and lighter, and took a deep drag on the Marlboro. I blew smoke high into the cooling night air and then turned abruptly at the sound of my name.

  “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.
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br />   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.

  Chapter 9—Clean the Mess

  “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.