Takedown Teague Page 9

  “I thought I did,” she said with a little shrug. She started digging around in her purse again, which I was starting to realize was some kind of distraction tactic, and I wasn’t falling for it.

  “You can live without that lip shit for a few minutes,” I said as she looked up at me through narrowed eyes. “Tell me about your brother. What’s his name?”

  She paused for far longer than was really necessary. I was about to press when she finally spoke up.

  “It’s, um…it’s Keith Harrison,” she finally said. She stared at the ground as she spoke. “Keith and I grew up together.”

  “Keith, the douchebag, Keith?” I asked. “The one I’m going to fillet if I ever see him again?”

  “Well, yes,” Tria said. “Except the filleting part.”

  “Keith is your brother?” I couldn’t hide my shock. It was the farthest thing from my mind, and I didn’t know how to react to that kind of news. At least I understood her hesitation now. Her brother? She said she was six when her dad died, so she had been living with him since she was a little kid, raised as siblings, and then they end up together? How fucked up was that?

  “You know, I really took quite enough of that kind of crap when I was in high school, and I don’t need to hear any more of it now. Yes, we grew up together in the same house. No, we are not related by blood in any way, and yes, we dated. Deal with it!”

  I turned to look at her then, eyebrows raised to meet her glare. Really, how else did she expect me to react? It was fucked up, without a doubt. We looked at each other for a moment before she dropped her gaze.

  “Bit of testiness around that subject, huh?”

  “I’m tired of being judged,” Tria snapped back at me. “Especially for something that is over and done with. Was it a mistake? Yes, it was, but not because we lived in the same house.”

  “Did you fuck him?” I asked.

  “That is none of your damn business!”

  “True,” I agreed. “I’m mostly just curious.”

  “Well, you can just continue to be curious!”

  “You have a bit of a temper, don’t cha?” I wasn’t sure if I was disgusted by the whole idea of it, curious about how such a relationship could come about, or intrigued that she would consider a brother-figure as dating material. If she did, maybe she would consider another.

  Even more fucked up.

  When I realized she hadn’t answered me, I found myself pressing the issue.

  “So, what was the mistake?”

  She sighed.

  “Keith is too much like his dad,” Tria said. “Even when he doesn’t agree with him, he will still go along with whatever Leo says.”

  “What does Leo say?” I asked. She hadn’t said much about her adoptive father, and I kind of wondered about that. I found whatever revulsion I might have felt disappear into interest about her life.

  “Well, like going to school, for instance,” Tria explained. “He was all right with me going to a local place and still living at home, but he was completely against me going out of town to get my degree.”

  “It’s your life,” I said simply.

  “Leo doesn’t see it that way,” she said. “Neither does Keith.”

  “How did he react when you got accepted to Hoffman?”

  Tria went quiet, and I had to ask a couple more times before I could get her to elaborate.

  “I don’t know how he reacted,” she finally said. “I didn’t tell either of them—I just left.”

  “Packed your bags and disappeared in the middle of the night?”

  “Basically.”

  I whistled low.

  “So they’re both pissed at you now.”

  “Apparently,” she said. “I figured they would find out where I went, but I didn’t think Keith would drive all the way out here to try to bring me back.”

  “Does he even know you broke up with him?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I did that the day before I left. We argued about school conflicting with my ‘wifely duties,’ and I called off the wedding.”

  She made little air-quotes with her fingers as she spoke, but I just shook my head as I tried to make some sort of meaning out of what she was saying.

  “You were engaged?”

  She snorted.

  “Betrothed, more like. I don’t recall anyone ever asking me; they just started planning a wedding.”

  “That’s fucked up.” I noticed there was a definite theme to my thoughts about the people she grew up with.

  “No argument here.”

  We walked in silence for a few minutes while I tried to digest all the information she had just given me. It didn’t lessen the desire to break douchebag’s face at all and actually kind of led me to add Douchebag’s father to the list of potential targets. I considered asking for their address, but I didn’t think she would give it to me. Maybe I would have to wait for one of them to show up here again, which had me wondering.

  “So what are you going to do the next time he shows up at your place?” I quickened my pace a little as I guided Tria across the street. I hopped up on the curb and tilted my head to look at her.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. She was staring at the ground again, and I wanted to harass her for it, but I also didn’t want her to change the subject on me.

  “Wrong answer.” I shook my head vigorously. “Number one, you don’t let him in. Number two, you call me.”

  “I don’t want to drag you into my bullshit,” she said with a sigh.

  “Too late,” I said succinctly. “And it wouldn’t matter anyway—I’m putting myself in it.”

  “What happened to ‘it’s my life’?” she asked. She reached up and pulled her hair out of its ponytail.

  Damn, that was distracting.

  I made myself focus on the conversation at hand and not the enticing way her hair lay on her shoulders.

  “What are you going to do if he suddenly decides he’s going to drag you back there, huh?” I asked. There was a hot spot in my stomach, driving the anger out of my gut and into my words. “You going to say ‘No, please don’t’ like you would have done with those rapists in the street? Ask him politely? You think that would work?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “It’s possible, isn’t it?” I pressed. “He could come back here and try to physically haul you back home.”

  “I think that’s why he came here, yes,” she said quietly.

  “I figured as much.” I could barely speak through my clenched teeth.

  The apartment building came into view, and a minute later we stopped at Tria’s door.

  “So what are you going to do if he shows up here again?” I asked.

  “Not let him in,” she replied as she rolled her eyes.

  “And?”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. Tria shoved both hands inside of Sasquatch’s Satchel and pulled out a pen and an entire notebook of paper. We exchanged numbers, and I asked her why her ex couldn’t seem to just drop it and move on.

  “Beals is a very small town,” Tria explained. “More of a village, really. There are only about five hundred people living there, and my adoptive family made a living in lobster fishing. The whole community revolves around it. I understand it to a degree. So many of the kids in the area end up moving away since the industry is regulated, and there isn’t enough lobster to go around. The number of members is dwindling, and they’re afraid the whole culture is just going to cease to exist someday. I know they want to protect that, but telling me I have to stay home and have babies for their sake isn’t the answer.”

  A flash of a slightly bulging stomach ricocheted through my head, accompanied by chills and a tensing of the muscles in my lower abdomen. I grit my teeth and forced the thoughts away.

  “You don’t want kids?” I heard myself ask. I had no fucking idea why I asked such a question—it was a door that remained closed in my head.

  “Someday, maybe,”
she said softly. “But not at eighteen, like he wanted.”

  I had to change the subject as quickly as possible, so I went for the most obnoxious thing that could have come out of my mouth—obnoxious, crass, and far too close to what I really wanted to know.

  “So you were fucking him,” I said.

  Tria crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes.

  “Look, this isn’t exactly a topic I care to discuss in the hallway.”

  “It’s not my bedtime yet,” I told her. I glanced from my wrist, which didn’t actually have a watch on it, to her partially opened doorway, and then back to her face.

  Tria sighed, opened her apartment door wider, and made a gesture toward the inside. I was so surprised the tactic worked, I almost just stood there and stared at her outstretched arm, but my feet finally woke up and moved me forward.

  The only other time I had been in Tria’s apartment at all, I hadn’t really paid any attention to anything in it. I had been far too focused—first on the asshole who was yelling at her and then by the act of will it took to keep from pressing my cock against her stomach while she hugged me. Now that the distractions were removed, I looked around a bit more.

  The layout was exactly like mine—a small living room and eat-in kitchen with a little hallway leading to two other doors—the bedroom and bath. Her furniture was slightly better than mine since she obviously got a place that was completely furnished, but it was still pretty bland. There was a couch and a coffee table sitting across from a bookshelf with a little television with rabbit ears on top of it. The rest of the shelf was covered in books—both novels and textbooks, as far as I could tell. Next to the couch, there was a little table with a butt-ugly lamp sitting on it.

  “You want something to drink?” Tria asked. “Um…I’ve only got water and some apple juice, though.”

  I couldn’t stop the smile.

  “Apple juice is awesome,” I said. Tria walked into the kitchen to pour two glasses while I sat on the couch and looked around. There weren’t any decorations or anything on the wall, but I did notice a small, framed picture of a guy in an army uniform standing with a little girl, who I figured was Tria.

  I didn’t get a chance to take a closer look before Tria came back with the drinks, which she set on little cardboard coasters. She stood there nervously for a moment before sitting beside me and curling her legs up underneath her.

  “So?” I asked as I leaned an elbow on the back of the couch. I tilted my body toward her, pulling my leg up slightly and nearly matching her posture. I leaned my head down onto my open hand.

  “I have no idea why I’m talking to you about this,” Tria said.

  “Apple juice will make you say all kinds of crazy shit,” I informed her. I gave her a very serious look. “Chug that glass, and it’ll all just flow right out.”

  “The story or the juice?”

  “Both.”

  Tria snickered and rubbed her hands against her thighs. I waited somewhat patiently as she seemed to gather herself.

  “This is so embarrassing,” Tria said as she dropped her head into her hands. “We tried, okay? It just didn’t really work.”

  “He couldn’t get it up,” I said with a smirk. “Maybe he’s gay.”

  “That wasn’t it.” Tria promptly corrected me.

  “What didn’t work then?” I asked. I had no idea what she was trying to say, or what she was trying to avoid saying. She was obviously embarrassed by something, but I had run out of patience and wasn’t going to let it go at that point. “Well?”

  “He just…couldn’t get it in.”

  Oh.

  “Must be a big guy,” I said. My smirk was gone.

  “No, no…he’s…I don’t know, average, I guess. It just…wouldn’t go.”

  “Wait…” I had a sudden epiphany. “You mean you weren’t ready, right?”

  “I was ready,” she said defensively. “We planned it for weeks. After prom and all that trite shit.”

  “Maybe you said you were, but you weren’t wet, were you? He couldn’t get it in because you weren’t into it.”

  Tria went silent as she stared at the corner of the coffee table where her drink sat untouched. Without the ability to read her mind, I wasn’t sure what she might have been contemplating, only that she was definitely deep in thought, and I didn’t want to break the imposed silence.

  A couple of minutes later, she finally spoke.

  “He was right,” she said quietly. Her voice was strained, and the tension in her shoulders was visible.

  “What do you mean? Who was right?”

  “Keith,” she answered. “He said there was something wrong with me; I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  “What?” I bellowed. Tria jumped in her seat. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Just what you said!” she shouted back as her voice broke. “There’s something wrong with me!”

  “For fuck’s sake,” I cried, “there is not!”

  “But you just said…”

  “I said you weren’t into it,” I reminded her. “You weren’t wet because he didn’t turn you on. You didn’t want him. That’s not a problem with you; that’s a problem with him being a douchebag. You didn’t want to sleep with him.”

  “I did…” Her voice trailed off. Her tone was completely unconvincing.

  “Bullshit.” I put my empty glass down and turned to face her. “Maybe he said you were ready, and maybe you wanted to believe you were, but you weren’t. If you really wanted it, you would have known it, felt it. Your body would respond to that, and it would have worked.”

  I tried not to think about how fucked up the direction this conversation had taken and reminded myself that she was still pretty young. I hadn’t realized she was so naïve, but it kind of fit with the whole small-town theme about her. I didn’t want to admit it, but the fact that Keith had backed off and not just…well…forced his way in was a pretty good thing.

  “How do you know?” Tria asked as she looked at me. The edges of her eyes were a little red, and though I didn’t see any actual tears, I could tell they were close.

  “Because…well…” I had no idea how to answer that without sounding like a total man-whore. I reached up and ran my hand over my face as if that was going to help me come up with a better answer.

  “Because what?” Tria pushed for an answer. Apparently she was not going to let me off easy.

  “Because I know women,” I said. “I know women and how they are when they’re turned on. If there’s something wrong with anyone, it’s him for not knowing what the fuck he was doing. He didn’t know how to get you going.”

  I looked straight into her eyes, and she looked into mine. It felt like some kind of understanding was flowing between us, but I couldn’t have put a name to it. It should have felt awkward—the whole conversation was bizarre—but it didn’t. It felt right. It felt good.

  “You really think it’s not me?” she asked.

  “It’s not you,” I told her definitively. I wanted to add that I would be happy to show her just how turned on she could get. I wanted to crawl right over the top of her and leave her dripping in her panties. I wanted to show her everything I could make her feel with my hands, my tongue, my…

  “Do you want more?”

  “Huh? What?” Her question caught me off guard, and my imagination exploded with possibilities.

  “Juice,” she said, nodding toward my empty glass. “Do you want some more apple juice?”

  “Oh, um…no, that’s okay.”

  Fuck.

  With the conversation abruptly changed, we both sat back against the couch cushions. After about five more minutes of small talk, Tria yawned and we called it a night. I walked upstairs, stripped, and dropped face down on my bed with my hands up by the pillow. I tried to relax, but my back and shoulders were tense, and my cock was simply not going to let me sleep without any attention first, so I rolled over on my back and took matters into my hand. />
  I was never one to think with my cock, but I really, really needed to get laid.

  Chapter 8—Realize the Truth

  I never worked on Saturday or Sunday, but I usually hung out at Feet First anyway. They had a couple other dudes who would fight on Saturday nights, but they weren’t very good. They were lightweights, and the fights were usually quick and scrappy, which some people liked.

  There wasn’t nearly enough blood, if you asked me.

  “Why don’t you fight against them?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman sit down on the bar stool next to mine, but I didn’t turn to her. My eyes stayed on the fight.

  “Because I outweigh them by fifty pounds,” I told her. “I could probably just sit on them and knock them unconscious.”

  She giggled, and I turned my head to check her out. The long, straight platinum blonde hair was easy to recognize.

  “Erin, right?”

  “You remembered.”

  “You were the only thing worth looking at in the laundromat,” I said with a shrug and a smile. Flirt mode automatically engaged as she smiled back, and I bought her a drink.

  “So, how’d you find me?” I asked.

  “Saw that back tattoo on a poster outside the game shop on Fourth Street,” she told me. “I knew it was you, so I thought I’d come check out this whole cage fighting thing. Sorry to see you aren’t up there.” She nodded toward the cage.

  “Not until Tuesday.”

  “I’ll have to come back.”

  “I think you should.”

  For the next hour, we drank, complained about laundry, and stepped out for the occasional smoke. She was pretty cool, had awesome ink, and was smart enough to hold a decent conversation. She also couldn’t keep her hands off my inked skin, and I was both pleasantly buzzed and horny enough to really, really enjoy it.

  “So, what else is there to do around here?” she asked with a raise of her eyebrows. She slipped the longneck bottle into her mouth and poured amber liquid down her throat.

  “I could show you the locker room,” I said, watching her lips wrap around the bottle.

  “Private locker room?”

  “It is if I padlock it,” I replied. I licked my lips as I watched for her reaction.