Takedown Teague (Caged #1) (17 page)

*****

The very best days were Sundays because I didn’t work or work out and Tria usually had all her schoolwork done on Saturday.  She would just read, or we would watch a movie on the borrowed cable.  In the afternoon, she did grocery shopping with whatever money I had for that and did a much better job than I ever did of coming up with meals on a budget.  Her cooking was awesome, and Yolanda was starting to give me shit about hovering too close to my maximum weight.  I’d gone over twice in the past couple of weeks, and it was pissing her off.

Being Yolanda, she had to choose a Sunday to cross the line about it.

Tria had made some kind of casserole dish with rice and broccoli in it.  I ate about four servings and then lay on the couch holding my stomach, thinking I was probably going to die and deciding it was all worth it.  Tria just snickered and told me she’d take care of the dishes, too, since I was barely able to move.

I probably would have fallen asleep if it hadn’t been for the pounding at the door.

“Uggghhh…” I groaned as I hauled myself off the couch to see who was there.  I opened the door to Yolanda’s sour face, which immediately soured my mood.  “What do you want?”

“Checking in on you,” she replied as she walked past me.  “You did say if I didn’t think you were eating right, I should just come by and check.”

Fuck! I did kind of remember saying that.  Now she had totally called my bluff.

“You could have called first,” I grumbled before I sat down.  Once I was back on the couch, I couldn’t stop the additional groan from slipping out of my mouth.

“What the hell did you eat?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted.  “It was fucking awesome, though.”

“Dammit, Liam!”

“Come on, Yolanda,” I moaned.  “I don’t fight for two more days.  Nothing but fucking whey and iceberg between now and then.”

At the moment, the thought of a salad sounded pretty awful.  Even a glass of water wasn’t appealing.

“Tria!” Yolanda shouted as she headed toward the kitchen.  If I could have moved, I would have gone after her.  “You have to stop feeding him all this crap!”

“Leave her alone,” I muttered, but if someone were to ask, I would have to admit it was halfhearted.  For starters, I was too stuffed to move or do anything else about the inevitable confrontation.  There was also the demented guy part of me that kind of wanted to see what would happen between the two of them if left on their own to duke it out, so to speak.  Not that I thought Yolanda would hit Tria—I knew she wouldn’t—but a verbal battle could be just as entertaining.

Tria seemed a little taken aback at first and just looked at Yolanda with wide eyes.

“Don’t you know how to make a fucking salad?” Yolanda asked her.

I hated salads, and Yolanda knew it.  She was always trying to force me to eat that shit anyway.  I was a vegetarian, not a fucking rabbit.

I watched Tria’s eyes narrow, and I was glad I wasn’t wearing something confining like my tight jeans.  If I was going to be honest, I hadn’t worn those jeans recently because they were a little tighter these days than they used to be.  Anyway, Tria’s hands balled into little fists as she stuck them on her hips and took a step forward.  Watching her do that made my cock strain to get out of my sweats, and I could feel my mouth turn up into a smile as I watched her move up to the woman who had just invaded her kitchen and practically insulted her cooking.

This was going to be interesting.

“Excuse me?”  Tria’s voice was succinct and breezy, like it was traveling on a puff of air.  I was pretty sure that in a minute the puff of air was going to feel like it just escaped from a furnace.

“I said, ‘Stop feeding him all this shit!’” Yolanda roared as she waved her hands around in the general direction of the kitchen table.

Tria’s eyes narrowed further, and I held my breath as she took another step closer to my trainer, a woman who easily had twenty pounds of muscle over her.  Tria had to tilt her head up to look Yolanda in the eye, but the difference in size wasn’t stopping her.

“I’m sorry.  I know you are Liam’s friend,” Tria said, “but frankly, you can just go ahead and yell at him if you want to, not me!  I just cook it; he’s the one who eats it!”

“Oh, yes!” Yolanda snorted.  “We’ll just leave it up to ‘Mister Self Control’ over here, shall we?”

“Fuck you,” I growled.

“Does the term
enabling
mean anything to you?” Yolanda asked as she narrowed her eyes into slits.

“I don’t even know what the hell you are talking about!” Tria yelled.

“I don’t want him making himself sick again, or fucking
worse,
for the sake of his goddamned weight class!” Yolanda screeched.  She pointed a finger at Tria’s chest.  “You are doing that to him!”

“I most certainly am not!  And if you want to point fingers, there’s someone over there on the couch who happens to be a grown man!”

“Grown man, my ass.”

“Yolanda, for fuck’s sake!” I finally shoved myself off the couch and moved over to where the two of them were toe to toe.

“You have any idea what he does to lose weight fast?” Yolanda was saying.

“No, I do not,” Tria said.  As Yolanda’s words registered, all the ire was suddenly directed at me.  “What does she mean, ‘sick again’?”

“Ah, fuck!”  I turned around and headed back to the couch.

“Want to know?” Yolanda asked, sneering at Tria.

“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled at her.  I’d had enough, not only of her assumptions but also having her bring up ancient history nobody needed to know anything about.  “And while you’re at it, get the fuck out!”

“Do you want to go back to that again?” Yolanda asked with her arms crossed over her chest.  The pose emphasized her biceps.  “Because if you do, I’m not dragging you back.  I’ll tell Dordy to fire your ass.”

I glanced at Tria, saw the confusion in her eyes, and knew there was nothing good in the slightest coming of this. What was an amusing little catfight had turned into something that I found extraordinarily uncomfortable.

“Get out,” I said again.  My voice was no longer raised, just blunt.  “It’s been four years, and that’s not happening again, you hear me?”

“I’ve heard that particular song from you too many times,” Yolanda responded.

“Go.” I spoke again as I pointed at the door.

“Weigh in tomorrow,” she said, and her tone didn’t leave any room for argument. “I’m going to start watching for change, not just going over two-oh-five.  You start fluctuating a lot, and I’ll fuck you up.  Then I’ll bench you until you get your shit together.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled.  “Get out.”

The nonchalance was a total act.   I definitely could not let Yolanda push me out of the cage—I needed the money now more than ever.  I was actually thinking about seeing if she could find me another fight sometime during the week because the cost of two really was quite a bit more than one.  Food was about the same because Tria was better at budgeting that, but the water bill had doubled, and the electricity was a little higher, too.  I had also helped Tria cover the last couple of books she needed though she swore she was going to pay me back.  It all equated to my being broke.  The few hundred dollars I normally kept for emergencies was down to about twenty bucks.

“We’re not done here,” Yolanda said with a shake of her finger—pointed in my direction this time.  “Don’t you dare be late tomorrow, either!”

She left without another word, and my ass found its way back to the couch.

“What did she mean about you making yourself sick?” Tria asked as soon as the door closed.

“Nothing,” I said.  “She just exaggerates.”

“That didn’t sound like exaggerating,” Tria said.  “She’s really pissed off.”

“It’s nothing,” I repeated.  I tried to lie back down on the couch, but she wasn’t letting this go.

“Liam, don’t bullshit me.”  Tria came over and sat down on the couch, pushing my knees a bit so there was room for her.  “What did she mean by all of that?”

As I looked up at her, for the very briefest of moments, I considered telling her the truth.

Then I thought better of it.

“Nothing you haven’t heard before,” I said.  “I told you what I used to do—fasting, running until I puked, laxatives—all that shit.  It makes you sick if you do it too much.  Yolanda always gets pissed off if she thinks I’m doing that.  She just worries too much.  That’s all.”

Tria looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I did my best to hold my gaze steady.  She seemed about to start questioning me again, so I quickly piped up.

“If she had actually walked in when I was shoving my face full of that stuff, she probably would have broken the dish over my head!  It still would have been worth it because your cooking is awesome.”

Her lips smashed together, and she held in a laugh as she stood up and headed back to the kitchen to finish up the dishes.  Feeling guilty about the out-and-out lie I had just told her, I forced myself to my feet so I could help.  She didn’t mention Yolanda or what she said again, and I relaxed as we cleaned up and watched a bunch of shit on TV before we got ready for bed.

Awkward time again.

I straddled the windowsill to smoke.  It was cold outside, and I was only in my sweats and a light T-shirt.  Even Krazy Katie had brought out a sleeping bag for warmth.  She was sitting with it all wrapped up around her, a stack of cigarette butts in front of her, and the soft lyrics of “Kumbaya” coming out of her mouth.

I kept quiet, hoping she wouldn’t decide to sing any louder.  Her singing voice was fucking awful.  One night last spring, she decided to sing the entire first Wham! album in the middle of the night, and I almost called the cops myself.

Tria came out of the bathroom just as I was finishing up and climbing back in the window.  She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered a bit.

“Sorry,” I said.  “I probably should have just walked outside—I wasn’t thinking.”

“No, no.  I don’t want you changing how you do things just because I’m here.  I’m in the way enough as it is.”

“You aren’t in the way,” I told her, dismissing the comment.

She huffed out her nose but didn’t respond to my remark.  We both climbed into bed in silence without looking at each other at all.  We always started out on our backs though neither of us ever fell asleep that way.  I fluffed up my pillow and leaned against it.  After a few deep breaths, I reached my arm up and across the top of her pillow, and Tria moved over to rest her head on my shoulder.

“There is a job that just opened up at the library on campus,” Tria said as she settled against me.

“Oh yeah?” I replied.  She hadn’t mentioned looking for jobs while she studied her ass off for her midterms, but I figured she would start looking before too long.  It was going to be a lot easier with both of us bringing in money even if she only worked a few hours.

“I was thinking I would apply for it,” she said.  I felt her shoulders rise into a shrug.  “It seems to pay all right, and if I can get enough hours, I wouldn’t be in your hair anymore.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.

“If I can get enough hours, I can get my own apartment again, and I wouldn’t have to keep mooching off of you.”

“You aren’t,” I told her
again
.  “You do all kinds of shit around here to earn your keep.”

I snickered a little.

“I cost you money,” she stated.

“Not much.” I shrugged.  “And you do a lot for me.”

“It’s not money, though.”

“I don’t need it,” I lied.  “It’s all good.”

“I can’t be in your way forever!” She was insistent.

“You aren’t in the way,” I insisted right back at her.

“I have to be able to support myself,” she said.

“Says who?” I asked.  “I bet if you checked some stats on it, you would find most college students are not living on their own.”

“Most college students have Mom and Dad paying for the dorm.”

“Yeah, okay,” I agreed, “but those who aren’t on campus are living with roommates, and even those in the dorms are usually sharing a room.”

My logic appeared to be working.

“I don’t want to be a burden,” she said softly.

“You aren’t,” I told her.

“You said you had always lived on your own though,” she reminded me.  “I have to be…cramping your style.”

I laughed.

“Using that phrase is so unstylish, it can’t cramp anything.”

“That made no sense at all!” Tria laughed.  “Maybe you need to do a little studying with me.  At least read some of my English books.”

“Nah,” I said.  “I rarely have to rely on loquaciousness in the cage.”

Tria lifted her head to look me in the eye with raised brows.

“You dropped out of high school?” she asked for clarification.

“Being a dropout doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” I said.

“Obviously.”

She put her head back down on my chest, and I pulled her in a little closer before speaking again.