Takedown Teague (Caged #1) (8 page)

She wasn’t crap, though.

I shook my head, trying to drive such contradictory and confusing thoughts away.  I wondered if people who lived in small towns had always lived there or if there was something about city life that made them seek refuge somewhere else.

“So, did your parents always live in a small town, or did they move there from a city or something?” I asked her.

“My parents were from the mainland,” she said softly.  “My foster family lives on the island.”

“So what do they think of you being here in the big city on your own?”

“Well…” Tria hesitated.  “My dad passed away when I was young.”

“Oh, right,” I said.  “Sorry. I know you told me that before.  What happened to him?”

“He worked on a fishing boat.  On his way home one night, he stopped on the bridge to help a guy with a flat tire.  It was dark, and they were too close to the road.  My dad was hit by another car and killed.  My parents were already divorced then.  Dad had been in the army and was deployed for about two years.  Mom screwed around on him, I guess, and they divorced shortly after he came home.  My mom never really wanted much to do with me.  She was living in Florida at the time with a new husband, and I didn’t want to leave my hometown.  I ended up being raised by friends of the family.”

“Those are some friends,” I said with a whistle.  “Taking in a kid that isn’t theirs.”

“We were always close,” Tria said quietly.  Something about her tone seemed off.

“Well, what did the family friends think of you coming here?”

“Uh…well, Leo—he is like my adopted dad, I guess—was really excited and happy about me going to college, actually.  No one in his family had ever gone to college, and he pretty much treated me like his own flesh and blood.  That is, until I decided to come here.”

“He didn’t want you to leave?”

“No one really thought it was anything more than a waste of time,” she said.  “They are all for the education because that’s something you can bring back to the community and teach everyone else, but to move away?  That’s pretty much unheard of.  They’re very intent on keeping everyone together.”

“You aren’t really part of the family though, right?”  I really had no idea how such things worked.

“Not by blood, obviously,” Tria said.  “But they considered me one of them.”

I thought about that for a minute and wondered if they really treated her the same way or not.  How would she know?

“You have any brothers or sisters?”

“Well, not biological ones, no,” she said.  When she didn’t elaborate, I hounded her until she did.  “Leo has three kids—two girls and a boy.  I grew up with all of them.”

“What about their mom?” I asked.

“She died in a car accident the year before my dad.”

“Wow—already raising three kids on his own and takes in another one right after his wife dies?  This Leo must be some kind of saint.”

“Not…exactly,” Tria mumbled, but she refused to elaborate.

“So tell me about the adopted siblings,” I suggested.  “Were you all close to the same age?”

“Helen and Heather are both older than me.  Helen’s twenty-four and Heather is twenty-two,” Tria said.

“And your brother?”  I lit up a smoke and watched her out of the corner of my eye as she started digging around in the Grand Canyon of women’s accessories.  She didn’t answer but mumbled something about where she might have left her lip gloss.

As she dug into the bag, she wasn’t watching where she was going.  She ended up tripping on the curb and nearly falling on her face.  I wanted to be the one to save her, to right her before she could fall. If I were being honest, I just wanted to touch her just for a moment. Unfortunately, she managed to right herself before I could grab her and help her up.

“That purse is going to end up killing you,” I told her.  “Either you’re going to fall into it and never be seen again, or you’re going to fall off a cliff while looking for something in it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

She always said that whenever I made a comment about Grand Central Handbag.

“I bet I could put a mouse in there and you would never find it.”

“I most certainly would.”

“You wouldn’t notice it until you found nibble marks in your lipstick.”

Tria groaned at my joke and pulled the bag up a little against her side as we rounded the last turn before Fin’s.

“I’ll see you about one?”

Tria nodded.

“Hopefully, I won’t be too late.  I hate making you wait for me.”

“I have nothing else to do,” I told her with a shrug.

“Thanks again,” she said.

“No worries.”

Tria smiled and turned to walk into Fin’s.  There was a good chunk of me that just wanted to follow her inside, greasy food smells be damned.  But as she disappeared behind the entrance, I turned to head back home.

I was never one to cling, but it almost seemed to hurt when she walked away from me.

The walk home was interesting.

I had been thinking about our conversation most of the night while hanging out at Feet First and listening to some crappy garage band.  The conclusion I had drawn was that she had been intentionally elusive about her foster family, and my curiosity gnawed at me as I waited for her to exit Fin’s so I could walk her home and barrage her with more questions.

I didn’t even ask who the patron of the night was this time.

“Why did that guy call you Demmy?”

“My full name is Demetria,” Tria said.  “I went by Demmy as a kid.  I changed it up a bit when I moved here.”

“New name for a fresh start?”

“Something like that.”

“So, tell me everything else about this family you grew up with,” I said.

“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.