Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(18)

“I’m not twenty-one,” she reminded me.

“You must be,” I said with a smile. “Otherwise you couldn’t get in here.”

Tria rolled her eyes and followed me as I moved back through the crowd, which was starting to thin out a bit. We made our way to the edge of the bar where I liked to hang out after fights. It was a good combination of a place where people could see me and come up to talk but also a little bit sheltered so people didn’t get too crazy on me. It didn’t happen often, but every once in a while, I’d get a nutty fan or a fighter who wasn’t happy about losing, and they’d make a scene.

I stopped and turned back around to face her and saw her eyes on the cage. I stood up a little straighter as she looked it over, and an odd sense of pride came over me along with a touch of apprehension. I didn’t have a clear sense of what she thought about cage fighting, and she wouldn’t be the first chick I had known who hated the whole idea of it.

“Pretty cool, huh?” I gave her a half smile and raised my eyebrows at her. My heart was pounding, and I felt a slight chill against the naked skin of my chest.

“That’s where you fight?” Tria asked and she stared wide-eyed into the enclosed space.

“Yeah, it is,” I replied. Something about her tone seemed off, and I took a slight step away from her. I leaned on a nearby barstool and watched her, feeling a little wary all of a sudden. “What do you think?”

“I thought it would be…bigger,” she said. “There isn’t even any room for you to move in there.”

“There’s plenty of room,” I told her. “I can move around pretty easily in tight places.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“Nice.” Yolanda piped up before I could try to take back the words. She walked out from around the edge of the cage and came over to us. “Liam’s finally admitting size matters, huh?”

I glared at her.

“Not something I’ve ever worried about too much,” I replied coldly. My earlier annoyance with her returned, and I cocked my head to one side as I looked up at her with a “what the f*ck do you want” expression.

Yolanda wasn’t fazed. She looked from me to Tria and back again.

“Is this her?” she asked. “The girl whose virtue you saved?”

Tria looked away for a minute, and I couldn’t see her face. I found myself taking a step forward—angling myself between Tria and Yolanda. I surveyed the whole room, taking my first really good look at the place since the first day I walked into it. The lights were dim, which only barely masked how shabby everything was inside. The barstools were frayed, and the felt on the single pool table was almost completely worn out. The people who frequented Feet First looked like people who came to drown their sorrows because that’s who they were. They were as shabby as the interior of the bar, and most of them were way beyond casually drunk.

“This is Tria,” I said. My voice was monotone, and I narrowed my eyes at Yolanda as I spoke. I didn’t like the way she was sizing up Tria as if she were a target.

Tria was a small-town girl trying to get herself an education and somehow make the world better. I didn’t think she had much more of a chance of achieving that shit than a lightweight did against me, but I couldn’t help but admire her spirit for trying. Yolanda was a whole other story.

“Hi, Tria,” Yolanda said. She didn’t take her eyes off me, though. Her expression matched mine, and she even went as far as to raise an eyebrow at me.

I mouthed “f*ck you” at her, but she ignored me and turned to Tria.

“I’m Yolanda. Welcome to Feet First, but you are a little late to see my man in action here.”

“I was…um…working earlier,” Tria said, stumbling over her words a bit. “I just got off.”

Yolanda snickered and reached out to run her hand over my chest.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that happened to a woman around Takedown.” Yolanda smirked. She looked back at me and put a hand on her hip. “I put your winnings in your bag and locked it in your locker. I’m outta here. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I said with a curt nod.

Yolanda sauntered through the crowd and out the front door, and I looked back at Tria, wondering what she was thinking. The look on her face told me nothing, but her words made it clear.

“So that’s your girlfriend,” Tria said matter-of-factly. “She’s really pretty.”

“She’s not,” I said.

“Are you kidding? She’s beautiful.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” I clarified. “Yolanda’s a fighter, like me. Well, she was before she f*cked up her knee. We still work out together on the weekends.”

“I see.” Tria didn’t sound convinced.

“She’s been in the cage a lot longer than me,” I said. I didn’t know why it was important to me that she understand there wasn’t anything between Yolanda and me. “She helps me train. That’s it.”

Tria just nodded and glanced around the bar again. She hadn’t touched the bottle of beer sitting next to her.

“So, why ‘Takedown’?” she asked as she looked back in my direction.

I laughed.

“Um, well,” I started, “it’s not much of a story, really.”