Takedown Teague (Caged #1)(39)

She wrapped her arms around herself and continued to look from the bed to the couch over and over again. Her teeth gnawed nervously at her lip, and she rocked from one foot to the other.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch,” I said again.

“Neither are you.”

“That leaves the options a little slim,” I pointed out.

“True,” she whispered, “but…”

Her voice trailed off, and her fingers gripped her upper arms.

“I wouldn’t…” I started again, trying to come up with something I wouldn’t do, no matter how much I might want to. I eventually managed to spit out something relatively meaningful. “I wouldn’t…take advantage of you. You know that, right?”

“Yes, I know,” she replied. Her tone was off, and I couldn’t understand what her expression meant. It almost seemed like she was disappointed, but that didn’t make any sense.

“We could…give it a try.” It was lame, but it was all I had. We were both obviously too stubborn to let go this time.

“Give it a try,” she said quietly, and I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question, but I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded.

“Okay,” I said a little louder. “I’ll…um…just…”

I had no idea what I was going to “um just” do.

“I’ll get my things and use the bathroom,” Tria said, saving me from having to come up with any additional plan, for which I was quite grateful.

Tria grabbed her purse and some clothes from her tattered suitcase and closed the bathroom door behind her. I went into the bedroom and shut the door partway while I tried to figure out what I was going to wear while sleeping.

Next to Tria.

Fuck, what had I gotten myself into? The single bedroom layout of the apartment hadn’t even entered my head before we were standing in the hallway. Tria was in the bathroom, probably changing into whatever her normal sleeping attire might be, and I usually slept either nude or just in my boxers.

Hey—it saved on laundry.

Fucking sue me.

Obviously I couldn’t sleep nude, and I didn’t own pajamas, so I dug around in the bottom dresser drawer and came up with a pair of sweatpants I usually wore jogging in the winter. I ripped off my jeans and shirt, pulled the sweats up over my hips, and tightened the string. Then I gathered up the majority of the dirty clothes and piled them in the corner on the far side of the dresser. I tried to straighten out the sheet and blanket on the bed.

Thankfully, I always masturbated into a towel, and the sheets weren’t nasty. I made sure said towel was buried under the pile of clothes.

Shit, what if I woke up with morning wood?

It was one more thing I hadn’t considered, but I knew I could not freak out now. If I did, Tria would get the wrong idea and decide living here with me was a bad plan. If she did that, she’d end up dropping out of school and going back to that place and those people, and it would be all my fault for not having my own shit together.

Fuck.

Back out in the living room, I sat down on the couch and wondered what else I hadn’t considered when it came to having Tria here as my roommate. The sleeping arrangements and the mess were probably the biggest issues we’d have to face. I rarely smoked in the apartment, so I could just take that outside all the time.

Fuck, what if she wanted to cook meat? The smell alone made me want to vomit. That was probably something we ought to talk about. What if she was insistent? I couldn’t tell her what she could or couldn’t eat, but if this place was hers as well as mine, I couldn’t force her not to eat it here.

Fuck again.

We’d definitely have to spend some time tomorrow evening talking about shit like this. The changes were all so rushed. I didn’t think either one of us had thought about the things that might be a problem. It would be best to work the details out in the beginning before they became issues.

A few minutes later, Tria came out of the bathroom in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt with a picture of a puppy on the front of it. I stood up from the couch, and we both walked into the bedroom together, stopping at the doorway as we tried to figure out who should go in first.

It felt just as f*cking awkward as it sounds.

Once we were both in the room, we just kind of stared at the bed for a minute. Or at least, I stared at the bed. Tria was looking all around, taking in the room. It had been the least disastrous area of the apartment but was now the messiest since we had completely cleaned the rest. Still, it wasn’t bad. There were clothes on the floor, but they were at least all piled up in the corner and out of the way. I didn’t own a laundry hamper, so I had a decent excuse. The nightstand had a little alarm clock radio on it and a small lamp. The dresser drawers were mostly closed, and the top of it only held a couple of things.

“What are these?” Tria asked, noticing the line of trophies on the dresser.

“High school wrestling,” I told her, pointing out the largest. “I was all-state my junior year. The other ones are for Akido, kickboxing, and Tae Kwon Do.”

“Wow! You were really good back then, too?”

“I guess.”

“You probably would have been able to get scholarships for that and go to school,” she said.

I just shrugged.

“Probably could have,” I agreed. It just didn’t matter now, so I didn’t think about it.