All I Ask(49)

I’ve been at my parents’ house for longer than I’d planned. I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but if she could realize I’m not sixteen anymore, it would make life easier.

Today was the last straw.

She opened my bedroom door, at six in the morning, and started to clean up. She flipped the light on, grabbed the laundry—which I’m perfectly capable of doing my damn self—and then left without a word.

When I called her out on it, she said I was under her roof and she will run her home like she sees fit.

Normally my mother is a pretty straightforward person, but I have a feeling this was her way of telling me it’s time to find other accommodations.

In her sweet, didn’t-want-to-hurt-my-feelings kind of way.

So, I’m going house hunting, and I’m going to guilt Teagan into coming along so I can force her to spend time with me.

This is what my life has become.

I push open the door to the store and I hear her voice from the back. “Just look around and I’ll be with you shortly!”

That’s not going to work for me. I head to the area where I think her voice came from. This store was always like a maze but it’s gotten worse. Furniture is used as a way to make aisles, and there’s no rhyme or reason to the merchandise piled all around. Lamps sit on top of the chairs and there are paintings on the floor but plates hung on the walls. I used to hate coming here to meet her. I swore there was a dead body in one of the chests that she couldn’t get open.

God help whoever bought that.

“Tea?”

“Derek?” she calls out with a hint of panic. “What are you doing here?”

I smile to myself. “Shopping.”

“Here?” A laugh fills the air. “Not likely.”

“What are you doing?”

“Just looking at something.”

I lean over but I can’t see anything but the top of her head behind a table and chairs. “Okay. I have to talk to you, could you stand up?”

“I’m good, go ahead and talk…”

It would make things a little easier if she would look at me. “I can wait.”

“Really, it’s fine. What’s up?”

“It’s more of a question…”

“Yes?”

This is ridiculous. “Teagan, I’m talking to the top of a table, please get up.”

She groans. “I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Because. That’s why.”

“Really, Tea?” I squat down, ready to battle her and let her know she’s out of her mind, but when I see her, I almost fall to the floor laughing. Teagan has managed to get her hair stuck to the underside of the table. “Because why again?”

“I hate you. You had to look?”

“Of course I did.”

“This is mortifying.”

“How, pray tell, did you manage to do this?”

She glares at me. “I was checking something written under here and then somehow I turned and my hair got stuck. Can you help me?”

I ponder that for a minute. Right now, she’s literally trapped. She can’t run, unless she wants to be scalped, and would need to hear me out.

“Of course.”

She releases a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“After we talk.”

“Derek.” Teagan’s voice is low.

“Teagan.”

“You’re going to help me once you get what you want?”

I shrug. “No, you don’t have to agree to what I want, but you have to listen.”

“When I get out of this,” she warns, “I’m going to kill you.”

“All the more reason to keep you trapped.” That was definitely the wrong thing to say. I’m pretty sure she’s ready to lose her hair at this point. I better make it quick. “My point is, I need your help, if you’re not homicidal by the end of this.”

“Help with what?”

“I need to move out of my parents’ house and I’m supposed to meet the Realtor in an hour. I was hoping you could come.”

Her eyes narrow a bit. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

“Yeah.”

“Not…”

“Not what? Is there something else you’d like to discuss?”

Like the kiss that has kept me up every night. The way her lips felt with mine. How long I’ve wondered what it would be like and now it’s all I can think about.

“No. House hunting sounds fine—great even. So, you want me to go look for a place for you and Everly?”

“Yeah.”

“But regardless of my answer, you’ll release me?”

Like I’d leave her here? How the hell would that go over in terms of ever seeing if that one kiss was a fluke or real? It wouldn’t. And I have to know.

“Well, that depends, now, doesn’t it?”

“On?”

“On your answer.” I smile, and she groans.

I didn’t say I wouldn’t have fun with it, though.





Chapter Twenty-Three





Teagan




Seventeen years old