Takedown Teague (Caged 1)

Her eyes widened, and I had the feeling the tide had just turned.

“I’d pay half your rent for this next month, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “I mean—that helps me out, too, right? Not at all moochy.”

Tria looked up at me, and I could see her gaze darting between my eyes. Her mouth tightened a little as she kept looking at me intently as if she were trying to find the perfect answer written in my irises.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Positive.”

She nodded slightly then, and all the tension in my body flooded out so fast I was surprised I managed to keep myself from falling over.

“So, you’ll do it?” I felt the need to hear her say the actual words.

“If you are sure it’s okay,” Tria answered. “I don’t feel good about it.”

I was pretty sure I felt good enough about it for the both of us.

*****

I had been completely right about one thing: moving all her stuff out didn’t take a lot of time. It was a good thing, too. I went with Tria to tell the landlord she was moving out of her place and into mine, and I had the idea he would have been a lot shittier about it if I hadn’t been there. As it was, he was very insistent she be out pretty much immediately because he needed to move another section eight family in, or he wasn’t going to get something or other from the government next month. He basically gave her until three in the afternoon, or she wouldn’t get her deposit back.

We didn’t waste any time but went straight back to her place and got to work. Tria shoved items into some empty beer crates I brought over from Feet First, and I carried them up to my apartment—our apartment—and stacked them in the living room.

Our apartment.

I smiled a little at the thought as I set a crate of freaking heavy books down next to my rowing machine in the living room. Though it was staying cool outside, I was sweating up a storm going back and forth, carrying boxes between apartments. I pulled up the edge of my T-shirt and wiped it over my face, and then I headed back downstairs.

We had both agreed the best thing to do was just to get stuff moved so the landlord would have no excuse to keep her security deposit. The extra money would come in really handy if she were to get it back. I had my doubts, but I knew the landlord wouldn’t return a nickel if she wasn’t totally out of the place on time. Sure, there were laws about evicting people, but you had to be able to afford to take the landlord to court. No one in this building could manage that. Given that it was the last day of the month, there was no chance of leniency, so we focused on just getting everything out as quickly as possible.

“This is just about it,” Tria said as I walked back in. “There are a few more things in the bathroom to pack up, but I should be able to fit them in here.”

She held up the Beast Bag.

“Well, if I had known we could pack stuff in that thing,”—I grinned—“I wouldn’t have bothered to bring those crates from the bar. Here, let me shove the fridge in there…”

I moved across the floor and wrapped my arms around the front of the refrigerator and acted as if I were going to pick it up.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Tria sighed, but she also smiled slightly and shook her head at me. “There are two more boxes in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, and the bathroom stuff. I think that’s it. I’ll just need to clean everything off and then tell the landlord I’m out.”

“I’ll get this stuff upstairs,” I said. I picked up the kitchen boxes, dropped them off on my kitchen table, and ran back down for the last bits.

Tria was already vacuuming the floors when I got there, and she spent the next hour cleaning the whole place up. She seemed to think having it nice and clean was going to make any difference in the landlord’s decision to return her deposit. I wasn’t so sure, but we had plenty of time before three o’clock, and it certainly couldn’t hurt.

I went upstairs, grabbed two beers, and brought them back down. I popped the caps off and handed a beer to Tria, who paused from cleaning the countertop to sit and eye the bottle a bit before shrugging and having a drink.

“Better than apple juice?” I asked, teasing.

“No,” she replied seriously. “Not really.”

I laughed because she was right. The beer was cheap and not very good. It was cold, though, and there was something about beer and physical labor that just went together.

“Oh! I almost forgot!” Tria jumped up and opened the refrigerator. She brought out a small paper plate with two large, red apples coated in caramel. There was a big Popsicle stick shoved into the top of each one.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Caramel apples!” Tria announced. “I thought they would be appropriate, and it is Halloween.”