“We’d just be…you know…roommates. Help each other out, right?”
“Roommates?” Tria echoed.
“Yeah,” I replied with a nod. “Lots of people have roommates to help with expenses. There’s nothing wrong with that. I help you; you help me. Even if you paid half the rent, that would give you two months before you would need to have another job. We’d share food and shit, so that wouldn’t cost as much.”
“Roommates,” she said again. Her tone was rather deadpan, but there was still a hint of ire underneath it.
“Right. It’s actually kind of perfect for me, too. I could use the help, I guess.” I had no fucking clue what I was babbling about, but it seemed to be working.
“I’m still paying half the rent, though,” she said as she looked up at me. “I’m not negotiating on that.”
“Sure,” I said with a shrug. I really didn’t care if she paid rent or not. I was just glad she seemed to be considering it.
“What about the utilities?” She was just trying to come up with excuses now.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Liam.” She sighed.
“Pay me back later. Whatever.”
“This just doesn’t sound right.”
“You wouldn’t have to quit school,” I reminded her. “You’ll have time to find a job that isn’t too far away, and then you can pay me back, or we’ll split the bills or whatever. It’s just temporary, you know?”
Holy shit, did I really just say that?
“You know, until you’re back on your feet.”
“Temporary,” she repeated softly.
Obviously, that made the plan sound a lot better to her, so I went with it.
“Just until you’re back on your feet with a new job, ya know? You could stay in school, and you wouldn’t have to go back to Maine. Once you’ve found another job, you can save up a bit and do whatever you want. “
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.”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a nod. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I couldn’t argue with the date. The apples were crunchy, and the caramel was gooey and sweeter than I remembered from childhood. “This is different than the ones I’ve had before.”
“How so?” Tria asked. She looked up at me through her lashes, appearing apprehensive.
“The caramel is different,” I said. “It’s…sweeter, maybe? Definitely stickier.”
“Is that bad?”
“No,” I replied, “I like it this way.”
“Good,” she said as she smiled. “I made it from scratch.”
“You made caramel?”
“Yep,” she said, and she licked a bit off her lip.
I could have helped with that.
“So, you really do like it?”
Yeah…I’d definitely like to lick the caramel off…
“Liam?”
“Hmm? Oh…sorry.” I swallowed the mouthful of apple and tried to focus. “What did you say?”
Tria gave me a weird look and shook her head minutely.
“I asked if you liked the apple.”
“Yeah! It’s awesome!”
“See, I was thinking about this whole mooching off you thing,” she said, but I interrupted her.
“I told you, it’s not moochi
ng,” I said. “We’re just helping each other out.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Tria said dismissively. She waved her hand around a bit, trying to make her point. “It’s seriously lopsided, but I’m not going to argue about that any more. Anyway, I thought maybe I could even it up a little by doing the cooking.”
“Cooking?”
“Yes,” she said as she looked through her lashes again at me. I tried not to focus on her when she did that because it did funny things to my cock. “I like cooking, but it never seems worth it for just me.”
“Cooking,” I said again.
“You do realize there’s more out there to eat besides veggie burgers and protein shakes, right?”
“Sounds kind of familiar,” I said with a nod. For a moment, I wondered how she knew so much about my normal meal plan, but figured I had probably talked about it a couple of times on our walks.
Tria laughed.
“So, what do you think?”
I was still kind of focused on her sticky lips and had no idea what she was asking me.
“About what?”
“Food. Cooking. Me cook you food,” Tria said in short, clipped syllables and then began to laugh. “Did you zone out on me?”
“Um…sorry,” I said. “I guess I’m a little tired.”
“Well, what do you think about me doing the cooking while I’m staying with you?”
“I think I haven’t had a decent meal since my mom was cooking for me.”
“How long has that been?” Tria asked.
I went stiff almost immediately. I straightened my back in the chair and looked quickly at the window to stare at nothing. I tried to make my mind match the blank image in my eyes. I had no idea why I had made that comment. I didn’t want to think about, talk about, or even broach a tangent conversation regarding my family.
“You never talk about your family,” Tria said softly.
I clenched my jaw and grit my teeth. I didn’t look at her, and I didn’t respond. After a moment, Tria reached part way across the kitchen table but stopped moving as I sat back and pulled away.
“Long time?” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” I replied. I kept staring out the window until I felt a little more in control. I tightened my fingers around the neck of the beer bottle and quickly tilted it up to my lips to drain it. “We better get this shit finished.”
I stood immediately, and Tria was just a fraction behind. She seemed to want to say something else, but I wasn’t going to give her the chance. I started cleaning up again, and she took the hint.
Tria wiped down the inside of the refrigerator while I gathered up the apple cores and beer bottles into a big trash bag and hauled it out to the dumpsters behind the building. After tossing the bag into the bin, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it.
The conversation about meals and the mention of my mother had left me on edge. I didn’t want to go back in feeling like that. I didn’t let that shit get to me because I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t want to be thinking about it now, either, but I couldn’t help but remember the last meal I shared with my family.
Breaded veal cutlets, mashed potatoes, and green beans seasoned with those tiny, round onions. Mom and Dad drank wine from crystal glasses, and Mrs. Carter served crème brûlée for dessert. No one said a word while we ate, and at the end of the meal, Dad had dropped his glass heavily on the top of the carved cherry table.
“When are you going to stop moping?” he snapped.
“Douglass, don’t,” Mom said in a hushed tone.
“How long is he going to act like this?” He turned abruptly to her while gesturing toward me.
“I’m not moping,” I replied. I shoved the spoon into the crusted top of the dessert and carved out some of the custard underneath.
“Well, what else would you call it, then?” Dad asked.
“Contemplating.”
“There’s nothing to contemplate,” he said. He picked up the glass again and pointed it toward me. “It’s over. Take care of it, and get away from that tramp.”
I dropped the spoon audibly onto the plate and sat back in my chair.
“No.”
There.
I said it.
I shifted my gaze to meet those of my father. The intensity was almost too much, but I managed not to look away from his fearsome glare.
“What did you just say?” he asked slowly through a tensed jaw.
“I said no. I’m not going to ‘take care of it.’ At least, not in the way you mean.”
“How the hell else could you mean it?”
“Douglass…”
“Shut up, Jules. This is between the men here.”
She cringed a bit and took another sip of her wine. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“I’m going to be a father,” I said quietly.
“Not if you expect to live under this roof.” Dad sneered. “My roof, my rules. You think you two can survive playing house together without my support? I don’t think so. You have no idea what it’s like out there in the world.”
He sat back and drained his glass before setting it down next to his plate and calling for Mrs. Carter to bring back the bottle.
“Your father is right, Liam,” Mom told me in her quiet, no-nonsense voice. “You still have a year of high school, and you can’t support yourself and a family.”
“I guess I’m going to find out,” I said. My hands trembled as they picked up the maroon linen napkin from my lap and placed it on the table. I stood slowly, glanced once at my mother, and walked out of the dining room and out of the house. The distinctive thump of my shoes against the stone steps echoed in my head.
“If you leave here now, you will never be welcomed back!” I heard him yell from the front porch.
Without looking behind me, I yanked open the door to my Lexus and headed down the mile-long drive to the high brick walls and gated entrance that had always shielded me from the world outside. I drove beyond them, leaving behind everything I had ever known.
My hands tightened into fists and ended up crushing the cigarette between my fingers. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the past out of the present before I opened them again and was met with the back view of the apartment building.
I saw cracked wooden shutters in need of paint and repair; crumbled bricks, litter, patchy grass, and a couple of broken beer bottles lay next to the steps of the back entrance. All around was a high, chain-link fence, which seemed to be a common theme in every aspect of my life now.
I resisted the urge to punch the dumpster. I knew from experience that I would only break a knuckle, and I couldn’t afford to do that. I had to be able to work this week. Instead, I drew in a few long breaths, pulled out another smoke, and then hot-boxed it on my way back into the building.
By the time I opened the door, the troublesome thoughts were gone from my mind. Tria had finished up the cleaning and was shoving various toiletry items into Buckingham Billfold. I glanced around at the empty apartment to see if we missed anything.
“I think this is it,” Tria said as she walked out of the bathroom. “And forty minutes to spare! I better get at least some of that deposit back.”
“You will,” I said, trying to reassure her. I had no idea if the landlord ever gave anyone any deposit back, but I could probably stop by and offer a little persuasion.
I heaved the last of the boxes up into my arms, and Tria opened the door for me. We split up long enough for me to take stuff upstairs and for her to return the key to the landlord. I dropped the boxes next to the kitchen table and surveyed the stuff.
There really wasn’t much, which was good because there weren’t going to be a lot of places to put it. Tria’s books took up as much room as anything, and I wondered where we were going to put those since I didn’t have any kind of bookcase. I considered the plywood and cinderblock nightstand I made out of shit I found lying around, and wondered if I could use similar materials to make Tria a place for her books.
Th
ere was a soft knock at the door, and I went to open it.
“You don’t have to knock,” I said with a smile. “You live here!”
Tria looked down at the ground, and her face flushed as she laughed through her nose.
“Well…I wasn’t sure…”
“Be sure,” I said. I handed her the key I had made for her and stepped back to let her in.
Tria walked in for the first time, took about two steps inside, and then stopped. She was gripping the massive purse in both hands, and I realized she was probably looking for a place to put it down, but the coffee table was covered with all kinds of crap. Aside from that, one of my jackets was lying in front of her on the floor, and there were a couple of hand weights near her feet, too.
“Um…shit,” I muttered. “Sorry—I’ll get it cleaned up.”
I started grabbing pizza boxes and beer bottles from the coffee table and shoving them into the kitchen trash can. When I got back into the living room, I noticed a stack of magazines on the far side of the coffee table and quickly rushed over to shove several editions of Playboy and Hustler underneath the couch.
“I never really have anyone over here,” I told her as I scurried around to pick up whatever was all over the floor and potentially just as offensive. “I should have thought about this before…shit…”
I kicked at the corner of the magazines to shove them further out of view and then grabbed some more dishes off the table. With a couple of plates and cups in my hands, I headed into the kitchen. Dirty dishes were scattered all over the place, too.
“Liam…um…”
“Yeah?” I called out as I started shoving a bunch of dishes into the sink so they at least weren’t lying all over the counters.
“You…um…”
“What?” I asked. I poked my head around the corner and saw her slowly shaking her head.
“This place is a disaster.”
I cringed as I looked around the room, seeing it as it must look through her eyes. I knew it was kind of a mess, but I never had company that wasn’t someone like Gary or Wade, so I never considered how bad it really looked.
Aside from the pizza boxes, dishes, wrappers, and bottles, there were free weights lying around, a couple of less offensive magazines on the floor, and a stack of junk mail piled so high it was falling over. There were CDs outside of their cases lying around all over the floor by the portable CD player, and stacks and stacks of cases all over the place.