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It was bad enough to hang out in a laundromat long enough to do my own laundry, but now I’d have to be there while Tria’s and Katie’s were all washed and dried? I groaned.
“Quit your whining,” Tria said. “She doesn’t have that much. I think we could work it in with ours.”
Krazy Katie came back in, probably wondering what the fuck the two of us were doing in her apartment. Tria chatted with her as if the nutcase was actually responding, telling her how we had laundry to do, so we’d just take care of hers while we were at it, and that maybe Tria had a couple of outfits that would fit Katie, and Tria could still make extra food at our place, and blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t get any of it, and frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. All I knew was Tria was smiling while she was talking, and Krazy Katie didn’t seem too perturbed by her presence. I hung out in the kitchen and just watched the two of them interact.
By the time we got back to our own apartment, Tria was exhausted but happy. Happy Tria led to making out, which made me pretty happy, too. Making out led to a rather unhappy appendage of mine, and I had to take a quick shower to appease the moody little bastard before we headed off to bed.
I was never one to indulge in constant self-love, but it was either that or explode.
Chapter 6—Feel the Heat
Let her take the lead, Yolanda had said.
Sage fucking advice.
Weeks later, we still hadn’t done much more than kiss. There was a little touching, but not much more than what we had done during the first kiss. Tria’s hands pretty much stayed on my shoulders or arms when she wasn’t playing around with my hair, and I would only occasionally slide my hand over her ass. She didn’t encourage anything else, so I didn’t do anything else.
It wasn’t all bad, though.
Having Tria sit between my legs and lean back against my chest had become my favorite winter pastime. We would sit like that on the floor in front of the couch while we watched movies or on the couch while we drank apple juice. Sometimes we would sit like that in bed¸ and Tria would read one of her textbooks while I just relaxed against the pillows and held her.
We even sat like that in front of the cheesy, artificial mini Christmas tree Stacy had gifted us for the holidays. It fit our holiday theme so well, I found us a Linus blue blanket at a thrift store and gave Tria a little stuffed Snoopy dog as a present.
Tria gave me a really nice Adidas duffle bag to replace my existing gym bag, which had developed a decent sized hole in the bottom of it. The bag she found looked really expensive, but she told me she got it at a yard sale. I knew she hadn’t spent too much on it because she always got money from me when she needed some. She had to have skimmed off the grocery money to get me anything at all. Since the current ones were completely trashed, she also got me a new pair of shoelaces for my running shoes.
Over the holidays, I picked up an extra fight at a bar in the next city. The guy was good and just as big as me, but I was faster. I got clobbered pretty good, but I managed to take him down and bring home an extra hundred and fifty dollars. It was just enough to get caught back up with the bills, and Yolanda said she’d try to find me a few more like that.
Tria applied for and got the job at the campus library, but the hours weren’t much and didn’t start until after the winter break. She was really happy when she brought her first paycheck home and found out it covered most of the electric bill. After that, she continued to just hand the check over to me with proclamations about “owing” me for whatever. I thought it was bullshit, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.
I still hadn’t taken her on a real date.
There just wasn’t any money for it. Even with the extra cash Tria was bringing in, she didn’t have enough hours at the library to make much difference. Yolanda was trying to get me more fights, but outside of the local bars, I was an unknown, and no one was really interested in picking me up other than for a one night gig. Overall, it meant I was doing a little bit of letting the phone bill slide a few extra days just to get the water bill paid and shit like that.
Still, the money issues didn’t bother me all that much. It was tight, but when I came home from working or working out and had Tria there, it was all worth it. Every time I laced up my running shoes with the new laces, I knew I would come back home to find her waiting for me, usually with a big glass of cold water and a hot kiss.
Krazy Katie had become a much larger presence in our lives. Part of me wanted to be ticked off that Tria was spending so much time with her, but in all the years I had lived there, I had never seen Krazy Katie do anything other than hang out on the balcony. At least now she spent more time in a warm apartment.
Besides, it made Tria happy. I hadn’t thought about it, but it wasn’t like she had any friends around here other than me, and she had to get tired of my bullshit sometimes. Having another chick around—even a crazy one—had to be better than nothing. Tria and Yolanda had tried to be civil toward each other, but I could tell it made them both kind of uncomfortable though I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it had something to do with how I made money. Tria still managed to find reasons not to ever come and watch me fight. I didn’t press, but I had to admit it did bother me a little.
“Are you hurt?” Tria asked the second I walked in the door from work.
“Not a scratch,” I replied with a half smile. “The guy was just barely in my weight class and probably won’t be fighting again for a while.”
Tria scowled at the remark and then came over to check me out to make sure I wasn’t bullshitting her. I held out my arms, and she gave me a once over and then a nod.
“Glad you’re okay,” she said. “I hate it when I can’t kiss you.”
She punctuated the remark with her lips against mine, something she hadn’t been able to do the previous week when I returned with a busted lip. I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her up. Taking a few steps forward, I pinned her against the wall for a minute—it always made her giggle—and then carried her over to the couch.
She pressed against my chest to make me back off, then looked at me out of one eye. She wrinkled her nose.
“You didn’t shower at Feet First, did you?”
“Heh,” I responded. “Nah, it was a slow night, and I wanted to get back here. I’ll get cleaned up.”
I washed quickly. When I was done, I peeked around the door to make sure Tria was still focused on the TV before running naked to the bedroom to grab some clothes. I couldn’t find anything comfortable in the drawers, was totally out of boxers, and all my sweats were in the bottom of the pile, so I yanked on a pair of jeans before heading back out.
