Trained One ✓

Chapter 16

Travis.

Waking up that morning was difficult. I had to figure out what the hell happened, what the Casey house looked like, where everyone was, and how. But I had Finn and Ben to help with all of that.

What they couldn't help me with was trying to untangle Lacey's limbs from mine without waking her. She was on her side with her head buried into my chest and her legs were wrapped all around mine. Which I didn't exactly mind because I loved her legs. Except I needed to get up.

And that killed me.

I let out a deep sigh, which blew some of her hair across her face as she slept. She buried her head more into my chest and I would have let out another sigh if I wasn't afraid it would make my task even more difficult.

Trying to be as delicate and silent as possible, I started to shimmy myself out of her grasp. I had to keep reminding myself to breathe as I froze every couple of seconds, watching her face for signs of stirring. Eventually, I was standing next to the bed with just one leg still wrapped under her legs. I used one of my hands to gently lift her shin and slowly pulled mine out, careful both not to wake her or fall over in the process.

As soon as I was free I wanted to scream. But she was still asleep and that would defeat the purpose. She needed to sleep, she wasn't sleeping enough over at the hotel with those assholes stressing her out.

I grabbed some clothes and walked out, shutting the door quietly behind me.

"Fuck," I said under my breath as soon as I was in the clear. I ran a hand through my hair and rolled my shoulders a few times, trying to loosen up.

With the current state of things, I'd had to learn how to be a little bit quieter and it sucked. A lot. I hated it with every inch of me but I would have gladly taken quietly having to sneak around Melkin over trying to not wake Lacey.

I walked into the kitchen, tossing the clothes onto the counter. The rest of the guys were up already and Finn was writing on a big whiteboard propped up on the floor.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, slipping on my jeans.

"It was up your ass," Finn said as he continued to write.

I glared at the back of his head before looking at some of what was on there. It had the start of a to-do list and which tasks were already being taken care of, things to investigate, and a supply list.

"Done," Finn said and stepped away from the board.

In the corner of the board, he'd been drawing two stick figures getting it on.

"This is Ben," Finn stated as he pointed with the Expo marker to the stick figure standing up. "And this is office supply sales," he pointed to the stick figure bending over.

"Shut up," Ben said and shoved Finn.

"No," I grabbed an marker, pulling the cap off. I quickly wrote Ben above the one Finn intended and then in smaller writing, I labeled the other as 'phones with their screen protectors still on' as neatly as I could.

Ben saw what I was writing and tried to wipe it off but Finn held him back while laughing.

"He nearly punched me when I took his off one of the phones last year," Finn said.

Ben rolled his eyes, elbowing Finn off him.

I threw my shirt on as Ben pouted at the drawing some more and gave up on trying to erase it.

"Are you actually going to use this?" I asked, writing that we needed to get Jay to start asking around on the list .

"Uh, yeah," Finn said sarcastically and shoved me out of the way to add to the to do list. "Get stick out of ass, how's that? Can you do that?" he asked and looked back at me.