Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
Julius
I finished up my cut just before noon. I spent a few minutes with Devon explaining to him the process of receiving my shipment. Migs was familiar with it and promised to help him out if he had any questions.
Once we were in the Three Bears SUV, I let out a long sigh. “I’ll be so glad when this is over. I hate not being here to run my business.”
“I know you will, but now that we have confirmation this is connected to that trafficking ring, it’s going to take time to get it all sorted out.”
“You would think it would be the other way. That since they know it’s something that serious, they would move faster.”
“You would think so, but the bigger the case, the more hoops they have to jump through, and they want to make sure the case is airtight.”
“So I guess that means it isn’t going to be over with anytime soon.”
He reached over and took my hand. “Fraid not, sugar.”
“I might need to take a look at my schedule then.” I’d worked so hard to turn The Shag Shack into what it is today, and I refused to let these guys take that away from me.
But I did wonder if it would be better if I took a week or two off.
I hadn’t taken a vacation since I’d opened, and Migs could run the place without me.
Most of my clients were regulars and would forgive me if I had to reschedule their appointments either for a later date or with one of my other stylists.
“That’s up to you, Jules. I’m happy to come sit up here and keep an eye on things while you work your magic.”
“I’m sure you have other work to do.”
“Nothing as important as making sure you are safe.” He gave my hand a squeeze.
“Maybe at the very least I can reschedule some of my clients and only come in for the ones that can’t wait.
” I took a quick mental run through my schedule, and I could only think of three people who would have an issue with the change.
“I should probably go pick up a few more things from my place, though. I only brought enough for a few days.”
“No problem, sugar. Do you want to do it now or later on tonight?”
“We might as well do it now since I don’t live far from here.”
A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of my house.
“Did you turn the alarm off?”
I nodded. “I did, and I know the drill, Daddy. I’ll wait right here.”
He chuckled and leaned over to brush a kiss across my lips. “Good boy. I know it’s a pain, but it makes me feel better to check first.”
I watched as he went up to my door, and damn that man’s ass was to die for. I knew they had a gym downstairs in the Three Bears building, and I was pretty sure Gator made good use of it. You didn’t get glutes like that without a lot of work.
A few minutes later, he came out and opened the door for me. “All clear in there.”
“You know I would’ve gotten an alert if anyone came in, right?”
“You’d get an alert if they opened a door like a normal person. These guys cut power, jam signals, or pop a window like it’s nothing. I don’t trust apps. I trust cleared rooms.”
“Of course you don’t. Come here.” I reached for his neck and pulled him down for a quick kiss. “Thank you for taking such good care of me, Daddy.”
He dropped his forehead to mine. “Always, mon petit. Always. Now let’s go get your things.”
“I don’t need much. There’s a washer and dryer in the apartment, so I should be okay with just a few more things,” I said as I followed him inside the house. He mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it because his back was to me. “What did you say?”
“I said we should probably take the larger cage for Trixie.”
I was pretty sure that wasn’t what he said, but it was so sweet of him to think about her, I let it go.
“It’s huge. Are you sure?”
“Yeah. We’ll probably have to lay it on its side, so you’ll have to take all her stuff out, but I’m sure it’ll fit in the back.”
“I mean, are you sure you want to go to that much trouble?”
“You said she shouldn’t be in that small one for long, right? So let’s take her cage so she’ll be more comfortable.”
If I wasn’t already half gone over the man, I would’ve been after that. Trixie and I were a package deal. African Greys can live for between forty and eighty years, and she wasn’t but around ten years old, so yeah, love me, love my bird was a thing.
“Okay, let’s load it up then.”
It took us a while, but eventually we had two suitcases of my clothes and all of Trixie’s stuff loaded up in the SUV. I hadn’t thought I needed that many clothes, but when I tried to suggest to Gator that I wouldn’t be there that long, he just glared at me and kept putting clothes in the suitcases.
As soon as we were back in the SUV, he reached for my hand and twined our fingers together. I wouldn’t have pegged Gator as a touchy-feely kind of guy, but he totally was, and I sure wasn’t complaining.
He pulled into his parking spot and got out. I reached for one of my suitcases, but he batted my hand away. “We’ll come back for those. Just get the bag of Trixie’s stuff for now.”
Thankfully, the bird cage had wheels on it, so it only took us a few minutes to put it all back together, and we were wheeling it across the parking lot to the elevator. When the doors closed, Gator pressed his thumb to the pad and then pushed the button for the tenth floor.
That was where Wolfe, Hawk, Mika, and Gator lived, but I’d never been up there. “Umm, Gator, where are we going?”
“I thought you could stay up at my place. It’s even safer than the ninth floor, way more private, and my bed is much bigger.”
“Were you going to ask me what I wanted to do?”
“I wasn’t, but I guess I should have. Julius, would you like to move up to the tenth floor with me?”
I could’ve given him a hard time about making assumptions, but the truth was, I didn’t want to. I’d been dying to see where he lived, and I loved the idea of staying in his house until they caught the guys who were after me.
“I would love to.”
“We’ll need to get you a card that will allow you to access this floor, but we can do that after we get everything all situated.”
“Sounds fancy.” I was teasing him, but little did I know I was actually right.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out into a large area that looked like a hotel lobby.
The wall to the right was all windows, and there was one door on each of the other three walls.
I waited while Gator maneuvered the birdcage out of the elevator before saying, “Mika said it was them, you, and Wolfe that lived up here. So it’s just the three condos up here? ”
“And this common area. We don’t really hang out up here much. We all spend most of our spare time down on the ninth floor playing cards or watching a game, but we wanted a place just for us as the company grows.”
“You three are close, then?” I hadn’t seen much of Wolfe or Hawk since all this started, but when I’d seen them at the club, I’d always gotten the feeling they were super tight.
He smiled at me around the side of the birdcage and nodded. “Yeah, we don’t seem like we would fit, but we’re like brothers. Wolfe’s place is on that far wall, and Hawk and Mika are over there.”
I walked with him to the last door and waited while he opened it.
Then I stepped into the kind of place I’d only ever imagined living in.
It was a massive room with high ceilings.
There were windows everywhere, and the walls were all brick.
It wasn’t crowded with furniture, which gave it all an open, roomy feel.
But the furniture that was there was oversized and mostly a deep brown leather.
The kitchen was to the right, and it was gorgeous. It had beautiful black cabinets with stainless steel accents. I might not be much of a cook, but that didn’t mean I didn’t appreciate a nice kitchen.
There wasn’t much as far as decoration, but stunning photos of various outdoor spaces and wildlife hung on the walls, making everything feel very Gator.
“Wow, this is amazing.”
“Thanks, I love it here. The windows over here have a great view north down Main Street. Hawk has a similar view, but his looks down Main Street to the south. You can see the Fourth of July fireworks from the zoo from his window, but I don’t care about that.
I love being able to see the old theater and all the foot traffic on the street. ”
I walked over to one of the large framed photos. It had been taken in a marshy area, and there were two birds, a large white one and a smaller blueish-gray one. “Is that a heron?”
“It is. It's a little blue heron. The white one is a great egret. They’re pretty common where I grew up.”
“Is this photo from there?”
“It is. It was taken just behind my mee-maw’s place.”
“Who took it?”
He shrugged. “I did. Photography is something of a hobby for me.”
The man said that like it was no big deal, but they were seriously professional-quality photos.
“Did you take all of these?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I wandered around, taking a closer look.
There was one of a buffalo out in a field.
One of a river that was running through a tree-lined swamp, the branches reaching all the way down to brush the top of the water.
The one that gave me pause was a stunning shot of a mountain lion that was standing on a large rock overlooking a canyon.
He was silhouetted by the sun setting behind him, and it looked like it belonged on the cover of a magazine.
“How close did you have to get to take that picture?”
“Not as close as you might think. I have some really good equipment.”
“Wow, Gator, I don’t even know what to say. You’re a man of many talents.”
He winked at me. “We haven’t even scratched the surface of my talents yet, mon petit. Now, where should we put this cage? I was thinking right over there.”
“That would work. It would give her a great view out the window.”