Page 45 of Gator
“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.”