Page 47 of Gator

“I know. I just keep thinking how scared he must be.”

Gator stood and held out his hand. “Come on, let’s go get your bird.”

Trixie started up the second we walked in the door. “Ju Ju is home. Trixie is a good bird. Stachios?” And I wondered if Gator understood what he was letting himself in for. It was one thing to visit a place with an African Grey, but something else entirely to have one in your space all the time.

“Yes, Trixie, I’m home, but I need to grab something real quick, okay?”

“Ju Ju be right back?”

“Yeah, Trix, I’ll be right back.”

Gator followed me into the bedroom, and I grabbed my duffel bag and put some of my clothes and things in it.

He looked around to see the things I had strewn about the room. “We can come down and get the rest later.”

“Sounds good.” I still didn’t know how long I would be staying here at the Three Bears Headquarters, but I was glad that what time I had here would be spent in Gator’s condo instead of this little apartment. It was nice enough, but I much preferred being in his space.

“You carry those, and I’ll grab Trixie for you.”

I wasn’t sure how she would take that, but I figured we could give it a try. Hopefully, she wouldn’t freak out and start screaming inside her cage.

He squatted down so he was on her level. She puffed up her feathers before saying, “Hello, Daddy.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Hello, pretty girl. Do you want to take an elevator ride?”

“Elevator go up, Elevator go down,” she said.

“That’s correct.” He picked up her cage, and while she kept repeating elevator go up over and over, she seemed calm enough.

When the doors closed behind us, he smiled at me. “Normally, I would’ve taken the stairs, but I figured this would be smoother for her in her cage.”

“It will be, thank you.” Again with the whole caring about my bird thing. I swear the man was going to be the death of me.

I used my key to open the condo door and held it open while he walked in. I could tell the second Trixie saw her cage because she totally lost her shit.

She started pacing back and forth on the perch in the small cage. “Home. Trixie’s home. Home. Going up. Going up.”

“She actually recognized her cage?”

“She does. It’s her home, and it’s where all her things are.”

I opened the door and let her come out on my arm. Then I lifted her up on top of her cage and opened the front door so she could go in when she was ready.

She hurried over to her perch and moved down it to the bell that hung next to it. She pecked it with her beak and said, “Bell.” Then repeated that a few times. She moved to the edge of the cage and used her beak and her claws to slide down the front of the door. She went inside and took a minute to check every item in the cage to make sure it was still there. “Ring, plastic. Bell, metal. Water. Food.” She crawled into a tunnel she had that was one of her favorites. “Tunnel. Straw.” Then she started to climb up her net. “Net.”

We’d worked long and hard to get her to identify each of her toys. But I’d never heard her do them one after the other like that. It was like she was making sure everything was right where it belonged.

“Okay, now I feel horrible for keeping her in that little cage away from her things for so long,” Gator said.

“She was fine. She’s just a little spoiled. But that’s okay. I like spoiling her.”

“I understand that. I like spoiling the people I care about, too.”

“Some people would say I’m already spoiled.”

“Yeah, but you did that for yourself. I think it’s time you let someone else do it for you.”

I barely kept from reacting because come on, seriously…swoon. But I didn’t want him to think that was the only reason I was here, so instead, I just smiled at him. “So, what’s for dinner?”