Page 63 of Levee

Levee was still out cold, his arm falling lazily off of me as I slid away.

I’d fallen into bed still wearing the yellow bikini from the night before, so I stole one of Levee’s shirts to slip over the bathing suit, then made my way downstairs.

There were the low sounds of TVs or music on in the other bedrooms, but the house was otherwise quiet.

“Fuck you, Benny,” Mackie grumbled at me as he plucked at the bars of his cage.

“Good morning to you too, Mackie,” I said as I moved over to his cage. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to do this, but you look unhappy,” I said, pushing the unlock button, then pulling the door open.

He swung out with it, climbing to the top with his feet and beak, then looking at me expectantly.

“Okay. Well, I don’t know a lot about parrot diets,” I told him, walking over toward the counter. “But I did see Kylo feed you bread last night,” I went on, getting a tortilla, then cutting one up in pieces to give to him.

“There you go,” I said as he took it in his giant foot and started to bite demure little pieces off. “You probably just suckered me into that, right?” I asked as the back door opened, making my heart shoot up into my throat.

My fears worried it might be one of the bad guys from my building. Logic quickly followed, making me think it was one of the bikers.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a woman instead.

A black-haired, tattooed beauty wearing all black, her keen eyes taking in my face.

“Hope you put a bullet in his head,” she said, exhaling hard.

“I walked into a wall,” I said, voice sounding robotic even to my own ears.

“Yeah? What kind of wall has five fingers?” she asked as she passed behind me, making my hand fly to the back of my neck. “Thought so. Is one of the guys handling it?” she asked, beelining for the coffee machine.

“Ah, no. It’s not… like that.”

“Are you a new club girl?” she asked as she started to make a fresh pot.

“What? No. I’m, uh, a friend of Levee.”

“A naked friend?” she asked, glancing down at my legs with a smirk. “Don’t tell me he fell for the walked into a wall thing,” she said, shaking her head. “I will have to lose a lot of respect for him if that’s the case. Which would be really unfortunate since he’s my man’s best friend.”

“Oh, you’re with Cato?” I asked.

“Yeah. Rynn,” she said, giving me a nod.

“I’m Jade,” I told her.

“Well, Jade, I know it’s none of my fucking business,” Rynn started, “but if you have shit going on, you can trust Levee to help you with it. And now, we will move on because I’m not going to harp on shit that you clearly don’t want to talk about. Instead, I’ll ask your opinion on Halloween,” she said.

“Halloween? Uh, I like all holidays. Little kids in costumes? Can you get any cuter? I’m actually excited to live in a building full of kids this year.”

“Jade?” Levee’s voice called, sounding still sleepy but a little panicked. Like he was worried I might have taken off without saying anything.

“She’s in here,” Rynn called back just as Levee came into the kitchen, his shirt around his neck, but still trying to get his arms in.

“Oh, hey,” he said, body relaxing as he looked at me.

“Hey,” I said, giving him a small smile. “I let out Mackie,” I told him, waving at the bird who was finished with his tortilla and now steadily preening his feathers.

“Yeah, whoever is up first usually does,” he said, looking awkward, like he wasn’t sure if he should come over and kiss me good morning or not.

I went ahead and made that choice for him, walking over, pressing a hand to the center of his chest, then leaning up to press a quick kiss to his lips.

He hooked an arm around me after as he turned to look at Rynn. “What are you doing here this early?”

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