Craving Trix (The Aces' Sons 1)

I leaned down and checked the dryer, pulling out the pile of clothes and taking them into the bedroom, where I tossed them on the unmade bed.

The entire room smelled like Trix. I didn’t look around as I picked my boxers and t-shirts out of the clean clothes. My hands were shaking.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and scrubbed my palms over my face. It shouldn’t be so hard to pack up some clothes. What the fuck was I doing?

Trix was going to have to pack the apartment up soon. It was coming up on the end of the month, and I knew she was staying with her parents for the foreseeable future. Probably a good thing with two babies coming. She would have to be packed up and gone by the time the first rolled around or she’d be stuck paying for an extra month. Did she line up a storage space—shit. Not my problem.

My leg bounced up and down as I stared at the open doorway.

Two hours later, I found myself folding yet another load of laundry. The baskets had been full of dirty clothes and I hadn’t been able to leave them.

I also hadn’t been able to leave the dishes in the sink, the trash in any of the garbage cans, the floor unvacuumed, the kitchen unswept, or the counter messy.

“Hulk, you here, man?” Will called from the living room.

I stuffed the last load of dirty laundry into the washing machine and closed the lid before striding out to the living room.

“Don’t ask,” I warned as Will looked around the spotless apartment.

“You call and I show up—just like always,” Will mumbled, raising his arms in the air. “No questions asked.”

“Good.” I walked to the front door as I slipped a clean t-shirt over my head, then my cut on top of that. “I need a ride.”

Chapter 24

Dragon

I unlocked the door to my girl’s apartment as Tommy and Leo talked quietly behind me. I’d dragged them along to help me get shit done, mostly so they’d finally get their asses off my couch.

Leo’s ass had made a fucking indention in the spot he’d sat in for the last two weeks, and I swear to Christ, Tommy’s ass was making a matching one on the opposite end of my damn couch. They didn’t do anything but sit in front of the television all day long. I knew they were dealing with shit in their own way, but enough was enough. They needed some fucking fresh air.

I took two steps into the apartment and stopped dead.

“What the fuck?” I mumbled, looking around the living room.

The place was bare, completely cleaned out except for stacks and stacks of plastic bins.

I stepped farther into the room and looked around. There wasn’t a picture frame or a scrap of paper anywhere. Shit even looked like it had been dusted.

“Whoa. Did Trix get robbed?” Tommy asked.

“No, you fuckin’ idiot,” Leo replied. “She got…packed.”

I walked forward into the kitchen—same thing. A few bins stacked on top of the kitchen table, but nothing else. I opened cupboards and the fridge. Nothing.

I made my way down the hallway, checking the closets and the bedrooms. They were all the same.

Plastic bins stacked neatly in each room. The beds stripped. The windows and floors clean.

“Hey, Pop,” Leo called softly. “Think I know who did this.”

I glanced over my shoulder to where Leo was looking down at a couple of bins near the dresser.

“Who?” I stepped over to where he was standing, and finally noticed the masking tape across the lids of the bins.

CLOTHES-NOT FOR STORAGE

“The fuck?” I mumbled softly to myself. I pulled the top bin down and looked at the next in the stack.

G – NAN’S Quilt – TRIX WILL WANT

Shit. I pulled that one down, too.

SHOES TRIX NEVER WEARS – STORAGE

Then I moved to the next pile, and the next, and the next, reading the labels on each one.

WINTER COATS – WON’T FIT BY THEN – STORAGE

SHEETS AND EXTRA BLANKETS – STORAGE

BOOKS – TRIX WILL WANT

SHOES – NOT FOR STORAGE

DO NOT OPEN – PRIVATE – STORAGE

CLOTHES – NOT FOR STORAGE

CLOTHES – PAJAMAS – NOT FOR STORAGE

BATHROOM SHIT – TRIX WILL WANT

TOWELS – STORAGE

“Cameron.” I finally said as I hit the last bin. “He packed up everythin’.”

“And labeled it,” Leo said quietly. “What do you think’s in the ‘private’ box?”

“Don’t even think about it, kid,” I warned, looking around the room. “Hell, this makes shit easy.”

“Why’d he do it?” Tommy asked in awe, his eyes wide.

“Because he loves her,” Leo answered simply. “Didn’t want her to have to do it herself.”

It only took about an hour for me and the boys to load the bins and furniture into the box van I’d brought. They were all labeled in Cam’s handwriting, all stacked neatly in their allotted rooms and ready to be taken away. He hadn’t used a single cardboard box, and he must have spent a couple hundred dollars buying those fucking bins, because they weren’t cheap.