Chapter Nine #2
It was like being in high school again, all the over-the-clothes action driving him into a frenzy he had to handle himself later.
But he’d survived that, and he’d survive this—and what a prize awaited him at the end.
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~oOo~
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T he new television was another hundred-incher, with all the latest whizbang. Tech had gotten so ‘smart’ lately, Mel wouldn’t be surprised if it was able to read people’s minds and bend them to its will.
Actually, television had been doing that pretty much since the 1950s, hadn’t it? What else where all those commercials about?
Most of his brothers insisted they could do this kind of wiring as competently as he could, but they were all full of shit.
They’d cut corners and half-ass it, he’d bet his Dyna on that.
Having learned the hard way what can happen when you half-ass electrical work, Mel always took his time and did it right.
Sometimes he got pushback for moving too slowly, but he ignored it.
On this morning with a shit ton of work to do, the Hall was already buzzing with people.
Many of them stood behind the main sofa and stared, with bonus kibbitzing and shit talk, while Mel wired the set up—the right way, thank you very much—and, with Zaxx’s help, got it hung on the wall.
Then he got the gaming and sound systems connected and all the remotes synced.
“Our hero,” Thumper said in a high-pitched voice as Mel closed the lid on his tool case. Mel grinned and flipped him off.
“Thanks, brother,” Badger said, coming over to clap Mel on the shoulder. “Looks great.”
“No sweat.” He cast a glance over at the bar, where a previously abundant breakfast spread had been reduced to crumbs. “Damn. You pigs ate up the whole breakfast while you watched me work? Really feelin’ the love over here.”
“I’ll make you somethin’, hon,” Candy said, hopping off her man’s lap. “Eggs and toast do ya?”
Sitting at the end of the bar, Kellen brayed a laugh. “Mel’s been eatin’ everything Miss Abigail’s got to offer, Candy. He don’t want your sad ol’ runny eggs and burnt toast.”
It wasn’t especially unusual for Kell to say something that cut the volume on the whole Hall, but this one landed with a strange thud.
Mel’s hackles went up; what he’d said about Abigail seemed way out of bounds, but he couldn’t say exactly why.
Was it a sexual inuendo, or was Mel both so damn horny for her and so fucking protective of her that he was seeing filth where there was only insensitivity?
On the other hand, Kellen was more than half likely to say something shitty just to get a rise out of people.
He was like one of those troublesome teenage assholes who courted negative attention because he never got the positive kind.
Across the Hall, Dub was on his feet, too, ready to take up for Candy. She had hold of his arm, trying to calm him down.
Kellen just sat there like a kid who’d tossed an M-80 down a storm drain and was waiting to see what would happen.
Badge moved toward him, but pulled up when Isaac got to Kellen first. Isaac hooked one of his big old hands on Kellen’s shoulder, his long fingers and thumb over his neck and throat like a silent threat, and leaned down to say something in Kell’s ear.
Whatever he said drained Kell’s blood straight out of his face. He made a stiff nod, and Isaac’s threatening grip became a brotherly pat.
“Sorry, fellas,” Kellen said, with something approximating good grace. “Bad joke. Didn’t mean to disrespect anybody.”
Badger looked to Double A and then to Mel, his eyes asking if the issue was over.
Mel glanced at Dub, who was already looking his way. They shared a shrug and a nod, and the issue was over.
In the usual way of the Horde, everything went back to normal right away.
Grudges between brothers might linger in their hearts, but in the Hall, their home, when an issue was over, it was fucking over.
Badger was big on getting shit aired out, and if you said you were satisfied, you didn’t go back on it.
Sadly, Candy no longer seemed inclined to fix him any breakfast, and Mel wasn’t going to risk getting a rolled-up paper across his nose if he asked, so he slumped over to the bar and scrounged up half of a cruller from the back of a box.
He stuck it in his mouth and went behind the bar to refresh his coffee.
Kellen sat in the same place, at the end of the bar. “Hey, you get my message?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah. What’s up?” He dipped the bit of half-used cruller into his coffee and shoved the dripping mess into his mouth. That would have to do.
Kellen glanced around and dropped his voice more as he leaned in. “I said not here.”
Mel stopped and gave the man a hard look. “The fuck is up, Kell? You’re actin’ weird—and straight up? For you, that’s saying somethin’.”
Kell’s face shrank in on itself. “Fuck off.”
Unaffected, Mel shrugged. “Look, if you got something you need to tell me, tell me. Not interested in any cloak-and-dagger shit, bro.”
“I’m tryin’ to help you,” Kellen said—and that pulled Mel up short.
“Huh? What help do I need?”
He was sincerely confused and sincerely asking.
Mel wasn’t a complicated guy. He had no secrets, no dark traumas haunting him, and he didn’t pull sketchy shit unless said sketchy shit was assigned to him by his president.
He could not imagine what help Kellen thought he needed, much less what Kell thought he could do to help—especially nothing that had to be whispered about in private.
Again, Kellen looked around. He was starting to act as a suspicious as some dude in a trench coat and fedora, lurking in the shadows.
“You know what? Never mind. You’re on your fuckin’ own.”
With that, Kellen hopped off the stool and stormed from the clubhouse.
“He’s actin’ weirder than usual,” Len said, coming around back to fill his coffee, too.
“Yeah,” Mel answered, still focused on the door Kellen had pushed through.
“What was all that?”
Turning to Len, who’d stepped back into the SAA role while Tommy worked his way back to full power, Mel said, “I got no idea, but I think it’s worth keeping our eyes open.”
Len’s gaze sharpened to a knifepoint. “What’d he say?”
“Nothing that means nothing, but ... I don’t know.” He tapped the side of his head. “Spidey senses goin’ haywire.”
Len nodded. “C’mon. Let’s talk to Badge.”
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~oOo~
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B adger’s response was to send Len and Mel after Kellen and ‘get the stick out his ass one way or another,’ so Mel shot off a quick text to let Abigail know he might not be at the clubhouse when she got there, but if so, he’d get back as soon as he possibly could.
Then he hunted up Adrienne and asked her to keep an eye out for her.
Abigail was shy about being at the clubhouse without him—and that had surprised him, since she’d shown up to a few parties over the years and, as far as he’d noticed back then, she’d been fine.
But his notice back then hadn’t been so completely locked on her, so maybe he’d missed her discomfort.
Len texted Kellen and asked where he was, but Kellen left him on read.
So Len and Mel mounted up and headed off on a tour of Likely Places to Find Kellen Frey.
No Place was closed this early in the day, so they rode straight to the second most likely place, Marie’s—and found his bike parked alongside the building.
They parked on either side of him and sauntered in.
Kellen sat alone at a booth, hunched over a cup of coffee, scrolling on his phone. A half-full pot sat in the middle of the table. He didn’t look up as they approached.
Without a word, Len slid onto Kellen’s bench, blocking him in. Mel took a seat on the other bench, facing them.
Kellen’s head jerked up, and Mel caught a flash of fear in the man’s eyes before he covered and said, as if he were glad to see them, “Hey, fellas.” He flipped his phone screen down on the table.
“Hey, brother,” Len said, also as if he were glad to meet up. “What’s up? We’re busy at home, and you’re not there.”
Kellen’s eyes darted to Mel and back to Len. “Nothin’. Just needed a minute to myself.”
“Got worries on your mind?” Len asked, his friendly tone taking on a hint of frost. “Nobody better to talk things over with than family, right?”
“Nah, I’m good. No worries on this noggin.” With a strained grin, he made a loose fist and knocked on his temple.
Mel had no talent in or patience for roundabout talking, so he asked outright. “You said we needed to talk. What’s up?”
Kellen’s attention stayed on Len for several seconds before he turned again to Mel. “It’s nothin’. Forget it.”
“Nah, man.” Len hooked his arm over Kellen’s shoulders and gave him a firm squeeze. “Don’t bottle shit up. Keepin’ secrets is bad for a man’s health.” As a period on the barely veiled threat, Len squeezed a little harder and gave Kellen a shake.
Len looked like what he was: a hard man who’d lived every second of his life hard.
White brush cut and beard, leathery, permanently sunburned skin—what was visible under a near full-body coverage of ink—and hands turning to stone with old damage and arthritis.
He wore an eye patch, and he’d lost the eye that had been in that socket about as hard as an eye could be lost. He was around seventy years old and could not possibly be as strong as he’d been, but he remained a man with whom one should not fuck.
Kellen was not the brightest star in the night sky, but he clearly understood—and felt—Len’s threat. A sheen rose across his unusually pale forehead.
Mel was getting the idea that Kellen was into something bad—bad for the club, or the town, and ... somehow bad for him? Why had Kell been so interested in talking to him, in particular?