Chapter Eleven #2
There might be an issue with Kellen to deal with, yes, and there definitely was an issue with his shitty nephews and their shitty friends, yes, but none of that should be vibing in the Hall.
It wasn’t even widely known yet among the Missouri patches.
Len and Mel had talked to Badger and Double A about it, but they’d agreed with Len that it should all be set aside until after this weekend.
So he deflected. With a dismissive chuckle, he shook his head. “You’re trippin’, my brother. No vibe here but a party. And anything you see on my face is about my lady. This is her first time in the clubhouse for a big party, and ... you know.”
Jonesy turned and grinned at him. “I figured that’s what the scene was about earlier—you liftin’ your leg on her.”
He’d said that kind of shit hundreds of times himself, but this time, when it was about Abigail, he hated the image. He knew better than to make a thing of it, so he kept his grin on, ignored the blast of guilt, and said, “Gotta mark the territory.”
Jonesy nodded again and finished his beer.
“I feel ya. When I was first with Dawnie, I was with the Ogres, and that scene was somethin’ else.
You didn’t want a woman you gave a shit about anywhere near that clubhouse.
Even all these years later, it’s hard to shake the feeling that you gotta make damn sure everybody around knows to keep off. ”
He turned, waved at Loki for another, and when he had it, he focused fully on Mel.
“My read is you did that show for us, so I’m gonna tell ya which of our guys to watch around your lady—that’s Maniac and Nash.
No disrespect to them, you know I love ‘em, but Maniac’s just generally crazy, and when his teeth start floating in Cuervo, he forgets his old lady and every last manner.
Nash is ... he’s newly patched, and I guess he’s feelin’ it some.
We’ve had a thing or two in our clubhouse with him and our girls. ”
Mel immediately scanned the Hall, looking for those men.
Maniac Weathers was playing pool with Showdown and seemed steady and calm.
The other one—Nash—had been introduced today.
He was young, in his early twenties, and carried himself like the Mane on his back was an all-access pass to anything he wanted.
Not unlike Kellen, in fact.
After a pull on his fresh beer, Jonesy added, “I guess here it’s the same as home—the women around know the score and signed on for it, but it’s still a good idea to take precautions. Booze and bad decisions go hand in hand.”
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~oOo~
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M el’s talk with Jonesy did little to ease his mind.
After his Montana brother moseyed off to find his old lady, Mel stood there thinking for as long as it took him to drain his beer.
He decided that the best way to make sure everybody was nice around Abigail was to keep her close.
Hanging with the women, she might be mistaken for a club girl by anyone who hadn’t yet seen them together.
He found her where he expected, in the kitchen.
That room was packed solid with women, and he stood at the door for a minute or two and marveled at the snug efficiency of their work.
He counted a dozen women and teen girls standing or moving around, mixing ingredients in bowls, inserting or removing pans from the oven or watching pots on the stovetop, filling serving trays or carrying them away.
Nobody seemed to get in anyone else’s way, and they all followed a complex, layered conversation, laughing at one thing while giving instructions for another.
It reminded him of that old show, The Bear , a scene both chaotic and organized.
Abigail stood at the center island, placing perfectly cut slices of her pies on small paper plates. Caroline Ness, one of Badger and Adrienne’s girls, set each plate on a large tray. When the tray was full, Caroline hoisted it up and turned, moving with balletic grace through the throng of women.
As she came to the door, she smiled at Mel. “Hi! You need something?”
He grinned back. “Just my lady. If you can spare her.”
“Well, you’ll have to ask my mom about that. Or Aunt Lilli. Above my pay grade.” With that, she carried her sweet burden to the Hall.
Taking the path Caroline had forged, Mel went into the kitchen, working his way around the busy women, all of whom made some kind of comment indicating he was not where he belonged. By the time he arrived at the island, Abigail was smiling over her shoulder at him.
Stepping up behind her, he swept his arms around her waist and rested his head on her soft shoulder. “Hey, beautiful.”
“Hi, handsome,” she murmured. “What’s up?”
“Lonely. Come be with me out there.”
Her smile faltered a little, and she tossed a quick, ambivalent glance at the door. “There’s a lot to do in here.”
“We can spare you, hon,” Adrienne said, turning to smile at them from the stove. “You did all your work before you got here. Caroline can plate the rest of those beautiful pies. Go enjoy yourself.”
Abigail’s responding smile was small and uncertain. She looked toward the door again. Mel saw the way anxiety charged her blue eyes as she shifted her gaze to him.
“I got you,” he murmured, setting a hand on her cheek. “I got you.”
Her smile firmed up and deepened. “Okay. Let’s go up front.”
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~oOo~
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W ith their hands linked , Mel led Abigail back into the Hall. After a quick scan of the crowded space, he locked on a single free table, a two-top way up front, near Isaac and Showdown’s Neverending Chess Game.
“Let’s go sit, and I’ll get you something to drink,” he said, leaning close to her ear, and she gave him that small, ambivalent smile again and nodded her head.
Switching her hand to his other, he put his free one on the small of her back and pushed into the throng.
A low voice inside his skull told him he was being ridiculous.
Obviously she would be completely safe. The Montana Horde were his brothers, too, and even if they might make trouble for women in their own house, they’d respect the Missouri rules.
Moreover, he’d done a lot to make sure everybody knew Abigail was his.
Any patch who had trouble respecting a woman would damn well respect a brother. She would be fine.
But he felt her uneasiness in the tension in her spine and the clutch of her fingers around his. She was not comfortable, and he couldn’t seem to think of that unease as anything but fear. It had his instincts roaring.
Then, about halfway through the room, almost to the pool table, he heard a woman say, in a voice so clear she had to mean Abigail to hear, “Wait— that guy’s with that cow? For real?”
He pulled up and whipped around before the sentence had fully sunk into his head.
Rudy ‘Maniac’ Weathers sat in one of the rattier leather armchairs.
His old lady, who looked like a church lady’s nightmare of a biker bitch, all the way to her laced leather pants and barely-there top, was draped over his lap and the chair, and she was staring right at Mel and Abigail, an evil light in her black-rimmed eyes.
He’d been laser focused on dangers that could come from the men in the room. It hadn’t occurred to him to worry about what damage the women in the room could do.
“Muzzle your fuckin’ dog,” Mel growled, his eyes on Maniac. Knowing full well he’d get an answer, he pushed Abigail behind him as he said it.
Maniac stared hard at him. Mel stared back. Then, slowly, Maniac lifted his woman from his lap and rose.
When he stood at his full height—about the same as Mel’s, though his breadth was considerably wider—he took a step forward, so he was within reach of Mel, and vice versa.
“The fuck you just say?” Maniac asked, his voice low and smooth.
“I said muzzle your fuckin’ dog,” Mel repeated, holding firm, but not making any further advance. He could fight, he was decent at it, but he didn’t like to do it. He did not start shit, but he would see shit to its conclusion. He’d let Maniac draw first blood.
The Montana patch let loose with a right cross that sent Mel’s head twisting and almost knocked him clear off his feet. He stumbled back a few steps, bumping into bystanders, who’d already begun to form a circle around them, but he managed to stay upright.
Maniac stood in the same place, ready for Mel’s answer.
The restless sense of unfocused violence he’d struggled with all afternoon now had a target.
With a roar, Mel leapt forward, tacking Maniac around the waist, and taking them both to the floor, crashing through furniture.
As they landed, Mel rose up and got in three quick jabs to the side of Maniac’s head before Maniac’s big mitts surged up and closed around Mel’s neck.
He flipped them over and started throttling Mel in earnest. Mel slammed his fists into Maniac’s sides and back, grabbed at his greasy ponytail, anything he could get to while stars and darkness swirled through his vision.
“ENOUGH!” The word blasted forth from the side, and Mel vaguely realized the music, and most of the conversation and bustle, had gone quiet. It was Isaac who’d yelled, his deep, powerful voice carrying the syllables across the room with the force of a blow.
At the same time, patches surged forward and pulled Maniac off Mel, and heaved Mel off the floor. He hunched over, grabbing his knees while he tried to push air past his swelling throat to fill his lungs.
Isaac pushed through the throng. “What the fuck?” the old man demanded, coming up on Mel. “What the fucking fuck? You’re fucking brothers!”
Isaac hadn’t been president for years, but Mel figured he’d always be a leader in the club. He was scowling at Mel now, like he was waiting on him to clean up the mess.
But Mel was in no mind to make nice with that crazy motherfucker or his nasty bitch. With his lungs finally satisfied, he stood up straight and glared silently at Isaac.
“Just a coupl’a beasts lettin’ off steam, Isaac,” Rhett said, standing at Maniac’s side. “No harm, no foul.”
“No,” Mel said before he realized he meant to speak. His voice was rough but clear. “His chick disrespected my woman in our house. That gets answered.”
“That’s chick shit,” Maniac snarled. “Between them. But you disrespected my woman, and that’s between us.”
“He’s got a point,” Rhett said, his attention on Badger.
Hands on his hips, his forehead puckered in anger, Badger glowered at everyone involved. The world seemed to pause while the Missouri president considered.
“Fuck. Call it a draw—and no more of this shit.” He shoved his way through to the back of the room and headed toward his office.
Mel watched him go, even more furious. He’d gotten no support at all—for defending Abigail, his woman, in his own clubhouse.
Abigail. He hadn’t seen her since this mess had started. He looked around.
She was not in the Hall.
He cast another glance around, peering more closely through the crowd, but all he saw was a party turning back to its business. No sign of his woman.
“Where’s Abigail?” he asked, of no one and everyone.
“I don’t think she’s real happy with that scene, brother,” Isaac said, his voice now calm and familial. “She went right out the front door before you took that first punch.”