7. Where He Can Hear It
WHERE HE CAN HEAR IT
Torch wanted Grant Massey to know exactly whose door he'd have to come through, so he made the claiming loud on purpose.
He'd thought about it for two days — the shape of it, the timing, the fact that a threat like Grant didn't respond to warnings shouted down a phone line half so well as he'd respond to a fact laid out where the whole valley could witness it.
Men like that only understood cost. So Torch decided to make Wes cost him everything, publicly, where word would travel back on its own.
Friday night, The Roadrunner was packed — half the club in for the end of the week, Deb running the taps two-handed, Half-Pint holding court at the pool table with a story that kept getting taller.
Wes was behind the bar, comfortable there now in a way that still caught Torch somewhere under the ribs every time he noticed it — the ease of him, the way he laughed easy and full instead of guarded, the thumbnail he hadn't chewed down to nothing in almost a week.
Torch crossed the room at nine o'clock, in front of God and the whole club and anyone passing on the highway who might carry a story into Halcott, and didn't ask.
He took Wes's face in both hands, gentle, and kissed him — slow, thorough, unhurried, the kind of kiss that wasn't for show even though it was absolutely, deliberately, for an audience — and when he pulled back he kept one hand at the back of Wes's neck, a claim laid down in plain sight, and said it loud enough to carry to the back booth.
"This is my old man." He looked around the room once, let it land on every face in it, and then, pointed and clear, at the door, at the highway beyond it, at anyone who might be listening from a parked car up the road: "Anybody comes near him, they come through me first."
The bar didn't go quiet. It went warm — a cheer went up from the pool table, Deb banged a glass on the bar top like a gavel, Half-Pint made a sound like a kettle going off.
Wes stood there, color high, eyes bright, and Torch watched the exact second he understood he wasn't being cornered by this.
He was being chosen, in the open, on purpose, where it could never quietly be taken back.
"You didn't have to do that in front of everyone," Wes said later, breathless, backed against the storeroom door while the party carried on without them.
"Yeah, I did." Torch's hand found his jaw, tilted his face up. "I want it to get back to him exactly how it went. I want him picturing every single Saint standing between him and you."
"That's not romantic, that's strategy."
"It's both." Torch kissed the corner of his mouth. "Can't it be both?"
Wes grabbed him by the belt, yanked him around the corner, and had the storeroom door locked before Torch's shoulder even hit the wood.
The music and laughter from the bar thumped through the thin steel door, each beat echoing in Torch's veins.
He thought he knew what he was doing, staking a claim like that in front of the whole club, but Christ, seeing it land for Wes — the flare of heat in those green eyes, the way his breath hitched — it lit something in Torch he hadn't known was there, something hot and alive and reckless.
Wes was on him before his back was even fully against the shelves.
"Everyone heard you," he growled against Torch's mouth, hands already tugging at his belt. "Everyone saw."
"Good." Torch backed him into the shelving again, careful of the ribs he knew were still healing under the thin cotton. "I want them to remember it."
There was no time for slow tonight, not with the adrenaline crackling between them like a live wire, not with the whole club twenty feet away, oblivious.
Wes hooked a leg around him, pulling him closer, mouth finding the pulse point in Torch's neck.
"Mine too," he breathed, hands shoving fabric aside, and Torch groaned at the possessive heat in his voice.
He dug a foil packet out of his back pocket — he'd taken to keeping one there since the night of the storm — tore it with his teeth, and slicked his fingers, then worked Wes open against the shelving, quick and careful at once, until Wes was pushing down onto his hand and swearing at him to hurry.
Torch gritted his teeth, holding what was left of his control by a thread.
"Fuck, just —" Wes's breath hitched, and he bit Torch's throat. "I need it now."
His hands were everywhere, urgent, greedy, dragging Torch's jeans open and freeing him.
"Come on," Wes said, voice wrecked, and hitched his leg higher, opening for him.
Torch lined himself up and pushed in, slow through the first tight resistance, then all the way home, and felt the shudder run through Wes as he seated deep.
He held there a breath, letting Wes take him, then started moving — fierce and hungry, short, hard thrusts that had Wes gasping against his shoulder.
The claim had electrified them both, and Torch could feel it in the way Wes took everything he gave, greedy for it, rocking down to meet every stroke like he finally believed he was allowed to want it this much.
Torch dropped one hand to Wes's hip, urging him on, the other fisted in his hair.
The world narrowed down to the thin door at Torch's back, the low shelves digging into Wes's shoulders, the sounds they were making — Wes's gasps muffled against Torch's shoulder, Torch's own breath catching in his throat. He could feel Wes tightening around him, hear his voice, low and urgent:
"Yours. God, you're —"
He never finished the sentence.
Wes came apart against him, body shuddering, and Torch could feel the wet heat of completion between them.
He followed him under a moment later, undone by the way Wes wanted him, openly and completely, and he buried his face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of him.
He could still hear the music from the bar, feel the bass line pulsing through the floor, and he held Wes there, both of them trembling, until their breath evened out.
They came out ten minutes later, straightening collars, and nobody said a word, though Half-Pint's grin could have lit the parking lot.
—
The phone rang at midnight. Nobody on the line — just breathing, patient, deliberate, and then a click.
Torch was already moving before Deb finished setting the receiver down, out through the front door into the cold dark, boots hard on the gravel.
A car sat idling across the two-lane, engine running, lights off, close enough that Torch could see the shape of a man behind the wheel without being able to make out his face.
He walked straight toward it, no hesitation, the way he'd promised himself years ago on a fire line he'd never again be one man short when it counted.
The car pulled a slow, unhurried U-turn, brake lights flaring once, and drove off into the dark at exactly the speed of a man who wasn't afraid of him at all.
That was worse than if it had sped away. Torch stood in the middle of the empty highway a long moment, listening to the engine fade, and understood with total clarity that Grant Massey wasn't testing the water anymore.
He was done waiting.
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