The tension in The Shop is clear as soon as Melissa walks through the door. It’s as if the air itself is charged with all the things that aren’t being said. Her gaze flicks to Hawk, who is crouched over the hood of a car and doing his best to ignore Wes—who seems to be doing his best to ingratiate himself to Hawk. Josh, standing at a distance, looks on at the two of them, and the expression on his face tells her that Hawk isn’t the only one who seems to want to do some permanent damage to Wes.
“And man, she was so fine; you should’ve seen her.” Wes is practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, trying to engage Hawk in a story that he clearly has no interest in. Wes had never been particularly good at reading body language, and time didn’t seem to have changed that.
Hawk grunts something noncommittal, but it’s enough encouragement for Wes to carry on. “The girl was stacked, you know, man, curves in all the right places, and she was nasty, really nasty.” He smiles lasciviously, and Melissa feels her stomach roll. He keeps rubbing his nose, as if there’s an itch that he can’t get rid of, and his eyes can’t seem to concentrate on just one thing. “So I turned her round and she was all like, ‘No, Wes, no’ but I knew that she wanted it. You know what I’m saying? So I pushed her over the chair and—”
“Melissa!” Josh’s voice rings out loudly from across the shop. Hawk stands up abruptly, banging the back of his head on the bonnet of the car and cursing loudly, rubbing at the sensitive spot, as he moves from glaring at Wes to smiling broadly at her. Melissa watches as Wes’s gaze swings towards her, panic in his eyes before he smoothes his features into something more neutral. “Good to see you, doll.” Josh is by her side in the matter of a few seconds, guiding her away from the two men and towards the office, closing the door behind her.
“Am I in trouble?” Melissa looks around the office, the space where she’s used to seeing Josh agonizing over accounts. In all the times that she’s been to The Shop, she’s never seen the door closed. This was a first.
“No, but I will be if I don’t do something about that boy in there.” Josh jerks his head outside, and it’s clear who he’s talking about. “It makes me sick that he’s still working here, shooting the shit as if nothing has happened. But I can’t just fire him; he’ll know something’s up. He might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but he’s not an idiot!”
“We’re working on it, Josh. It’s just going to take a little time to get Wes out of here.” Melissa makes a calming gesture with her hands, something she’s been doing almost as much as she’s been keeping secrets recently.
“We don’t have time, Melissa.” Josh gives her a meaningful stare before looking away.
Melissa’s internal alarm system goes from orange to red. “What do you mean?”
Josh sighs deeply, clearly about to tell her something that he doesn’t relish in the least. “There’s a deal that’s going down soon. I don’t know exactly when, but it’s going to be soon.”
Melissa’s eyes widen, understanding the significance immediately. If a drug deal happens and Wes is there to witness it, then they’re just giving him more fodder for his article—and not only that, it’ll be cold, hard evidence of illegal activity. It’ll be all that he needs to bury the Kings.
“You have to tell them that they can’t do it now. They’ll have to wait until we’ve figured something out with Wes.” Melissa does her best to be practical, but Josh is already shaking his head and her voice trails off.
“I can’t, Melissa. It’s not as easy as that.” Josh rubs his graying temples, looking more tired than Melissa has ever seen him. “All I know is that the deal is either happening here or at the bar, because that’s all I need to know. That’s why things have worked so well for the Kings for so long; everyone only knows their part in all of this. If no one knows the whole plan, then no one person can rat out the club.”
Melissa nods in understanding. It’s an elegant system and makes perfect sense for the club to have a self-preservation tactic.
“So what’s your part in all this?” Melissa realizes that she probably doesn’t really want to know how deep Josh is in with the less kosher aspects of the club, but the time for skirting around things has long since passed.
“I just have to be ready to take the delivery when it arrives, if it arrives.” Josh shrugs, telling Melissa that’s all he’s willing to tell her, probably partly for her own safety. As Hawk had repeatedly told her, the less she knows the better. But is that how she can live, she wonders, never knowing what dangerous mission Hawk is on, always worrying about him, speaking in code, and never being able to ask, ‘How was your day, honey?’ and get an honest answer.
“Melissa.” Josh interrupts her thoughts that are stretching too far into the future.
“I’ll talk to Wes.” The words are out of her mouth before she realizes that she’s actually made that decision. Josh raises an eyebrow, clearly thinking about exactly what Hawk would have to say about that. Melissa waves away his worry. “Hawk and I have talked about it; he told me that I could help.” She chooses not to explain exactly what that ‘talk’ had consisted of. “We need to find out how much Wes knows about the club, about its secrets. Until we do that, we won’t know how to deal with him, or how to get him out of The Shop and out of your hair.”
Josh considers her words, rubbing his temples again, weighing up the truth that she’s speaking alongside the anger that he knows he’ll have to deal with from Hawk. Reading his thoughts, Melissa settles a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Let me deal with Hawk. I’m not going to throw myself at Wes. Just have a little talk.”
Josh nods abruptly, as if he doesn’t want any more time to change his mind. As Melissa moves to the door, his voice stops her. “He cares about you, you know. He might be crappy at showing it sometimes, but that’s just the way we’re built, doll.” Josh shrugs helplessly. “We ride hard, and we love harder.”
Melissa feels herself blush, the twinkle in Josh’s eyes telling her that he’s witnessed her embarrassment. She nods, quickly scampering out of the office, not trusting her voice enough to speak, and not knowing what she would say even if she did. The ‘L’ word. It definitely deserves a capital. It was way too soon to use it for her and Hawk, wasn’t it? They’d only known each other for a couple of weeks, and they hadn’t exactly been the standard getting-to-know-you weeks that most relationships go through. They’d been thrown right into the deep end, all high intensity and passion. It wasn’t a standard start to a relationship, so why should she feel like any other part of it should be standard?
“Hey.” The object of her thoughts interrupts them, as she walks back onto the shop floor. Hawk stands in front of her, throwing a wrench back and forth between his hands.
“Hey.” Melissa stands awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, unsure of where their conversation the night before had left them.
“What was all that about?” He nods behind her towards the office where Josh had led her so unceremoniously.
Melissa’s eyes flick behind Hawk to see Wes standing close by, trying his best to look casual and failing miserably. She shakes her head very slightly at Hawk to signal that it isn’t something she can talk about now. “Nothing special, just about my car.” She shrugs, exuding a nonchalance that she hopes is at least a little more convincing than Wes.
She and Hawk stand there, a little awkwardly, neither sure of what to say or even what they can say when Wes is looking over their shoulders, a presence that neither of them can ignore.
“I wanted to talk to you.” Hawk gives her a meaningful look, as if to say that what he has to tell her can’t wait.
But Melissa still has his words from the night before burned into her brain. It’s bad enough being so close to him, knowing that he won’t touch her. But it’s worse knowing that she’s the one who has done this to herself, and now she is too damn stubborn to backtrack.
“Later?” She smiles at him to take the sting out of her brush-off, but it doesn’t seem to do the trick. She watches as Hawk’s features turn stony. “I actually wanted to have a chat with Wes.”
Hawk’s expression changes from stony to downright hostile, and Melissa is suddenly glad that his back is towards Wes so his anger at her words can’t be seen. Melissa stands her ground, looking straight back at him as if nothing were amiss. The last thing they need is for Wes to think that something is going on. She had come to speak to him to find out what he knows, what secrets he’s witnessed, not to tip him off that his cover has been blown. That would just send him running back to The Tribune even faster with everything that he knows, and it could only spell disaster for the Kings.
Hawk makes a noncommittal sound and turns back to the car that he was working on when Melissa arrived, signaling an end to the conversation. Melissa has to resist the urge to reach out and touch him, to share what Josh had told her, and to ask him why he hadn’t told her anything about the fact that he was about to get patched. But now isn’t the time for that; now is the time for doing whatever she can to save the Kings.