CHAPTER 15
Greg
Once things settle at the office, it is a lot easier to go about my business. My fire at Derrick hasn’t dimmed one bit, but I know I need to keep my head straight here. Not even thirty minutes after my call, Derrick comes running into the building with a box full of case files. I’m pretty sure the idiot pissed his pants when he walked in my office and found not only one pissed off person but two more. Coop and Axel have no issues with sitting in here and throwing their vibes at the idiot.
It takes me a good hour to look over the case files and realize that I have messed up and messed up big in trusting him. Not only is he lacking on the information he has relayed to me but he has also failed to mention just how bad things had been in the Wagner house. I find five trips to the hospital, not including the birth of the son I never knew about, fourteen visits from the local police from calls the neighbors had placed that only ended with Sofia Wagner telling them everything was a-fuckin-okay. And the cherry on the top is the final call from Derrick that fails to mention the sleeping son found just upstairs from his dead parents.
“Fuck,” I grind out, slamming the latest file of fucked up bullshit down on my desk. “Do you believe this shit?” I ask Maddox. Since I started to pore over the files, he is the only one left in the building stupid enough to put up with my shit. “How could I have been so fucking blind to this shit? I am the one who asked this idiot to investigate, to let me know everything and I get half-truths and watered down bullshit.”
“Got played. Can’t blame yourself for the move he made. You had enough shit on your hands with Izzy, Axel and that motherfucking Brandon.” He finishes up looking at the last file I threw at him and leans back in the chair, absentmindedly rubbing his left knee.
“You alright?” I ask, nodding my head towards his knee.
“Fine, shut up about it. I’ll be picking glitter out of my brain for years.” I can tell there is more there but I know better than to push him on it.
“I’m here if you want to talk. And stop being a son of a bitch, yeah? I’ll stay out of your shit, but stop, and you know damn well who I’m talking about here. Now, back to this mess. What do I do with all of this?”
“Keep it close until you know more about this chick. No need to open old wounds unless you know it’s worth being the rock she’s going to need.” He stands up and makes his way over to the door. When he turns around and I meet his black eyes, for the first time in years, I see some compassion in them. “For what it’s worth, you deserve some peace, brother. She could be the rock you need too.” And with that, he’s gone.
* * *
I stay in the office for a few more hours catching up on some cases that need some work done, checking in with the ones that need my attention, and just avoiding thinking about Melissa for a few seconds. Not easy, when all I can remember is the weekend I spent with her. All it takes is one second of her face filtering through my mind for my pants to tighten up. To say I’ve got it bad would be like saying the sun is a small star.
Deciding that I could care less what it says about me to be calling this soon, I pick up my phone and hit her name.
After a few rings, I hear her breathless voice and my heart picks up speed instantly.
“Hello?”
“Melissa.” God, just her voice is enough to wipe all the shit from the day away.
“Greg,” I might be imagining things, but I’m pretty sure she just sighed my name, and that’s enough for my ego to blow up. Yeah, she might play a mean game of keep away, but she isn’t as unaffected as she initially wanted me to believe.
“Been a long day, babe, and it’s only lunch. Run away with me and let’s go grab some.”
“That would be nicer than my current plans. I can’t get away today, Greg. And I’m not sure about tomorrow.” If it wasn’t for the regret in her voice, I might feel like she was giving me the brush off.
“What’s going on, Melissa?”
“Nothing you need to worry about, just some family issues.” I know it’s early and my trust hasn’t been earned yet, but that shit still stings a little. I can’t help it. It’s who I am, and I want to fix things for her.
“You do know you can talk to me. I get you don’t want me in your business until you know me better, but if you need to talk, don’t shut me out.”
There’s a long silence, and I can almost hear the wheels turning over the line, “I know. I just need to deal with this, okay?”
I might not like it, but for now, I can give her that. “Yeah, Beauty . . . for now.”
“You’re so frustrating, Greg Cage.” At least the laughter and lightness I left her with has returned.
“I want to see you soon, and I won’t take no for an answer. Finish your family business but call me tomorrow. I don’t hear from you tomorrow then I will come to you. Lunch, dinner, or fucking brunch.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know what’s going on. Does that work for you?” Smartass temptress.
* * *
The next day isn’t much better on my sanity. Walking into work on a golden sidewalk is almost comical enough that I might have started the day positively. But entering the office to find Emmy in tears, Coop frustrated with his not knowing shit about women or how to fix them, Beck worrying and consoling Emmy, and Maddox punching holes in his office, doesn’t bode for a good beginning.
I feel torn between my need to protect Emmy and her innocent, pure love for a man who can’t accept it, and a man who has been a brother to me for many years. I know the background and I know that it isn’t going to get better anytime soon.
With Axel finally gone for the week, all the heavy shit falls straight on my shoulders. The best anyone can get out of Emmy is that she is okay. She calms down when I pull her aside and remind her of our previous conversation. I get her, I really do. Some of us are put on this earth to heal, to make others’ lives brighter, and when those people don’t want our help, our love? We feel it deep. No matter what I say, that isn’t going to change with her but this discord in the office needs to fucking stop.
After that, it seems like fire after fire. We have cases with issues, computers crashing, and Maddox still banging shit around in his office. If I know I am going to see Melissa today, I can almost take this shit, but already knowing that isn’t going to be happening is just increasing my foul mood.
By mid-afternoon, I can’t take it anymore and finally call her. I get her voicemail and leave a quick message to call. Her return text is short and to the point, ‘Can’t do today, too much family stuff.,’ and has my gut rolling. No reason, but my gut never lets me down. Something is going on and I can’t help her without knowing what is happening.
This feeling of not helping is new to me. For the last almost five years, I have been the rock, the go to, the strength to help, and it almost makes me feel like I am doing something that would make Grace proud of me. Something better than all those years that I spent wasting away, living off booze, and whores on the road.
I want to be that person for Melissa, and it is killing me that she won’t let me in. My mind keeps telling me to be patient, it’s new, and who trusts someone that much after a week? But my heart, fuck me, my heart is telling me to drive over to her now and demand she let me in.
Crazy, I know this . . . but when you know, you know. She is a woman worth the trouble and if my gut is right, she could be the one to heal the wounds I have been carrying around for far too long.
When my phone rings right before closing time and I see Melissa’s name across the screen, my heart leaps. Like a little bitch, it leaps right into my throat. One week and I am already this deep, shit.
“Miss me?” Expecting to get some kind of sass back or at the very least a hello, the soft sob that catches over the line has my heart dropping right back down. “Melissa? What is it?” Grabbing my keys without even knowing where I am needed is a knee-jerk reaction. I am out the door with a few jerks of my chin to the others, and leaving the lot. “Baby, where are you?”
She takes a few minutes to control herself and when she speaks, the tone isn’t sadness. It’s pure fury. “I will kill that little tramp, Greg. My car might be shit to someone but it is mine and it is important to me. Sure it’s a piece of shit but it is MY piece of shit!”
At this point, I have to pull over. Despite the driving need to reach her and fix whatever the hell just went down, I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell she is talking about.
‘Babe, I’m trying to figure out what exactly you’re talking about here, so can you give me some more details?” I lean forward and try to rub some of the stress out of my neck.
“Okay. Let me spell this out in a way you might get. Your little stalker? I’m thinking maybe you weren’t clear enough with her when you ended things. I would like to think I know you well enough that you wouldn’t be messing with me and trying this hard to get me to open up. So imagine my shock when she shows up at my job throwing her shit!”
Jesus Christ. “Tell me you’re kidding right now, Melissa.”
“Do you think I would be calling you right now to come get this trash if I wasn’t serious?!” Her screams through the line almost cause me to drop the phone.
“Where are you?”
“At the office, you know, my job where there are children and families and all these happy family vibes? Yeah, those vibes just blew the fuck up when ‘Stalker Sue’ came into my work screaming about how much of a whore I am for breaking up her relationship! THEN when we finally get her out of the office and I have some time to calm down, I walk outside and find her SLICING MY TIRES with a goddamn knife! So, being that I can’t drive with FOUR flat tires, I am still at work.”
How did I not see this coming? Well, maybe not this, but damn Mandy and her fucked up shit.
“Call the police baby; I’ll be there in fifteen. And, Melissa?”
“What?” she spits out.
“Might not be the best time to mention this, but all this fire and attitude you’re throwing at me? Baby, you got me so worked up that it will be a miracle not to take you the second I lock eyes with yours.”
“You’re a beast, Greg Cage.”
Might have been inappropriate, but when I hear her laughter before disconnecting, I know I did something right today.