Page 60 of Freak
As that had been just about the least subtle ridding of a child Mel could imagine, he lifted an eyebrow and waited for Sherlock to tell him why they needed privacy.
Sherlock glanced around the lot before he tipped his head down a little and asked, “Is there a vibe? We just got here, so maybe I’m nuts, but it kinda feels like we walked in on something.”
Mel did his own scan of the lot before he answered. On the surface, it looked like a great big family reunion, everybody glad to see everybody else. But a second pass showed how far apart Rhett and Badger were, and how they kept looking to make sure they knew where each other was. In fact, there was a lot of that positioning going on. Like they’d paused a big argument to put on a show of friendship for the latest arrivals. For all Mel know, it was exactly that. For sure, Badger was as pissed as Mel had ever known him to be, and that was saying something. The president could be a crusty fucker.
“Yeah, maybe a vibe. There was some ... shit ... yesterday, I was in the middle of it, so I checked out right after. I’m just back now so I don’t know if it tanked again after that or what.”
“Youwere in the middle of it?” Sherlock asked, a teasing grin trying to land on his mouth. “That your style now, stirring up shit?”
“No, not really. Long story, ultimately amounting to not much,” he replied with a shrug. Not much, except how the aftermath had exposed a band of contempt in Montana’s feelings for the Horde mother charter.
The urge to say something like that pressed on the back of his head. Montana was freaking him out right now, and he hadn’t talked in depth to anyone about it yet.
But Sherlock’s clubhouse wasn’t this clubhouse. This was a Missouri issue. He needed to find Thumper and Dom and get the dish on what he’d missed last night.
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“Ithink it’s Rhett,” Dom said as he rolled out several feet of cable and gave Mel some slack. “That dude gives me the twitches—even more than Gravy, and ol’ Grave looks like Stephen King dreamed him up.”
They were at the main stage of the Harvest Festival, setting up the lights and laying out the base cabling the bands would use. All of the Missouri and SoCal and most of the Montana patches were at work setting up. Rhett, Gravy, and Maniac had planted themselves in camp chairs, a cooler between them, and were making a show of watching the work. Definitely a vibe happening here—and the vibe last night had been even more fragile, with lots of small scrapes and bickering. But apparently nothing that had come to enough of a head to lance and clean out.
Mel thought that was the most foreboding feature: all that hostility simmering under the surface, like Montana had a plan it wasn’t time to put in motion yet.
“Yeah, but what the fuck is it about?” Thumper asked, as if he’d heard Mel’s unspoken musing. His job was to cover the cables with thick tape so nobody tripped and got litigious. “Like, there’s no job to fight about. They don’t even have to help set up here. It’s just a fuckin’ party. That they’re not hosting or paying for. So what’s crawled up his ass?”
Mel had some insight, and he didn’t see a reason not to share it with his friends. “I think it’s bigger than one job. Gravy said some shit yesterday in Badge’s office that ...” He paused, seeking a way to express his thought clearly, though it hadn’t yet fully formed.
“That what?” Dom asked, his gaze sharpening. Dom was both smart and savvy. Thumper was more of an ‘act now, worry later’ type, but Dom thought strategically. He was also their intel officer, so he had a depth of club knowledge no one but Badger shared.
“They got no respect for us. Gravy said right out we were pussies for riding straight. And for being so involved in town events like this. They think women are running the show, and that’s why we came over to the light side. They were mad about Maniac not because I scrapped with him, or Cox stuck him, but because we did it over what they called ‘chick shit.’”
He stood up straight and turned to study the Montana patches in question. They sat there drinking beer and exchanging glances. It looked suspicious as fuck. Either that, or he was seeing ghosts in every shadow. “I don’t know. I feel like something’s up.” Turning back to Dom and Thumper, he asked, “Badge and Dub didn’t talk about it with y’all later?”
Both shook their heads. Dom said, “It’s not like he could’ve called us into the Keep while Montana sat right there, though. I don’t know when he’d’ve had a chance. And anyway, you know Badge. He’ll keep it close until he knows what he thinks about it. He doesn’t work his thinking out in front of everybody. He’ll set it aside until our house is our own again.”
As he’d done with the Kellen issue. Another big thing hanging over this weekend.
“What if that’s too late?” Thumper asked.
Mel and Dom both swung around to look at him. That was not a typical Thumper Allen piece of astuteness.
“What d’you mean?” Mel asked.
More typically, Thumper backed away from his brush with wisdom as soon as he was on the hook for it. “I don’t know, bruh. Just ... “ He threw up his hands in a kind of surrender. “The whole MC is here—it’s a full-club rally. If you’re right, and they’re plannin’ some bullshit to hurt us, what if they got somethin’ in the works for this weekend? Fuck, what if SoCal’s in on it? They ride dark, too.”
“No,” Mel said at once. “SoCal wouldn’t. We got too many ties with them. Bart wore SoCal’s patch for years, and he keeps close with them.”
“Would Bart—” Thumper began, but Dom cut him off instantly.
“Shut your mouth, you fuck,” he snapped. “No he would not.”
Thumper flushed dark red. “Sorry. Just ... sorry.”
With a big sigh to try to clear his chest of all this tension, Mel returned to the job at hand. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s something. Maybe it’s a little thing. Maybe it’s a big thing. All we got right now’s a heap of suspicion and bad feeling. And, in a few hours, a big crowd of innocent bystanders. So I guess we stay ready for trouble but try not to make it.”
