“I understand, Greg. It’s just not easy.” Watching the single tear fall from her golden eye is a killer. Slowly over the months, she has gone from smiling freely and shyly to being as stoic as Maddox.
“Nothing worth having ever is, babe.” When my own words smack me in the face I realize that to make things happen with Melissa, I’m going to need to eat those words.
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.”