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~oOo~
The next morning, Dex got a text from Eight Ball:my office first stop
He’d been in the shower when it came through. Standing naked at his dresser, his bath towel hooked over his neck, he texted back,Roger. Trouble?
what you think assholewas the reply.
So Maverick had talked to Eight.
Dex lifted his eyes to the mirror hanging over his dresser. The bruising on his left cheek and around that eye was gnarly-looking. Maverick had not pulled that punch, to say the least. But when he pressed on the new stitches, the wound was only moderately tender. He went to the bathroom, got a tube of superglue out of the medicine cabinet, and added a layer over the stitches. They’d probably bust anyway, but he wanted to give them the best chance to hold when he got in the ring and faced the rabid papa bear Maverick was sure to be.
~oOo~
The clubhouse appeared to be empty, but Maverick’s bike was on the lot. He was probably at the station.
Dex wasn’t on the schedule at the station today, so he was dressed in jeans and a hoodie under his kutte. He brought his gym bag with him. Some guys sparred in jeans, but he’d always thought that was stupid. In a bar fight or some other brawl, yeah, you fought in the clothes you were wearing. But if you stepped into a boxing ring, you were an idiot not to be dressed to fight.
Eight’s office door was closed, so Dex knocked.
“Yeah, come,” Eight called from the other side of the door, and Dex went in.
The Bulls president sat at a desk scattered and piled with papers, dirty coffee mugs, and other office-type detritus. Empty beer bottles were scattered around the room as well. Dex had been called a neat freak more times than he could count, and the label probably fit. For sure, it made him queasy to be in Eight’s rat’s nest of an office. It was unlikely that anyone had ever called Eight a neat freak.
“Sit, asshole,” Eight said and indicated the grimy yellow vinyl chair beside his desk.
Dex picked up the empty pizza box from the seat of that chair, stood for a moment looking for a better place for it, and finally just set it on a stack of papers on the top of the metal bookcase by the door. He sat down.
“I guess you talked to Mav,” he said before the scowl on his president’s face could become a shout.
“Yeah, I talked to Mav. He wants todismantleyou, you get that, right? Break you down for parts. What the fuck was goin’ on in your head, Dexter?”
Dex was a little surprised to discover that his head was of two minds. On one side was the steady certainty that Mav was right: Dex had no business putting his foul paws on a woman like Kelsey, not merely because she was Mav’s daughter, but because he was just wrong. But on the other side was a new impulse to defend himself. Kelsey was a grown woman. She wasn’t a teenager in braces and hadn’t been in a long time. A decade. And it wasn’t like Dex had creeped on her when she’d been that teenager in braces. Back then, she’d just been one of the club kids. Pretty and sweet enough to notice her looks and disposition, but not in any way but an observation.
No question he was wrong for her, but there was a question about whether it was still up to Maverick to decide what was right for Kelsey.
He didn’t know what to say to Eight about it, so he said nothing.
Eight huffed in irritation and leaned back in his desk chair. “You do not fuck with a man’s children, Dex.”
Eight was a father; he had an eleven-year-old son. But he’d only actively been a dad for a year or so. Before that, he’d barely noticed the kids—except that no one in the club had been more impatient about club kids taking time and attention away from the club than Eight.
Dex wasn’t in the mood to throw that back in Eight’s face, so he said only, “She’s not a child. She’s twenty-seven years old.”
“And she’s Maverick’s firstborn. She’ll still be his little girl when she’s fifty. You know what he’s like. He’s psycho-protective of his family. Fuck, look how long it took him to see reason about Dunc wearing a patch. He wants distance between his kids and the club. You know this. There is no scenario where Mav would be okay with his daughters hooking up with Bulls. Either of his daughters, but maybe Kelsey especially. Hannah’s a hell-raiser, but Kelsey’s practically Cinderella. And you, Dex, you putting hands on his girl, that’s his fucking nightmare.”
That hurt. Dex sagged back in the chair and looked away.
“You know what I mean,” Eight said, his tone softening slightly.
Dex knew exactly what he meant. What he did for the club, what he’d done for the Marines, the things he’d been asked to do, ordered to do, was willing to do, made him a monster. It didn’t matter whether he wanted to do those things, or enjoyed doing those things. He was good at them. He was skilled. And he’d done them.
He’d wear the stains for the rest of his days.
He was a monster. The stuff of nightmares, apparently.
“Yeah,” he said with a sigh. “I know.”
“I think you’re a fucking asshole and he’s a fucking psycho about this, but I’m not getting between you. Mav wants you in the ring, so you go in the ring.”
