AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t wantyouhurt, which is the far more likely outcome of things getting hot with the Bulls. But you do understand that us being together doesn’t change my risk from the club at all, right? You don’t need to back away to keep me safe.”
For the first time since this conversation had gone from talking about the dogs to just going to the dogs, he really looked at her. “I’m not backing away. I told you I was done with that.”
“Good. Just making sure.” They’d been together not quite a week, and he’d pushed her away repeatedly for weeks before that, so forgive her for needing to get that confirmation down in ink.
Wanting to change the vibe between them and reclaim the lighthearted contentment they’d shared while watching the dogs play, Kelsey set her wine aside and went to stand behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and set her cheek on his back. “Thank you for telling me. I understand there are things that don’t leave the chapel, but I want to know as much as you can tell me.”
He took in a long, deep breath. In the flex and shift of his muscles, she felt tension ebbing and flowing through him—and she realized that the lighthearted contentment of earlier had really been hers alone. Seth was, had been, maybealwayswas, wound to the breaking point.
“You know,” she whispered, “You’re safe with me.”
He went stiff in her arms for a moment. Then he set his spatula aside again, turned around, took her into his arms, and bent to set his head on her shoulder.
Kelsey understood. She held him tightly and made him as safe as she possibly could.
~oOo~
Kelsey woke in the middle of the night to pee. Easing herself from Seth’s bed, she trudged to the bathroom, trying not to wake up all the way. If she let her brain start working, it would take forever to get back to sleep.
On the way back from the bathroom, enough awareness seeped through that she realized she hadn’t heard dog tags jingling, or any other sound to indicate that the pack had gotten up to follow her. That woke her up enough to look around.
Seth didn’t like a pitch-black room; he said it was hard enough to move around without stepping on a paw as it was. He had a nightlight plugged in near the door. So once Kelsey’s eyes were really open, she saw that she was alone in the bedroom. Completely alone. Six dogs and one man had abandoned her. So she went out to find them.
They were in the living room. Seth sat on the sofa, in the dark, the dogs lying around him. Even Mr. D—though her own dog jumped down and came to her.
“Hi, handsome,” she cooed, bending down to give him some love. As she came around the sofa, the other dogs greeted her with wagging tails.
But Seth didn’t acknowledge her. Wearing only his boxer briefs, he sat there, staring at some point just past his bare knees. His open eyes gleamed softly with the the scant light coming through the slider. Was he having another dissociative episode?
Kelsey knelt before him. Setting her hands on his knees, she gave his legs a gentle shake. “Seth?”
He roused at once, as if he’d been sleeping. “Hey.” He set a hand on one of hers. “What are you doing up?”
“That’s a question for you. Did you go over?”
He shook his head. “No, no. Just … lost in thought, I guess. The usual kind.”
Kelsey didn’t think she’d ever been so lost in thought she wasn’t aware of the world around her, but she didn’t push the point. “Can you talk about what’s got you sitting out here in the dark?”
“No, I can’t. Club shit.” He combed his fingers through her hair.
Growing up in the club, and watching her parents navigate the presence of the Bulls in every corner of their lives, Kelsey had learned that the club had a ready-made answer for any secret they needed or wanted to keep. Don’t want to talk? Just say ‘club shit,’ and drop a big, fat period on the conversation. She wondered how many Bulls buried other kinds of secrets, non-club secrets, under those two words.
She believed it was truly club shit that had Seth up tonight; he’d been distracted by it all evening, and he’d told her enough to make her see the club was up to or into something that had him legitimately worried. But still, she recognized the convenience in the club’s true need to keep its secrets.
A heavy sigh gusted from Seth’s chest, and he let his head fall back.
“I wish you could unburden yourself.”
Without lifting his head, he sighed again and said, “I’m okay, Kelse. I can carry what I need to.”
Could he, though? If it was driving him out of bed in the middle of the night, if it was sending him into his episodes of ‘lost time,’ it seemed pretty clear he was staggering under the weight.
Two o’clock in the morning on a day they both had work was not the time to have a talk that delicate, so Kelsey didn’t challenge his claim.
She needed him to relax and regroup, so they could both go back to bed and sleep.
There was one excellent way she knew of, and it had the bonus feature of a loving connection.
