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CHAPTER TWENTY
Kelsey had just barely registered that Seth had come into the kitchen when Zach flew away from her with such force his hands didn’t have a chance to release her shoulders, and he pulled her back with him. She skip-stepped backward and kept her footing, but by the time she wheeled around, Zach was on the floor, wedged up in the corner of the cupboards and the wall, gushing blood from his nose, and Seth was dropping on top of him.
He got at least two more punches in before Kelsey understood what in the world was happening and yelled, “Seth! No!” When that didn’t get a response, she yelled, “Dex!”
He ignored her and kept punching. Zach was trying to protect himself, trying to get a word out, but not fighting back. Just “Dude!”Pow. “No!”Bam. “Wait!”Slam.
Dex was perfectly silent. A punching machine.
Kelsey grabbed the first thing on him she could—his kutte—and yanked. Nothing. She yanked harder. Still nothing. She could have climbed up on his back and it wouldn’t have mattered.
But he was beating Zach to a bloody pulp, and she had to make it stop. So she did the only thing she could think of: shoved herself between them. There was no time to think about how to do it, she just dived in and ended up facing Zach, so she put her arms out and tried to make herself a shield.
It worked. Dex stopped at once and backed off. She heard him behind her, his breath chugging like a Harley engine.
“Are you okay?” she asked Zach. It was a stupid, reflex question; clearly, he was not okay. His nose was obviously broken, and his mouth was a mess.
But he brushed away her seeking hands and said, “Yeah, I’m okay.” When he rolled forward and reached up for the counter, she backed off and let him stand.
Standing herself, she turned and faced the crazy man who’d just beat down her friend for reasons she could not imagine. Wait—was all this because Zach had rubbed her shoulder? If so … that was alarming and scary.
His intensity she could handle. His darkness, too. His mental health issues didn’t faze her. But that kind of maniacal jealousy was a control issue, and a trust issue, and she meant not to forget the lessons she’d learned about controlling men.
He was still standing there, staring at the place where he’d thrown Zach, his chest heaving and his bloody fists clenched.
Rather than guess, she decided to ask him. “Dex, look at me.”
He didn’t.
Zach, leaning against the counter now, said, “It wasn’t anything, man. Not what you think, for sure.” His voice was muffled and wet, and he turned to spit blood in the sink.
Dex’s eyes lifted, and Kelsey’s stomach spasmed. There was pure homicidal fury in his eyes, and not an ounce of reason.
The clubhouse was full to the rafters with people, the sounds of a rowdy party were all around them, but they were alone in this scene.
Putting herself directly between them again, Kelsey turned to Zach. “I’ll set your nose and help you—”
He cut her off with a wry chuckle and a wave of his hand. “Better not. My mom’s here. I’ll get her to help.” He nodded toward Dex. “You got bigger things to deal with.” With that, swiping a fresh spurt of blood from his nose, he walked from the kitchen.
Kelsey turned around to face Dex. She registered that she wasn’t thinking of him as Seth right now, but it wasn’t Seth she was facing. The man before her was showing her a whole lot of his Dexter side at the moment.
However, with Zach out of his sight, she could see his reason coming back online.
“What was that?” she asked.
Finally, his eyes met hers. “You tell me.”
Confrontation was one of Kelsey’s biggest anxieties. Maybe it made her a wuss, certainly it made her rare in the Bulls family, but she just wasn’t an in-your-face person. It was so much better if things were calm and everyone just got along. How did people who got in other people’s faces and stirred up arguments all the time, like, hold down jobs? You had to coexist with people you disagreed with, people with different personality types, people you simply didn’t like. There was value, there wasserenity, in picking one’s battles.
Kelsey was very selective about her battles. She’d stand up for herself when it was important, but it always made her shaky and insecure—and ugh, far too close to tears—to really fight with anyone, especially someone she cared about.
But this was a time when it was important. Crucially important. She could not be with a man who behaved like Dex just had. Never again would she allow the signs to pass by unheeded. Never again would she make an excuse for a man’s poor treatment of her.
And Dex had expressly asked her to call him out.
So she screwed up her confidence, crossed her arms, and said, “Iwilltell you. That was you coming upon a totally innocent moment between two friends and losing all of your marbles at once. And it was totally unacceptable.”
“How was that innocent? His hands were all over you.”
