Page 100 of Rescue (Brazen Bulls Birthright 2)

“I need to make a call quick and get somebody to let my dogs out.”

“Okay. Two minutes before the omelet starts getting cold.”

He grinned. “Got it.”

Back in her bedroom, he got his phone from the nightstand and called his neighbor. Mr. Clement didn’t text.

When the old man answered, Dex made the polite pleasantries and then asked him to let his dogs out, if it wasn’t too much trouble. Mr. Clement was always glad to repay the favors Dex did for him, so he said of course he would, and asked if Dex wanted him to feed them, too.

His dogs handled, Dex went back out. Kelsey was setting her little dining room table. She’d put down placemats and matching napkins. A napkin-lined basket held a mound of steaming biscuits. Each plate held half an omelet. All it needed was a bouquet of fresh flowers to be a magazine-ready little breakfast.

“It looks amazing, babe.”

She turned and smiled at him. It was a weirdly significant look, and he cocked his head. “What?”

“You just called me babe.”

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

“No, I like it. It’s just … I don’t know. It feels like …” Her cheeks went pink. “Like you really do want to be with me. Like the back and forth is over.”

Guilt kicked him in the gut. He went to her and took her hands in his. “I never went back and forth about wanting you, Kelsey. Just about whether I wasrightfor you.”

“I know. From this side, those feel a lot alike, though.”

“I really am sorry.”

Her smile came back. “And I’m happy you’re with me. Sit down, I’ll get the coffee.”

Everything was as delicious as it was pretty, and Dex realized he was ravenous. While they ate, they talked about random nothings. It was the kind of idle chatter he generally hated, but this morning, sitting at breakfast with Kelsey, it seemed intimate.

Then, in a nothing response to a nothing statement he’d made about apartment complexes like hers being a tradeoff between nice amenities and real privacy, she said, “Most people don’t need the kind of privacy Bulls do, Dex.” And it hurt.

He caught her eye and held it. “You stopped calling me Seth.”

She stopped chewing. Then she finished and swallowed, but she didn’t say anything. Nor did she look away.

“Is it what I did last night?” he asked. It made sense; he had not been the man she wanted to believe he was last night.

“I … I don’t know. Yeah, I guess. But I think …” She paused, studied the basket in the center of the table for a moment, took a sip of her coffee. Dex stayed quiet and let her think.

“I think I’m just confused. Or I was. I need you to be steady—and I don’t mean mentally, or anything like that. I don’t need you not to have problems. I mean being steady with me. I need to be able to know you’re going to be there.”

“No more back and forth.”

She smiled. “No more back and forth. And I guess … I don’t know. What do you want me to call you?”

He thought about that. On its face, maybe it was a stupid thing to make a big deal of—it was just a name—but there was a lot more going on than which sound she used to get his attention. The fact that he’d become Dex specifically because he’d been deemed to be like a TV serial killer was a stone around his neck and always had been. But he’d had that name for years, and it was what virtually everyone called him these days. It was the way he introduced himself. He was Dex.

When Kelsey had first called him Seth, though, she’d taken the weight from that stone. She’d seen something in him that wasn’t psycho killer. She’d reached back and found a little boy whose mother had named him Seth.

But there was pressure, too. Pressure to be one and not the other—and the problem was, he was both. She’d seen it herself—the back and forth. Jekyll and Hyde. Seth and Dex.

He needed her to see him, as he was. Not as she wanted him to be. And she needed to remember his dark side.

“I think I want you to call me Dex.” There was a loss in that choice, but it was the right one.

Kelsey looked disappointed, too. But then she smiled. “Okay. Do you want some more coffee, Dex?”

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