His opponent looked dumbfounded at the immediate and decisive retaliation. Maybe he’d expected Dallas to start by cursing, yelling or lobbing more threats. But Dallas wasn’t about that. He was more than happy to enforce what he felt was only right.
The dude didn’t crumple to the floor as Dallas halfway expected. He shook his head as though he had to clear the cobwebs out of it. Then he touched his mouth, spotted blood on his fingertips—blood that’d come from his nose, which looked broken—and his eyes narrowed as he came after Dallas again.
“Get her home,” Dallas said, shoving a stunned Emery into the safety of Eli’s chest.
The guy managed to get both arms around Dallas and pull him down while Dallas was trying to make sure Eli got Emery clear of the action. Then, as Eli guided Emery out of the bar and Gavin held back the guy’s friend, who seemed all too eager to jump in, the fight turned into more of a wrestling match than a boxing match. But Dallas was a better wrestler than he was a boxer, anyway. Anyone who had any street fighting experience knew how important it was to be good on the ground, since almost every fight ended up there.
After narrowly escaping being pinned underneath his opponent, Dallas used all his strength and flexibility to break away and tried to jam the guy’s arm up behind his back.
The dude managed to get free before Dallas could fully achieve the hold he was striving for, but Dallas maintained his balance and used the leverage of being higher off the ground to get on top, where he pressed his sudden advantage and really let loose.
At one point, the guy succeeded in bucking him off, and they rolled around on the floor. Dallas took a few blows, but there was no pain. The only thing he felt was determination and fury. As they crashed into other people and chairs and tables, someone yelled to call the cops. After that, all sensory input dissolved into a blur. Dallas couldn’t see anything except his opponent, and he couldn’t hear anything except the blood rushing through his ears—until Gavin and several others pulled him off the stranger.
“Dallas, that’s enough,” his brother said.
The words came to him as though through a long tunnel. It didn’t feel like enough. It felt as though Dallas had barely gotten started. Although his opponent’s head had struck him in the jaw when they fell, and he could taste blood from a cut lip, he didn’t want to stop fighting. It’d been so long since he’d allowed himself this kind of outlet. Because of Aiyana and her love—and, he hoped, the maturity he’d gained as he grew older—he’d learned to channel his negative emotions into the physical exertion of climbing. But he’d grown up using his fists. Fighting was the most effective release of the anger he carried around inside him, and now he knew that remained true to this day.
It wasn’t until the moans he heard registered in his brain that he realized the other guy was still on the floor, curled in on himself, holding his face. Dallas had gotten the best of him. The dude couldn’t even get up. But Dallas wasn’t overly surprised. It didn’t matter that the guy was taller and had at least forty pounds on him. Emery’s dance partner had no idea he was dealing with someone who had a lot more experience.
Dallas preferred winning to losing, but he felt no sense of pride or achievement. He was determined this asshole wasn’t going to use his size and strength to intimidate Emery, or give her a hard time in any way, but he didn’t care about him specifically.
The person he was really fighting was his father.
And that was a fight he could never win.
Emery sat in the living room with what was left of the supplies they’d used to make the wedding favors stacked to one side. She was alone, but she wasn’t watching TV. She was reluctant to turn it on for fear the noise would awaken Aiyana or the boys. She didn’t want them to know about the fight at the bar quite yet; she felt responsible for it and wanted to be sure that Dallas was okay before she had to face his mother.
She was staring at the Christmas tree and its reflection in the window, watching the tiny lights twinkle as they appeared to race around, when she finally heard the door.
Dallas came in the back way, as he had when he’d returned after being out with his brothers the last time.
She stood, listening to his footsteps as they progressed down the hall.
“What are you doing up?” he asked the moment he saw her. “It’s really late.”
“What do you think?” she asked, slightly put out that he’d let her stew for so long. “I’ve been worried about you. Why didn’t you text me? Let me know you were okay?”
He scratched his head. “Sorry. I’ve been over at Eli’s, getting cleaned up in case my mother was awake. I didn’t want the sight of blood to freak her out, especially with her wedding next week. She’s been through enough of that sort of thing with me.”
He had a Band-Aid on his cheek, but there was no way to hide the fact that his eye was swollen or that there was a cut on his lip. “Meaning you get into fights often?”
“I used to,” he said.
She was surprised he could state it so unapologetically. She couldn’t imagine someone resorting to violence habitually. She’d never known anyone who was prone to getting into fights, which was just another reminder that they came from different worlds.
She was grateful
