Page 51 of Worth the Fight

“Just say it.”

“She had a pretty face but when the clothes came off . . .” Wes says something else I can’t hear over the scrape of the stool beside me, and Mikey’s laugh rings out again. “I’ve never been into the chubby-chasing thing before and . . . shit, that was all I could focus on when we got down to brass tacks.”

“That’s fucking cruel,” Mikey says but continues to laugh. Still making fun of Dylan.

Every part of me riots. Chubby chasing? Is he fucking kidding? Dylan McCoy is a roadmap of curves and sexiness any man would be lucky to take for a ride, and he’s calling her fat?

Walk to your brothers, Malone.

Walk.

Back.

Now.

I take one step toward Grant and Grayson, and the next thing I know, I hear myself calling Wes’s name. It’s followed by the bite of pain when my fist connects with his cheek as he turns to face me.

After that, everything moves in fast forward. The two of us falling and crashing against a row of barstools. The clatter of one of them hitting the ground—metal to concrete. The grunt as my fist connects again. The shuffle of patrons scattering, and the sudden stop as we land on the hard floor.

“You son of a bitch,” I manage to get out right before his fist connects with my solar plexus. I grunt again.

Rage owns me.

Every part of me.

Each punch I land.

Every curse I spew.

Each thought of Dylan and the fucked-up shit he said about her.

I buck off the hands grabbing at my shoulders but come right back.

“Grady.” It’s Grayson.

“Grady, bro. Enough!” Grant.

Well, fuck.

Seconds clip by in still frames, and then Grant is pushing me out of the bar. The cold air outside clears the remaining fog of anger the fight didn’t.

My fist throbs.

“Your ass should be in jail, Grady,” he mutters as Grayson opens the car door for Grant to shove me in.

My cheek hurts like a bitch.

“The fucker deserved it.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DYLAN

The silence is golden.

Jett left for the night on a jaunt a few hours north to Napa. He said something about meeting up with an old friend from his days pushing his demo tapes to record labels. I would put money on Sunnyville being too tame for him and he needed to go cause some trouble to keep his rock-star street cred.

But he said he’d be back in the morning when all I wish he’d do is head back home. Not home. To Los Angeles. To his home.