I bolted for them, takingthe steps two at a time. After three flights my lungs were burning, by the timeI got to Miles’floor I regretted not staying in army-shape after I’d left, my whole bodyprotesting the strain of sprinting up that many stairs at once.
As soon as I burst throughthe door into the main corridor, I was glad I’d taken the stairs afterall. John was standing outside Miles’ door, fist raised to bang on it, face redand snarling.
“Hey,” I called out as Istrode toward him, anger roiling in my gut. He had Miles trapped in there, andscared. Howdarehe?
One thing I was sure of wasthat it was still my job to protect Miles as best I could. Not because I washis bodyguard, but because Ilovedhim. I’d always known my missionin life, mypurposewas to protect the people I loved.
So this asshole was about toget what was coming to him.
“Open the hell up,” Johngrowled.
“Hey,” I repeated, andthis time he looked at me instead of banging on the door again.
I took two steps toward him,aiming to put myself between him and the door. I was getting to Miles one wayor another, whether I went around him, or through him.
“You’d better get the hellout of the way,” I said, not interested in playing games with this asshole. He’dbeen plotting to ruin Miles’ life in the background formonths, if not longer.
Any goodwill I might have felttoward him had long since evaporated. Right now, he was between me and Miles,and that made him an obstacle I planned on overcoming. How dramatic that wasgoing to be forhimwas up to how he behaved in the next ten seconds.
Which was why the surprise hurtmore than the pain when he drew his fist back and punched me right in the nose.
I cried out, a shockwavesurging through me at the sudden force and pain, the instant sensation of bloodflowing down the back of my throat. This guy hithard, much harder thanI would have expected for a desk-dwelling pencil-pusher.
IfMileshad hit melike that, I probably would have laughed.
I wasn’t laughing now.Not even a little bit.
Pushing past the pain—thiswasn’texactly the first time I’d been punched in the face, or worse—I closed thedistance between us, trying to look as much as I could like nothing hadhappened. Like the unstoppable fist of an angry god about to come down on himlike a ton of bricks.
He had maybe an inch inheight on me, but I still managed to loom over the fucker as I approached. Heseemed to have realized his mistake.
“If you so much as twitch,”I warned. “I’ll put you down so fast you’ll wake up next week.”
Behind us, the door to Miles’ apartmentcreaked open.
John’s face hardened, his browfurrowing. Like a hound catching the scent it’d been set to search for.
He lunged, barely an inch,toward me.
Not willing to put up withany more bullshit, I surged forward to meet him, our foreheads connecting as Igave him probably the first anddefinitelythe hardest headbutt of hislife, thesmackof bone-on-bone a sickening echo in my ears.
I hadn’t done it fornothing—I knew I’d recover first, and that gave me time to land another, moreprecise blow to the base of his skull. The last thing I wanted was to end upkilling him accidentally, but Ididwant him unconscious.
When the stars cleared frommy vision, I looked over at Miles.
Wearing a just a pair ofblack boxer-briefs and a too-small t-shirt.
Wielding a dress shoe likehe was about to kill a spider with it.
I watched it fall from hishand and hit the floor with a thud. It rolled back into the apartment,thumpthump thump, the only sound aside from his ragged breathing and the bloodrushing in my ears.
And, by now, down my face.Licking my lips confirmed that yeah, I was bleeding pretty badly, and I musthave looked awful.
Miles was still staring.
Had I scared him? Would hebe just as afraid of me now as he had been of John?
After a moment, his gazefell to my hand. To the jar of cookie butter I was still handing.
