Page 16 of Blue Moon

“Not everybody likes gay men.”

Wow. I’d never thought that he and Luis might feel unsafe. They were both so strong.

“That sucks. I hate the?—”

I stopped dead as I stepped out of the elevator and saw a man sitting on the floor outside my apartment door, a ball cap pulled low over his eyes. There was a box beside him, and he rose as I approached. Turned toward me. My pulse went into overdrive, and my lungs seized as I fumbled for the button on the pepper spray. Had Mark Antony decided to pay a personal visit with his gift tonight? My hands were shaking so much that I dropped the can, and it rolled across the floor until Ryder stopped it with his foot.

Ryder.

Holy heck, Ryder was standing outside my apartment.

Why was Ryder standing outside my apartment?

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check you were okay.”

“I told the goon you sent to check up on me that I was fine.”

“He said you didn’t tell him very much at all, and you weren’t fine when you left me a voicemail about linguine last night.”

“You know this guy?” Paul asked.

Ryder narrowed his eyes at him. “Who are you?”

“I’m Luna’s friend. Who the hell are you?”

“Her bodyguard. I would have waited outside, but there were photographers hanging around.”

“Ex-bodyguard.” I pressed my palms to their chests to keep the two men apart. I was beyond grateful to Paul for stepping up to defend me, but if he laid a hand on Ryder, he’d end up with broken bones. And we had a show tomorrow. “Paul is one of my backup dancers. Don’t maim him. He was just seeing me safely home.”

“Good. I can take it from here.”

“Excuse me? You’re not taking anything anywhere. I fired you.”

“Technically, you didn’t. You locked yourself in the bathroom, and I left to give you space.”

Okay, so that was true, but couldn’t he get the message?

“Fine, then I’m firing you now. You’re fired. F-I-E-R-D.”

“The R comes before the E,” Paul whispered.

“Whatever.”

Ryder folded his arms. “The contract ended in April, so that won’t work.”

“Then you have no reason to be here, do you?”

“Yeah, moon, I do. Some sick motherfucker sent pasta to your apartment, and you don’t have security.”

“I have locks and pepper spray.”

“You mean this pepper spray?” Ryder nudged the can with his foot, then did a couple of fancy steps and flicked it up into his hand. “And your locks are shit. I could have picked them in a hot minute if I’d felt so inclined.”

“Really?”

“Really. What happened to the pasta? Did you call the police?”

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