Page 44 of Bidding War

I have only a vague recollection of when she went down. My last thoughts before I was on top of his chest and pounding his face were, “She better be alive.” I’d never been so terrified in my life, and I couldn’t check on her. I had to eliminate the threat, or she would have never been safe again. And if she had died from him choking her …

My mind would have snapped. I know it. As it was, I was close to going feral. During the fight, I nearly bit his throat out. Any weapon in my arsenal was an option. Teeth, nails, hair pulling. All of it was on the table. I sank into some primal part of my mind. I didn’t care anymore. If she was gone, so was I.

But then I heard her keening rasp, and it brought me back to myself.

She was alive. No one else mattered.

There were no consequences to my actions in my mind. No fear of repercussions at the moment. Laws and rules and decorum did not exist in my head. Once he started to choke her, I couldn’t have told him my own name. I knew nothing but destroying him. I had sunk so low into my caveman brain that hearing her rasp buoyed me straight back into myself, only now, I had something to fight for.

“We are here.”

I blink awake, realizing I’d fallen asleep on the car ride back to June’s place. All my thoughts had been of the fight and of June, and I’d nodded off. I take another breath to fill my lungs and clear my head, but it won’t be properly cleared until I see her. “Thanks, Moss. For everything.”

He smiles and nods. “Anytime you need me, Anderson, you call me. For anything.”

I smile and nod back. “Same.” Then I get out and into the frosty night air. He leaves, still driving the speed limit, using turn signals. As Moss puts it, break one law at a time. That way, you never attract undue attention to yourself. He’s right—I have much to learn from him.

Just as I reach for the door to her building, I catch a whiff of freshly baked something. A plume of flour puffs up into the air down the road. A bakery, already hard at work at three-thirty in the morning. It makes my mouth water, and I’m sure June hasn’t had anything good to eat since I was gone. She has a hard enough time keeping herself well-fed under the best of circumstances.

I stroll to the bakery, and at first, they won’t open up. But I flash a hundred-dollar bill through the glass door, and that gets them moving. Overpaying for things tends to open doors. I get two coffees, a dozen bagels of different flavors, and some cream cheeses so she has decent food in her place, and I tell them to keep the rest as a tip, then head back to her place.

I’m at her door before I can think, but suddenly, I’m nervous. What if she realized I was stalking her? What if she takes back saying she loves me? What if she hates me for killing someone in front of her? Even though he deserved it without question, not everyone responds well to that. When Moss killed three people in front of me, I hated him for it. But my hate didn’t change things, and neither would hers.

Even if she hated me for the rest of my life, I’d still be in love with her.

With that thought in mind, I knock. The slides of several locks sound out, but before she undoes the final one, she softly calls out, “Hello?”

“It’s me, June.”

That gets the chain undone. She opens the door, and I do my best to look her in the eye instead of at the bruise on her throat. She looks so tired, like she needs ten years of sleep.

I hold up the bag. “Got coffee and bagels. Thought you might be hungry, or?—

She opens the door wider and gives a meek smile. “You don’t have to bribe me for me to let you in.”

I chuckle at that and walk into her place. It’s a quaint apartment decorated in Grandma chic because her grandmother used to own it. But I can’t take any of the sights in. She’s the only thing I want to see.

Setting the bag on the breakfast bar on my right, I turn to look at her after she re-locks everything. June still looks fragile but in a different way now. No, not fragile. Traumatized. So, I redirect her to help. “Hungry?”

“Coffee sounds wonderful right now.”

I smile and nod, happy I know the way to her heart. “Hazelnut latte. I hope that’s okay.”

June smiles and nods, taking it from the bag. She takes a sniff of it first and appears pleased before she has a sip. After that, her shoulders droop. “The warmth is good on my throat. Thank you so much for this.”

Of course, I brought her bagels. Something chewy and crispy when toasted. Something hard for her to swallow. Dammit. “I can go out and get you oatmeal or something if that’s easier for you to eat.”

She demurs, shaking her head. “A bagel sounds like heaven right now.”

“But can you swallow it? I should have thought about that?—

“I’ll be fine. Promise.”

We get our bagels prepared—mine, a sesame with dill cream cheese, hers, a blueberry with lemon cream cheese—and take them to the couch in the living room. For a moment, I picture what it’d be like to live with her. To be together always. Domestic bliss things, like cleaning a house together or cooking dinner together. Simple things. I love the thought. So much better than what we’ve done together tonight.

Between bites, she asks, “How are you?”

“Pretty sure that’s my line, considering. But I didn’t want to make you talk if you don’t have to.”

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