As we sit in there, chattering away, killing time before the show starts, I notice this guy slink in through the door. He’s skinny, with tattoos all over his arms, and dark bags under his eyes. The guy looks like a fucking junkie. I’ve seen guys like him before, and I watch him carefully as he sneaks around the crowd, moving slowly toward Katie.
I get this weird feeling, watching that guy. I don’t like his look or the way he’s staring so intently at my girl. I take a step toward him, heart quickening. I feel like I always feel right before a fight, right before the fight comes and finds me, which it always fucking did out there. Right now, I guess it’s about to find me again.
The guy suddenly moves toward Katie, and I just react. I don’t think about it, I just move. That’s how you have to be, you have to trust your body and your lizard brain, let the autopilot take over and barrel forward. That’s how I do it, at least.
I cross the room faster than the guy can blink and suddenly I’m on him, hand on his throat, slamming him to the floor. Someone screams and people are shouting, and the little junkie prick is staring up at me, eyes wide with horror, like I’m about to kill him. But I’m not even squeezing his little chicken neck and I’m barely putting my fucking weight on him, the little pansy.
“Graham!”
That voice tears me back to reality. I look up and everyone’s staring at me, which, yeah, okay, that’s to be expected. I just took down some creep. That’s bound to get some looks.
But people look pissed.
“What?” I ask.
“Get this fucking asshole off me!” the junkie screams.
“Graham!” Katie shouts. “Let him go!”
“You know this guy?” I frown and look down at the worm.
“That’s Jasper!” she says.
The name doesn’t mean anything to me, so my face stays blank.
“My boyfriend,” she says, and that gets me.
I let the junkie’s throat go and stand up. I lift him to his feet and dust him off.
“All right then,” I say to him.
“Fuck you. Katie, what the fuck?”
“Graham, what are you doing?”
I shrug. “He was sneaking up on you.”
“But that’s Jasper.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt her, you fucking ape,” he snaps at me.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “Careful.”
He opens his mouth but shuts it again.
“Graham,” Katie says, stepping up next to me. “You can’t just… you can’t just tackle people.”
“He was sneaking up on you,” I say again. “I’m just doing my job.”
“I know,” she says softly, too fucking softly, like she’s talking down a scared horse. “I know you were.”
I realize I’m breathing fast and I must look fucking scary to these people. I bet they’ve never seen a man like me, muscle and anger all coiled up in a body built to fight. I calm myself down instantly and try not to look so intimidating, but, yeah, I fail.
“Why don’t you go for a walk?” she asks me softly. “Check around, you know… for something?”
I sigh. “All right. I can do that.”
“Thanks,” she says, and there’s something genuine in her expression.
“Any time.”
I turn away from the room. Norah is shaking her head like she’s simultaneously annoyed and not at all surprised. I flash her a quick smile before walking away.
“Who the hell was that fucking monkey?” I hear the little smarmy junkie, Jasper, ask Katie as I leave the room.
“Don’t be an ass, Jasper,” she says and I step out of the room.
Huh. So she has a boyfriend. Weird, because she looks at me like she’s starving for my touch. I guess she needs an actual man to take care of her, not some effeminate Instagram model douche.
Boyfriend, no boyfriend, who cares. I’ll take care of her either way. She’s my girl, after all, and I’ll be her Daddy soon enough.5Katie“Who the hell was that… that… ape?”
Jasper is agitated, twitching around and annoyed, bouncing from one foot to the other. The green room is back to chatting normally but I can tell everyone’s staring at the two of us, and not for the normal reasons.
“He’s just my bodyguard,” I say for the fiftieth time. “I know that was crappy. I’ll talk to him.”
“I mean, he just attacked me. Like, he doesn’t know who I am?”
“Probably not,” I admit. “I think he’s been in Iraq for a long time.”
Jasper makes a face. “What was he doing there? Isn’t that place, like, a shithole?”
I wince at that. “Yeah, I mean, it’s been at war for nearly two decades now, and—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. That asshole, he didn’t know who I am, you know? How can he not know who I am? I mean, who even is that ape?”
I sigh and let Jasper rant and rave. He doesn’t care about getting tackled, that much is obvious. He’s more annoyed that Graham didn’t recognize him.