Page 52 of Guarding the Star

Nightmare. Iris. I didn't want to wake her. I didn't check. He got in. She could have died.

Valentina.

***

Iris shows up a while later, hair wet, street clothes, and sits next to me.

“What's wrong? You should be celebrating.”

“I made a serious mistake,” I say to her and to twenty-five thousand empty seats.

“What mistake?”

“I should have reviewed the credentials myself. I delegated,” I admit, running a hand through my hair.

“You delegated? When?”

“Early this morning, after your nightmare. I chose to stay in bed with you instead of checking those damn credentials. If I had, if I'd even glanced at them, I would have caught it,” I tell her.

“That's not a mistake. That's a woman choosing to take care of her girlfriend.”

“It's a critical mistake, because my job is to protect you and I chose to stay in bed with you instead of doing my job. And the result is that man got within ten feet of you, and he could have had a knife or something worse. All because I was in your bed instead of at my laptop checking credentials,” I insist.

“Paula.”

“It's what happened with Valentina. I crossed a line I shouldn't have crossed and I put you in danger.”

“Paula. I'm here. In one piece. Not a scratch, unless you count the two kicks I took during the game. You stopped him. He didn't have a knife. He was just a sad, lonely guy with a bunch of lilacs.”

“A sad, lonely guy who got past every layer of security because I didn't do my job.”

“You were doing something more important. You were taking care of your girlfriend,” she reminds me, kissing my temple.

“Nothing is more important than your safety.”

“I am more important than my safety,” she corrects.

I don't answer. I stare at the empty stands.

“Are you hearing me?” she asks, raising her voice. “I am more important than my safety. That person who had the nightmare, that woman you chose to stay with instead of checking a list of names at dawn, she's your girlfriend. She's not a fucking security protocol. And if you give me a choice between you staying with me and you reviewing a list at three in the morning, I choose you. Every time.”

“Iris, you can't—”

“Yes, I can. Because it's my life. And it's my choice. The problem is whether you can choose me over your job, and if you can't, I need you to tell me now. Not tomorrow. Now.”

I don't answer.

Iris waits a few seconds.

“You know what? I'm going home. When you figure out what you actually want, let me know. But don't take long,” she snaps. “And they say I'm the one who doesn't know how to commit,” she mutters as she walks out of the stadium.

Chapter 17

Iris

I find out from Hades.

Not from Paula, which is how it should have been. I would've taken a text message. I'm not even asking for a conversation between two adult women anymore, even if it came with screaming and tears. I find out from my coach in her office, ten in the morning on a Tuesday, two days after the game, two days after I walked out and left Paula sitting on the bench of an empty stadium.