"I'm fine," I mumbled, getting my fist out of my pocket and trying to readjust my backpack.

It was the guy from the club who had caught up with me.

"What were you thinking, walking home alone at night?" he barked.

"I'm thinking… I'm thinking I'm stretching the last of my money walking home and getting some exercise, stalker," I barked back.

He posture softened. "Can I walk you home?"

"You're really creepy," I replied. "No, thank you. I can defend myself."

"You tripped over your own two feet in that dancing cage thing."

"You try walking in platforms!" I scoffed.

"How are you going to defend yourself? Do you study anything like martial arts, self-defense?"

I hung my head. "No, I um, I was going to use this," I got the cat-shaped brass knuckles out of my hoodie pocket, but it caught on the fabric. I struggled to get them out, they caught on the inside of the pocket.

"You just got them caught on your sweatshirt," he said, taking them off my fingers. "You were going to use this to defend yourself?" he asked, holding up my fist with the cat brass knuckles. He slid the knuckles off.

"Yeah," I said, trying to disguise my realization of how stupid they looked, especially to him.

He crushed them, the points between his fingers, and I gasped. "I- uh- wait, that's supposed to be brass!"

"They're made of steel… they were," he said, examining them. "A cheap version, probably mixed with some kind of weak alloy."

I blushed. "Okay, I'm not that good at self-defense," I admitted.

"I'm walking you home."

"You're being creepy!" I cried, although he had just demonstrated that he could have crushed my head between his palms if he wanted to.

"I'm just trying to be chivalrous! What are you so worried about?" he asked, surprised.

"I'm… I'm not worried," I said, fumbling for an excuse. "I just… I don't let guys know where I live unless I've known them a long time."

"I'll do my best to forget once we get to your front door. Promise."

I squeezed my backpack strap. "Deal," I replied.

We took a few steps together in silence. He was huge: at least a foot taller than me, and his waist tapered down so much that I swore he was built like a Dorito in the best way possible, his shoulders were so broad. "Your name is Steve?" I asked, trying to come up with something to discuss with him.

"Yeah," he said.

"Where are you from?" I asked.

"Uh…. Brooklyn. What's your name?"

"Danielle."

"Danielle," he repeated to himself. "It's nice to meet you, Danielle."

"Just call me Dani. That lady that was with you is a good friend," I said. "She really looks out for you. I bet you look out for her."

"She doesn't need me to look out for her, she can take care of herself," he said.

"So… what do you do for a living?" I asked, trying to think of something interested to talk to him about.

"I'm in the military."

"My daddy was in the Army," I offered.

"Your 'daddy'?" he repeated.

"I'm from the South, okay? I don't call my father 'Dad' like a Yankee… from Brooklyn."

"You got me there."

"What do you do in the military?" I asked, thinking he might have been a Navy SEAL.

"I'm kind of in like… I'm in Special Ops," he said.

"Oh."

He didn't respond.

"Where are you stationed?"

"New York," he said.

"Which base?"

"I'm not stationed at a base, it's a government operation in the city. So, did your father take you all over the country in the military?"

"For a few years, yeah. But when I was about nine, we resettled in Tennessee, he went into copyright law. They live in Brentwood, now."

"Brentwood?"

"Tennessee. I was there a few weeks ago," I said. "What about your parents?"

"Both of 'em are dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Why? It happened a long time ago."

I glanced over at him, and saw he didn't have a lot of old age lines on his face, at least in the darkness. He was probably late twenties, maybe early thirties. It was hard to tell. Had he joined the military because there was nowhere else to go when he turned eighteen?

"That was really nice of you to offer to buy me a drink at the club. It wasn't you when I said no, just… circumstances."

"Ladies' choice," he said.

"It's got to be scary to ask a lady out," I said, shivering my hoodie.

"It is, trust me."

I realized he was in his t-shirt, not a jacket or anything warm. "Aren't you cold?"

"A little, but I'll be alright." His biceps were the size of my thighs, Lord…

"Do you work out a lot?"

"Of course, I'm in the military. And there are people in this world that can't walk. Don't take that for granted."

I nodded, thinking of my nephew. "I need to get back into it," I admitted. "I work a lot and I go to school, too. What are you in DC for?"

"Special assignment."

"Oh, you're being mysterious?" I asked. "Got something to hide?"

"Well… a little bit," he chuckled softly in the dark. I was skeptical about him actually being in Special Ops, maybe he was bullshitting me to try to impress me. "I'm not supposed to talk about it. Why are you in DC? You don't sound like you're from here."

"School," I said. "I'm in grad school in psychology. I want to be a therapist."

"A... therapist?"

"Yeah."

"I think that sounds a like a lot of malarkey to me," he said. "Laying down on a couch and telling a perfect stranger your most personal secrets. That's what friends are for, right?"

"Well, sometimes, it helps to get a third-party perspective on your problems who isn't involved in your life or you in theirs," I said.

"I thought that kind of stuff is for like… crazy people? No offense."

"On the contrary," I said. "Most people who are in therapy are in it to figure out how to deal with the people who should be in it."

He snorted. "That's funny."

"Why?"

"I never thought of it that way."

"See, you learned something new," I said. "And I haven't heard anybody use the phase 'malarkey' other than my granddaddy."

"It's a great word."

"Nobody in our generation uses it."

"I guess I need to take that out of my vocabulary."

"Well, this is my building," I said, indicating my complex. "Thanks for walking me home, Steve."

"You're welcome. I would say, I hope to see you soon, but…"

"I could use that drink sometime," I said. "May I see your phone?" I held out my hand.

"Sure," he said, reaching into his pocket to hand me his. I put my number in.

"If you ever want to call me," I said, realizing I was being really forward. "Or text me. I do best with text."

"I don't do technology very well," he said. "But I'll try."

"Okay. Good night."

I opened my apartment deadlocks and went inside my tiny studio apartment. My cat, Lourdes Marie, was snuggled up on my bed, and I laid down with her after getting my bra off through my t-shirt sleeve. "Did you have a good night?" I asked. "I didn't. Don't worry, we have plenty of cat food until my next paycheck." Lourdes rolled over onto her back and exposed her tummy to me. Unable to resist, I rubbed her tummy and her eyes turned to happy slits and her paws curled. "I'd put your expenses over my own at any time." I kissed her head and she purred. Seriously, I couldn't sleep at night if she didn't have cat food in her bowl.

I checked my email to see if I had heard back from my sister, who had sent me cute pictures of my nephew Matthew and niece Peyton, both of whom were under the age of six. They had picked out their Halloween costumes, which were all the rage this year after the Battle of New York a few months ago: Matthew was Iron Man. My heart soared at him in his wheelchair, doing an Iron Man pose. Peyton's costume had probably been chosen by Lauren herself, a ballerina costume.

I turned on some Ella Fitzgerald, but kept the volume low, seeing as my apartment had walls that were paper thin and my neighbors could be jerks. I read more of my textbooks and case studies for school.

I opened my phone and saw that there was a voicemail from my father and Harland, his husband, just checking in with me. There was a text from my stepbrother Harland Jr, too.

With the lights turned down, I checked the thermostat that kind of sucked, and put my hoodie back on to get in bed.