Page 96 of My Tiny Giant
Free of tubes and wires, Agan quickly yanked his pants back on.
“We’ll be coming to the ceremony together, too.” He stood on the gurney, buckling his pants closed. “Because Lieutenant Nowak is the hero of the day as well.”
“Is she?” The general kept staring at me as if I were a stain of dirt on his clothes. “Why would a female even care to be recognized as a warrior? That’s not where the value of a woman lies.”
Only the consideration of the interplanetary relationship between Earth and Tragul kept me from telling the good general exactly what I thought about his opinion on “the value of a woman.”
If I opened my mouth, I feared I wouldn’t stop, so I said nothing, just seethed inside.
Agan’s features hardened, his eyes narrowing to slits—two shards of intense green.
“The mission was a joint effort,” he gritted through his teeth. “It was fully successful only because Lieutenant Nowak was a part of it. I’m not participating in any parades or celebrations without her. If you don’t celebrate her as a hero, you’ll have no hero to celebrate at all.”
Suddenly, I didn’t care about what the general had said or what he was about to say now. I couldn’t care less about celebrations or parades, either.
Agan understood me perfectly. He recognized my role in the mission, he appreciated my achievements, he thought the world of me. In his eyes, I was a hero. At that very moment, it didn’t matter at all what the rest of the world said or thought about me.
Chapter 21
T HANKS TO OUR JOINT stubbornness and determination, Agan and I had gotten permission for him to spend the next week at my apartment. We got to rest and recover together.
Two days after we’d returned to my place, I woke up to a gentle caress on my face.
“Agan?”
He’d fallen asleep on my chest last night, as he’d done nearly every night since the day he’d shipped himself in the box of cupcakes as my Valentine’s date.
Bigger now, he’d placed his head on my left breast last night, hugging it like a pillow, before his soft snoring—or more like a deep, velvety purring—started.
It amazed me how quickly he tended to fall asleep, as if every moment of peace was too precious to waste on tossing and turning—a warrior’s time had to be used only for rest or action, and nothing in between.
I stretched with my eyes closed, my awareness slowly drifting in, chasing the remnants of sleep away.
The sensation of something huge and heavy leaning into my side rushed over me. Someone large was about to tackle me.
Panic stabbed through my chest. My training kicked in with the speed of a reflex. I punched in the direction of where I estimated the throat of my assailant would be and kicked my bent knee into his crotch.