“I am not happy that other human females are not taught to have this same power that you have. Human males are not special. They arenotstronger, and they arenotfaster. No female should have to walk in fear here.”
I agreed. And the fact that Eng, the cocky, arrogant, shallow asshole who was just here looking for a princess bride had the same opinion shook me. Once again I saw a glimpse of the Eng under the surface, a guy Ireallywanted to know, a guy I hoped might give me the opportunity to know who he really was.
“Better yet?” I asked. His eyes were still tinged with pink, but his nose was no longer running, and tears no longer spilled down his face.
He nodded, but didn’t show any signs of standing or leaving. Suddenly I wondered why he was in the parking lot behind the pub my friends and I had been in, right near where my car was parked.
“What exactly are you doing here?” I’ll admit there was a healthy dose of suspicion in my tone.
“Getting something to eat and a beer. This is where we always go after a game.”
I felt instantly guilty. Eng wasn’t a stalker. It was me who was a borderline stalker, not him. The guy was always eager to have sex with me, but it wasn’t like he’d ever sought me out, or asked to see me outside of the bedroom. He’d made it clear I wasn’t his type as far as non-sexual activities went, so there was no reason for him to waste his time following me around town.
“Come on then.” I stood, then took his arm and pulled him up from the pavement. “At the very least I owe you that dinner and a beer.”
He stood up then hesitated. “You just left. You won’t want to go back.”
Wait a darned minute. How did he know I just left? Was he following me? Or did he see us leave and decide to wait for me by my car in hopes of a booty call? Or had he seen us leave and was hiding here trying to avoid running into me? If the last one, then why scare me half to death by accosting me?
It was either the booty call, or the stalking. Honestly, I was okay with either one.
“It’s not like they have a rule where I can only go to McHenry’s once in the evening.” I paused a second. “Unless you were wanting some alone time?”
“I don’t want any more alone time. I have too much alone time and it is making me crazy.”
“Then come on.” I hooked my arm around his, pretending it was in case the pepper spray was still blurring his vision. To my surprise he reached down and linked his fingers with mine.
We walked back to the street and around to the pub. “Too much alone time? I thought all you orcs would hang out together when you’re not practicing, and that hockey practice would take up most of your time.”
“I don’t practice.”
Yeah. I could kinda tell.
“And we don’t spend much time together outside of our games,” he added. “We didn’t know each other before we were offered a job with this team, and none of us know hockey enough for it to be a shared…passion.”
It took him a moment to find the right word. Honestly I was really amazed at his grasp of the English language. He had a better vocabulary than a lot of us humans. Jordan had saidthat some of the orcs knew English from other humans who had lived in their world and that they’d been given language learning applications on their phones, but it was still impressive. I had a three-month streak on Duolingo and couldn’t do more than ask someone where the library was in Spanish.
“I assumed you all would get together and talk about difficulties adjusting to living in the human world, like how hard it is to find clothing that fits properly, or why the M&Ms always get stuck in the vending machine.”
He growled. “M&Ms. I had to break that machine to get them out. And the candies were very disappointing. I had expected a fruit taste from the way they were colored.”
“I’ll pick you up some Skittles. They’re fruit-flavored, but it’s not real fruit so they might be just as disappointing as the M&Ms”
He let go of my hand before we reached the door, then took a few quick steps to open it for me.
“Thank you.” I walked inside then waited, surprised as he took my hand once more. Instead of heading to the bar he waved at a waitress with short blonde hair and pointed to an empty corner booth. She smiled and nodded, so that’s where we sat.
“Are you alone a lot back in your kingdom?” I asked after we’d settled into our seats. “I guess as a prince you can just tell everyone to get lost if you need some quiet time.”
He shook his head. “Even alone I am surrounded. Staff always stay where they can hear if they are needed, so there is little privacy.”
The blonde with the pixie cut came over to take our order. Eng got jalapeño poppers, crab bites, the chicken dinner with double mashed potatoes and gravy, and a pint of 7 Locks Brewing black lager. I figured with that amount of food we’d be here long enough for me to have another beer, so I told thewaitress to make it two pints of the black lager and declined to order any food.
“Areyoualone a lot?” he asked once the waitress had left.
Another surprise. Usually I was the one who asked the questions, and Eng was the one who grunted or made monosyllabic replies. He’d actually conversed tonight.Andseemed interested in learning more about me. It made my heart do something weird and potentially medically alarming in my ribcage.
“I work with people in a busy gym, and I tend to spend most of my free time with friends and family, or in places with crowds. I do live alone, though. And I love that. It’s like having a little refuge, a sanctuary. I’ve got seven brothers and sisters, so there wasn’t a lot of solo time growing up. We shared bedrooms, and our activities tended to be family events.”
