Maya catches my expression across the lobby discussion about monthly cultural potlucks and quiet hours enforcement. Her eyebrows rise in question—good news or bad news, celebration or comfort, planning for permanence or preparing for farewell.
I hold up the phone, let her read the text from across the room. Her smile falters, then returns with added steel underneath. Extended hearing, additional review, more time to prove I deserve to stay.
More time for community policy to matter.
"Extended hearing," I announce to the room, interrupting discussion about whether cultural exchange events require advance notice or can be spontaneous community building.
Silence. Twenty-three neighbors processing the news that their petition signatures and policy discussions and makeshift stage speeches exist in bureaucratic limbo, waiting for immigration authorities to decide whether any of this matters in the long term.
Then Mrs. Patterson stands up, folding chair scraping against lobby tile.
"Well then," she says, voice carrying the practical authority of someone who's lived through enough bureaucratic delays to know that hope requires persistence. "Sounds like we have time to get this building policy right."
Scattered agreement, nods, neighbors who came to listen deciding to stay and participate in creating something worth protecting. Maya opens her laptop, fingers moving over keys with renewed purpose, drafting frameworks that might outlast individual residents but protect the principle that community can stretch wide enough to hold different definitions of home.
The plywood stage sits empty now, but the lobby pulses with voices as English discussions about quiet hours and noise ordinances, Spanish suggestions about cultural exchange scheduling, even a few attempts at basic orcish greetings that make my chest warm with belonging.
Extended hearing.More uncertainty, more waiting, more time to prove worthiness for both country and building.
But also: more time for thirty-seven signatures to transform into lasting policy, more time for neighbors to become community, more time for the sounds of heritage preservation to integrate into the acoustic landscape of a place that might finally feel like home.
I tuck the phone away and join the discussion about monthly potluck scheduling, six dialect notebooks under my arm, voice ready to add orcish perspectives to the democratic process of creating belonging that doesn't require silence.
CHAPTER 17
MAYA
The lobby discussion about monthly cultural potlucks and quiet hours enforcement fades into background noise as I watch Ursak read the text message, his expression shifting from hope to something more complicated. The way his massive shoulders tense under that threadbare shirt, how his tusks catch the fluorescent light when he looks up at me. There's a story written in every line of his moss-green skin, and suddenly I'm not thinking about building policy at all.
More time.
The words echo through me as I realize what they mean. More time for him to stay. More time for us. My fingers tighten around the petition papers still warm from the printer, thirty-seven signatures that suddenly feel like both too much and not enough.
Mrs. Patterson's voice rises above the chatter, something about getting the building policy right, but all I can focus on is the way Ursak's chest moves when he takes a deep breath. The way his hands flex at his sides like he's holding himself together. The way he looks at me across the room and I feel it like a physical touch.
I need to get out of here.
The air in the lobby is too thick suddenly, too many people and not enough oxygen. I push through the crowd with murmured excuses, my laptop bag banging against my hip. The stairwell door slams behind me with a satisfying thud that echoes up the concrete walls.
Two flights up, my breath comes fast and my skin feels too tight. I lean against the wall, the cold of the paint against my palms grounding me. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in that sickly yellow glow that makes all apartment buildings look the same.
Footsteps on the stairs.
I don't have to look to know it's him. The way the steps creak under his weight, the rhythm of his gait has become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat over these past weeks. My pulse jumps when he comes into view, his massive frame taking up the whole stairwell, shoulders nearly brushing both walls.
"Maya." My name in his voice does something dangerous to my insides. He stops a step below me, bringing us almost eye to eye. The scent of him wraps around me as earth and old books and distant thunderstorms.
I should say something. Something about the hearing or the building policy or literally anything else besides what I'm actually thinking. My mouth opens but nothing comes out because all I can focus on is the way his chest moves when he breathes, the way his hands flex at his sides like he's holding himself back.
The air between us crackles.
Then his hand is on hip, pulling me against him, and oh god his skin is so warm through the thin fabric of my blouse. My hands find his chest, fingers curling into the worn cotton of his shirt. His heartbeat thunders under my palm, or maybe that's my own pulse I'm feeling, I can't tell anymore.
"Maya," he says again, and this time it's different. Deeper. Rougher. The sound goes straight through me, settling low in my belly.
I tilt my head up and his mouth is there, hot and demanding against mine. The kiss isn't gentle or questioning, it's a claim, a brand, something that marks me as thoroughly as the petition papers in my bag. His tusks press against my cheeks, the hard ridges strangely soft against my skin.
My fingers tangle in his hair, the strands surprisingly soft between the rough pads of my fingertips. He makes a sound low in his throat, something between a growl and a groan, and suddenly I'm pressed between his body and the cold wall, the contrast making me gasp into his mouth.
