“Ah.”
That was all Kesha said. It was probably all she needed to say. Knowing her, she somehow guessed all my hangups without me having to say them out loud.
Sure enough, when she finished laying the cucumbers beside the carrots and the sliced radishes, she thrust the entire platter into my hands. “Take this out back, will you? The boys will eat more veggies if I serve them before the French fries.”
Bowing to her superior knowledge of preteen boys, I tried to take the platter, but she didn’t release it yet. Instead, she held my gaze.
“Brakkor isn’t Chad, Jocelyn. He’s a good guy.”
I wanted to ask how in the world she would know, considering she’d known him less time than I had. Instead, I forced a smile and pulled the vegetables from her. “He is,” I agreed as I made my escape.
Brakkor didn’t treat me like second-best, the way Chad did. He didn’t tease me in front of his friends, the way Chad had, or dismiss my accomplishments. He was blunt, yeah, but Ilikedthat I could trust him to say exactly what he was thinking.
He was a good guy, and that meant our breakup would hurt even more.
This is just a hookup, remember.
But on the back porch, I found Korrad holding a beer watching his brother wrestling with the boys. Ideposited the veggie platter, then drifted closer. It took a moment to realize that Brakkor’s roughhousing was a littletoorough with Jay, but his orcish nephew was more than up for the challenge. Was this how Brakkor had played withhisuncle as a child? I wanted to ask him.
But all that went out of my head when he bent and scooped up Milo, to toss him over one shoulder. I gasped loudly, because Milo wasn’t only human, he was younger than Jay, and scrawnier.
Brakkor froze at the sound of my gasp and spun about, holding Jay under his arm, to raise his brow at me in question.
I forced my fingers to release the porch railing and smiled weakly. “Don’t drop Milo,” I cautioned.
Brakkor frowned in pretend confusion, wrapped his hand around the boy’s ankles, and swung him down until Milo dangled upside down, laughing uproariously. “Drop him?” Brakkor roared, “I’m not going to drop my nephew!”
And since Jay took that moment to punch him in the side, causing Brakkor to pretend to stumble back, I knew this was all part of the game. Still, I found my eyes filling with tears as I realized Brakkor had accepted Milo ashis.
He was blunt and occasionally crude, but the boys loved him. Maybe children could see the benefits of saying things that needed to be said. Maybe it was healthier.
Suddenly, it hit me: I wasn’t falling in love with Brakkor, I was already in love with him. Despite my best efforts to keep myself aloof, to treat him as a fuck-buddy, toremember I was merely acatchfor him…I’d fallen in love.
Hunt. Catch. Fuck.He’d told me that was his plan on that very first night. And then he’d changed his mind and decided he wanted more.
No sex.
Well yeah, but…what ifIwanted sex? What if myno sexrule was what was holding this tenuous arrangement together? If we had sex again, would that be what Brakkor wanted, what he was hoping for?
Once we had sex again, Brakkor would be satisfied—like, sexually satisfied. Is that when he’d change his mind about me, just like Chad had? Is that when he’d get bored of me being more than a hookup?
I guess there was only one way to find out.
Brakkor
I endedthe faux wrestling match the way I usually did, which meant depositing Jay in the crook of the old oak tree at the edge of the backyard. It was about seven feet off the ground, far enough that he couldn’t jump, but had to use skill to climb down.
To my surprise, when I turned around to gently place my new nephew on the ground, the kid latched onto my forearm. “No! Put me up there too!”
I hesitated. A seven-foot fall wasn’t going to hurt Jay—orcs had notoriously hard heads—but Milo was just a little string bean. Shifting my hold on him, I held him up under his arms and studied him.
“You sure, buddy? It’s pretty high up.”
“Please, Uncle Brak? Jay and I are going to build a fort up there this summer, so I’ve been up there before.”
I glanced at Jay to confirm—he was nodding—so, with a shrug, I carefully lifted Milo up there too. “If you fall and hurt yourself, your mom will never forgive me.” I’d probably never forgive myself either. “So think about that before you take any risks.”
Jay grabbed Milo’s arm. “We’ll be fine. Milo, move your left foot over. See? Now we can both fit.”
