I didn’t turn. My laptop was open, and I’d loaded the scouting package. The Silver Slayers had a power play tell I’d isolated in four different games, and I needed to review the sequences one more time before we arrived.
I directed my gaze to the screen. The bus pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. We’d ride six hours. Maybe less if traffic cooperated. I had work to do.
Warmth pressed against my back.
The seat separated us by several inches of padding and structural support, but I felt his heat anyway.
Orcs ran hotter than humans. This was observable fact. Something about their metabolism and muscle density that I’d heard explained at least twice and couldn’t remember the details of because I’d been concentrating on other things.
I made myself focus on my work. I needed to make power play entries, outline defensive zone coverage, and report specific positioning patterns their center used when setting up in the offensive zone. I tagged sequences. Made notes. Cross-referenced everything with earlier footage to confirm the pattern held.
Brashe shifted in his seat across the aisle, hooking his leg up over the back of the seat in front of him that was fortunately empty. I heard the movement and felt his gaze land on me. Then I felt him looking past me, at Tolrek.
He returned to his phone with the kind of attentiveness that meant he’d seen something and was choosing not to comment on it. Which was its own kind of commentary.
Thirty minutes into the ride, someone dropped something in the back. A water bottle, probably, based on the sound. It rolled down the aisle toward the front, bouncing off my left leg as it passed.
Mikael laughed. “Nice hands, rookie.”
Tolrek growled.
Mikael’s laughter cut off.
Crim picked up the bottle and tossed it onto the seat beside him, not looking back.
Brashe’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t look up from his phone.
I kept working.
Forty-five minutes in, Brashe turned to face the back. “You were in the maintenance room yesterday.”
The words were directed past me. Who cared about that?
Tolrek grumbled. “Yes.”
Wait a minute. My fingers paused on my keyboard, and I stared at the screen I was no longer seeing.
“Giving up hockey for HVAC work?” Brashe asked.
“No.”
“Wiring, then.”
“No.”
Brashe took a drink of his coffee. “Just checking on the heating system, then.”
Tolrek said nothing.
Yesterday, my office had finally, suddenly, been warm when I’d arrived, and I hadn’t needed to wear my sweatshirt.
Tolrek had made sure it was fixed for me.
The knowledge settled in my chest next to all the other things I’d been collecting about him. The folder that had his name now.
I closed the scouting package and opened the neutral zone transition patterns file, something that required enough attention I wouldn’t think about the warmth at my back or the fact that Tolrek had made sure I wouldn’t be cold anymore.
The miles passed. I worked.
