The bag slumps open. Gold winks in the firelight.
Behind me, a body crashes through a table. Someone screams something about gouda.
The orc looks at the invitation. Looks at the gold. Looks at me.
I straighten up, brush glass from my sleeve, and push a strand of ale-damp hair off my forehead. My heart hammers against the cardstock-shaped bruise on my ribs.
His gaze drops to the wax seal. One scarred, sausage-thick finger reaches out and tilts the invitation toward him. He reads it.
A glass smashes somewhere. The cheese minotaurs have escalated to headbutting.
He looks up again. Those amber eyes pin me to the floor.
"I need a date," I say, "to my sister's wedding."
The tavern erupts behind me. He doesn't even glance at it.
"My ex-boyfriend is going to be there."
One dark eyebrow rises.
"And I need you to be terrifying."
The orc doesn't respond. He just stares at me with those amber eyes like I'm a contract written in a language he's still translating.
A bottle explodes against the pillar behind me. I flinch. He doesn't.
"Three days," I say, louder now because one of the cheese minotaurs has found a fiddle and is playing it aggressively. "Country club wedding. Silverleaf Country Club. You show up, you look intimidating, you make my family deeply uncomfortable, and you leave fifteen hundred gold richer."
He tilts his head. The tusk catches firelight.
"You want me to... attend a wedding."
His voice. Gods above. The sound of it vibrates in my sternum.
"As my boyfriend. My fake boyfriend." I tap the invitation with one flour-stained fingernail. "I need the full experience. Hand-holding, pet names, the works. But mostly I need you to stand next to me looking like you could tear someone's spine out through their throat."
"I could do that."
"The standing part or the spine part?"
"Both."
A grin tugs at my mouth before I can stop it. I kill it. This is a business transaction. "The spine removal won't be necessary. Probably. My aunt Delphine might test you."
He still hasn't touched the gold. Hasn't even shifted on his bench. Those scarred forearms rest on the table like they're bolted there.
"I don't do bodyguard work."
"This isn't bodyguard work."
"You want protection from your family."
"I wanttheater." I lean in closer. He smells like leather and iron and something woodsy underneath, like pine sap in winter. "I want my mother to clutch her pearls. I want my cousins to whisper. I want my sister to spend her entire reception wondering if her new husband is about to get folded in half by a seven-foot orc."
"Six-nine."
"Close enough."
