Page 19 of My Orc Package Deal

It wasn’t a question. My heart hammered against my ribs, a traitorous drum. “Of course I like her. She’s… incredible.”

“And she likes you.” He stated it as if it was obvious. “She smiles way more now. Her worry line—” he pressed a finger between his eyebrows— “is almost gone. Aunt Jossy says it’s ‘cause you’re so…” He searched for the word, then found it with triumph. “Reliable.” He said it like it was a superhero’s power. “So if you like each other and you’re already married… wouldn’t sharing a room be the next thing? Like leveling up?”

A choked laugh escaped me. “Leveling up. Yeah.”

I dragged a hand over my beard, the coarse hair a familiar anchor. How to explain the minefield of adult fear, past grief, and self-denial to this small, logical creature? “Sometimes, even when you really want to level up, you have to wait for the other player to be ready. You can’t force it. Or you lose the game.”

He considered this, then nodded slowly, the video game logic apparently making perfect sense. “Okay. So we’re in a co-op campaign, and we’re grinding for trust points before the boss fight of sharing a closet.”

This time, my laugh was real, bursting out of me and filling the sunroom. “Something like that.”

“Well,” he said, hopping off the stool with sudden, electric energy. The serious moment was over, replaced by the imperative of a ten-year-old’s agenda. “While we’re grinding… can we go to the beach today? The big one by the library?”

The beach. With Kesha.

The fantasy unfolded in my mind, vivid and instantaneous. Kesha in a swimsuit—I’d only seen her in one once, two weeks ago when she and Jocelyn had dragged our Colorado asses to the beach, and the image was etched on the back of my eyelids.

Kesha laughing, head thrown back, sun on her mahogany skin, silver Lycra clutching at her curves. Kesha lying on a towel, that glorious body stretched out, and me beside her, allowed to look my fill. Maybe I could offer to put sunscreen on her back.

My claws retracted so sharply at the thought that I felt a sting in my fingertips.

My Kteer roared its approval, a raw, hungry sound that vibrated in my bones like a bass note pushed too hard, rattling every string.

Yes. Take her. Be near her. In the sun. In the water. Show her she is yours⁠—

I slammed the door on the thought. But the simple, pure appeal of the idea remained. A whole day with her. Not as housemates or co-parents, but as a family. Making memories in the sun, with the roar of the ocean as our soundtrack. A chance to just… be.

“That,” I said, standing up, the decision settling in me with a rightness that felt like fate, “is a fantastic idea, if your mom’s up for it.”

“She will be!” Milo declared, already darting toward the door to the backyard. “She doesn’t like swimming in the salt water, but she loves the beach. She says it smells like…” He paused, fetching the word from his careful memory. “Potential.”

Potential.

The word resonated in the deepest part of me, a tuning fork struck true. Yes. That’s what this was. What she was. Not a replacement, not a consolation. A potential so vast it terrified me.

“Alright then,” I said, following his eager path. “Let’s go ask her.”

Kesha

I’d always hated the way a helmet squished down my hair.

When I’d regularly played hockey, I was almost always the only Black woman on the ice, and I used to keep my hair braided during the season. It still wasn’t exactly comfortable, but at least I didn’t have to deal with all these natural curls being contained by a helmet.

In the heat of summer. Outside. A mile from the beach, where the air was practically roasting, and I thought it was an ideal time to strap on pads and a helmet and go outside to practice with a twelve-year-old.

A bike helmet, because it’d been years since I’d played for anything other than fun, and I didn’t own my own equipment anymore. Still, there was no way I wasn’t going to model good brain protection to Jay, right?

If he was going to have to wear full gear in this wicked sun, then I would do the same.

Even if I was fairly certain I was melting.

“Okay,” I said, positioning myself in front of him. “Give me your stick.”

He handed it over with the skeptical expression of someone who had been skating since before he could read, which, fair. But I’d watched him wobble through three backwards crossovers and nearly take me out, so the skepticism could wait.

I held the stick out between us horizontally, one hand on each end. “Grab it. Both hands.”

He did, and I felt the difference immediately; his grip was firm and automatic, a hockey player’s grip, nothing hesitant about it. Good. That part transferred.