Page 15 of Falling for the Orc All-Star

“That’s awesome. But... Idolike hockey. I like it because it feels natural—and it’s something I’m good at.”

Ingrid stops the car in front of a small Italian restaurant by the Fresh Mart. Across the road, the small high school marching band is blaring out something with a lot of brass while the football team runs laps in the athletic fields.

“If you love hockey, then keep working to get back to it! You’ll do it if Kev says you will, and if you actually listen to your medical providers.”

“Why are you still in the medical field if you don’t like seeing people pass? If you say it can happen anywhere?” I ask.

“Because getting a job as a medical receptionist is easy when you’re overqualified. The pay is good, and the risk of someone cutting out of this life right in front of you is way lower. I got myself a townhouse in Pleasant Pines. I got my dogs—I was never allowed to have dogs, growing up. I would sometimes see K-9 unit dogs when we lived on base, and I used to beg and beg for a pet, but when you could be moved every two years, across the country, to another country... no. My parents always said no. No to too many things.” Ingrid shrugs, but then she smiles, and the bitterness leavesher features. “What are you, twenty-two? You’ll learn by the time you’re thirty-four that you have to live life on your own terms. When you go, you don’t take other people’s expectations with you.”

“I’m twenty-four,” I say. “That’s a great way to look at things.” Unless you’re an Orc, and playing a sport, especially a human sport, is considered sort of dumb and a waste of time.

I can hear my father’s voice in cadence with the throbbing from the back of my skull.

An All-Star! Of course, y’are! What are you, three stone heavier and two feet taller than the rest? Wheest, King, that’s not what we raised you for. Stop playing at children’s games and come home and take a role in your clan. You weren’t namedFool. Although, the way you’ve been acting, maybe y’ should’ve been.

“Let me help you.” Ingrid bolts to the back to get my crutches.

I should just go home. I’m not going to be a good date like this, am I?

Every other date I’ve ever been on speeds past in my mind.

Celebratory one-night fumbles with kissing and groping, drunken hotties bragging about taking home a hockey player. Me, bragging to the guys about going back to my room with said hotties.

Orcs think sex and marriage are sacred (and we’re not built for quick fucks with humans unless we want to send them to the hospital afterward), so it’s been a lot of “just the tip,” hands, and mouths.

I once tried to go after the only other Orc in town—a half-Orc, that is, Georgia Fenclan. And when I said go after, I meant I had a stupid moment at a party where I was like, “We’re the only single Orcs in the state. We’re stuck with each other.”

With dawning horror, I realize I have never, ever dated-dated. I’ve taken people home with the clear expectation that we were going to get each other off.

And I’m not supposed to have sex.

And she’s a hot older woman.

My palms are sweating. They haven’t done that since the day I signed my first contract. After that, I became King, the athlete. King, the All-Star.

“You okay? You look a little green around the gills.” Ingrid is leaning next to me, eyebrows gathered in concern, pale pink lips thin.

Oh, and she doesn’t know I’m an Orc.

“Would you believe I’m good on the ice and bad at real life?” I blurt.

I immediately wish my tongue were bandaged and immobile instead of my knee.

But, to my surprise, Ingrid laughs. “Bad at what?”

“Um. Dating beautiful women?”

She hands me my crutches and steps back as I emerge clumsily from the car.

“Well, I’m ten years older than you. I’m not a hockey groupie shaking her ‘assets’ for you, and I hate flattery. So, you can stop pretending that this is a date and—”

My spine bends, my arms flail, and I know it’s going to be close. My lips smack into hers for three glorious seconds before I windmill my way upright, one crutch narrowly missing hitting her in the ankle.

She is looking up at me with a mixture of shock and anger.

“I know I just messed up,” I gasp, wincing because my leg doesn’t want to do what I tell it to, “but I wanted you to stop talking like that. You’re gorgeous, and I asked you out because I wanted to do it from the second you shoved my ass in a chair and some manners back in my mouth.” I give a little shrug. “You ever meet someone, and you like them instinctively? And you know from the start that you’ll never stop?” I look deep into her eyes, and I’m relieved when I see a little crinkle forming around the edges of each one.

God, she’s so beautiful when she smiles.