Page 22 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)

“But she knows where I live,” I protested.

“She made me write it on a piece of paper before she took care of my teeth. It’s only fair that I know where her home is too, especially since I couldn’t otherwise gift her with the steak.

Back home, I would know because everyone knows where everyone else lives.

Or I could just ask a member of her clan to direct me to her house.

There are too many humans in this city for that, and no one even seems to know who their neighbors are. ”

“It’s still not good,” Bwat grumbled.

“Well, she didn’t see me, so she’ll never know I was following her,” I reassured him.

“Wait.” Eng looked up from his magazine. “If she didn’t know you were following her, how is she supposed to know the steak is from you? Did you leave a note on it?”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” I frowned. “She has to know it’s from me. I’m courting her. I gave her my teeth, gave her a Starbuck’s gift card, and am going to cook her dinner. Who else would be leaving meat on her doorstep?”

Eng shrugged. “A human male? Why do you think you’re the only one courting her? For all you know, there are a dozen males leaving meat on her doorstep. She probably has more meat than she knows what to do with.”

I was torn between a sense of panic and an urge to rip Eng’s head off and punt it out of the locker room. Thankfully before I acted on that last urge, Bwat spoke up .

“What are you going to cook for her?” he asked. “This is a very important moment in your courtship. Everything needs to be perfect.”

The panic grew, but I no longer felt like decapitating Eng.

“I’m not sure. She’s expecting a traditional orc meal, but I don’t know what the equivalent spices or meats would be here.”

Plus, there was the fact that I wasn’t exactly a culinary genius. We had orcs in our clan that were skilled at preparing meals, but most of us just went with the basics. I doubted Jordan would be impressed with the basics, and I really did want to impress her.

“ Fikmak pie?” Bwat suggested. “I’m sure you could find an appropriate meat substitute, and I believe human root vegetables would work.”

It was definitely a tasty and very traditional orc meal, but there was one problem.

“I can never get my crust to be flakey,” I told him.

“How about Milowen ?” he asked.

I frowned. “That’s not really a traditional meal .

” The dried meat was an orc staple, but it was mainly used when hunters or scouts needed something portable and non-perishable to take with them.

“I could cook Swakega stew,” I volunteered.

It wasn’t the most sophisticated meal, but it was hearty and filling, and I’d prepared it enough back home that I was pretty sure the end result would be edible.

“Although I’m not sure I can get Swakega here. ”

“They’re kind of like horses, but smaller,” Bwat said. “If they don’t have Swakega , then maybe horse meat will do.”

I’d been to the food store many times since I’d arrived in Baltimore, and I’d yet to see anything beyond pork, beef, chicken, lamb, and an assortment of fish and sea creatures, but I could always ask the humans who I’d seen working in that area.

After making a quick list with substitution suggestions by Bwat, I headed out to the store.

It still amazed me that humans purchased all their food at these places.

Although Bwat insisted that many humans did hunt, I’d yet to see any of them bringing a kill back home to the apartment building I shared with at least a hundred humans.

The stores themselves were beyond anything we had back home.

They were huge, with ten different brands of the exact same thing.

There was an entire aisle of breads, another one of cheeses.

Were these toilet paper types really that different?

Did humans need multiple kinds of sheets just to wipe their butts?

It was overwhelming every time I went. I ended up just throwing random items in my cart and hoping I wasn’t buying the wrong dish soap or food that was meant for animals.

Although those dog biscuits had actually been pretty tasty.

I grabbed a cart and went straight to the meat section, ignoring the stares of the customers I passed.

Once there, I carefully scrutinized the different packages, using my phone app to translate all the unfamiliar words.

None of the products were the same as back home, but the app thankfully showed pictures of the animals the meat came from and gave a description.

I’d spent about ten minutes trying to figure out the difference between a rump roast and a chuck roast when a human female wearing the store’s uniform came up to me.

Her hair was hidden under a scarf, and her name tag said “Amina.”

“You’re one of the hockey players, aren’t you? Ozar?”

“I am.” I waited, wondering if she’d express support like the two employees at Starbucks or ask me to write my name on something.

“Can I help you find anything?” Her smile widened. “It must be really hard figuring out our food.”

“It is.” I held up the two roasts. “I’m cooking Swakega stew tonight for a human female that I’m wooing. Which of these is best?”

Amina clapped her hands. “A date! How exciting! I’ve obviously never had Swakega stew. Describe it and I’ll do my best to help.”

I told her about the dish, how it was meat-heavy with a rich and spicy sauce and that it was served over a slightly firm, steamed vegetable called moa .

She frowned. “Is the meat chopped? It doesn’t sound like the human version of stew.”

“No, but it falls off the bone when cooked, so we remove the bone and serve the meat in large chunks with the sauce,” I explained.

“It sounds a lot like a dish my grandmother makes.” She tilted her head and looked up at me. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” I was so relieved to have an actual human helping me. If the stew turned out good and Jordan was pleased, I was going to give Amina tickets to our next game. And a Starbucks gift card, just in case she didn’t enjoy sporting events.

She grabbed the two roasts out of my hands and put them back. “Lamb. A leg of lamb, but you need to rub the spices on it and start slow cooking it as soon as you get home in order for it to be spicy and tender like you’re describing.”

I nodded, taking notes on my phone as she led me down the shelves of meat, looking through the different packages until she held one up and put it in my cart.

“Leg of lamb. Now let’s head for the veggie section. ”

I followed her, jotting down that I should thinly slice the onions, and that the garlic should be peeled, separated, and wedged into the slits I needed to cut in the meat.

There were three types of unpronounceable spices I was supposed to rub on the lamb, then tomatoes, olives, and little salted fish that came in a tin were to go on the bottom of the heavy Dutch oven she’d placed in my cart.

By the time she was done, I had a cart full of groceries and instructions to make something that hopefully would be similar to Swakega stew.

It was far more than I could carry in the flimsy plastic bags they usually put my purchases in, so after I paid, I got a large box from the back of the store, transferred everything into it, and walked home with it up on my shoulder.

With my notes and all of my groceries spread out, I began chopping and slicing, preheating the oven as Amina had told me.

Back home our stoves were heated with wood, but this human one was powered by a cord attached to the wall and that certainly was convenient.

It heated quickly without all the smoke, although I missed the smell of the burning wood.

I was nervous about leaving the stove unattended, so I cleaned my small apartment. Back home, I would have shown my mate my spacious dwelling with my handcrafted furniture and beautiful, warm furs, but here I would have to make do with what I’d been able to afford with my job as a hockey player.

After a few hours I realized that my cooking wasn’t going to burn the building down.

Reassured, I left to go buy some additional items to make the apartment seem less sparse.

Bwat had composed a list of must-have items when inviting a female to my home, so I found myself running all over the city to buy decorative pillows, flowers, candles, fur blankets, and a fancy little towel for the bathroom.

The flowers went on the table, along with the dishes that had come with the furnished apartment.

I put jars of candles on every flat surface, deciding I should wait to light them until a few minutes before Jordan was to come over.

I scattered the decorative pillows on the couch, propping some of the larger ones up against a wall.

Half of the furs went on the couch, and the other half went on my bed.

I’d really gone overboard on them, but back home, furs didn’t just provide comfort and warmth, they were a symbol of virility.

I had no idea whether that was true with humans, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an overabundance of them just in case.

With nothing else to do, I showered, put on clean clothes, checked on dinner, then waited.