Page 49 of Grumpy Pucking Orc (Orcs on Ice #1)

Jordan

“ H e hasn’t texted me back,” I fretted to Willa and Abby.

It was an emergency friend meeting. With ice cream.

And Judy sitting on the coffee table with her tail swishing back and forth as she sent a narrow-eyed glare my way.

I’d told my friends the whole story from proposal to my panicked refusal.

I’d hated that Ozar and I had left things that way, that Ozar had gotten on the bus with so much unresolved and unsaid between us.

“Do you think it’s over?” I asked. “That him ghosting me after my text means we’re done?”

“I’m sure he just needs time to process this whole thing.” Abby patted my arm sympathetically.

“Yeah. Process the fact that you kicked him to the curb,” Willa said, much less sympathetically.

“I didn’t kick him to the curb,” I argued. “He surprised me. With the proposal and the whole going back to his clan to live forever thing. I said no because I could hardly accept his proposal with those strings attached.”

“Strings.” Abby snorted. “More like chains. ”

“I’m sure Ozar didn’t consider them chains,” Willa countered. “Seriously, you guys never talked about this before? I mean, you really never imagined that he might intend on going back home after a short stint here, and that a relationship with him might involve moving on your part?”

“No,” I snapped, annoyed at her taking the orc’s side in this.

“Willa does have a point,” Abby said. “You had to have known he’d want to go home at least to visit.”

I stared at her, feeling betrayed.

“My friend Marisa married a guy who was here from Taiwan for his postdoc,” Abby continued, seemingly unaware of my glare.

“It’s an insanely long and expensive flight, and they both obviously wanted to be near friends and family, and to bring their children up immersed in each parent’s culture…

it took a lot of negotiation for them to work it all out. ”

She wasn’t wrong. Ozar’s and my situation actually was similar to Marisa and her Taiwanese husband, except her husband and his family and friends were human, where Ozar’s weren’t.

But did that really matter? Cultural and language differences along with geographic distance had destroyed many a human romance over the centuries, too.

“What happened with Marisa and the postdoc guy?” Willa asked.

“He found a company that would sponsor a H1B for him. Once he and Marisa were married, he applied for permanent residency. The big wedding was in Taiwan with a smaller ceremony and reception in the U.S. for her friends and family, although her parents and two brothers flew over for the Taiwan shindig. They both live and work here, but the plan is to spend a month in Taiwan the year their first child is born and to do that every other year. Plus, his mother wants to come each year for a month to stay with them and see the grandkids.”

It sounded expensive, although if I was frugal, Ozar and I might have the funds to do that sort of schedule. The biggest issue would be leaving my practice for a month every couple of years.

“Do you think Ozar might compromise and agree to live here with regular visits to his homeland?” Willa asked.

I frowned. “It didn’t sound that way from our conversation. I’m sure he’d agree on visits here , but he clearly wants to return home and for us to live there full-time.”

“What did you envision?” Abby asked. “Because I know you were thinking about a long-term future with him.”

I felt my face heat up. “I thought that he’d play hockey, and I’d continue with my practice. We’d live in my house in Federal Hill, and we’d have one or two kids. I’d imagined he’d be with them a lot during the off season, but we’d have a nanny when we were both swamped with our careers.”

There was a long, awkward silence until Willa finally spoke up.

“You never thought about taking the kids on an extended stay to meet his clan? Or for you and him to spend any significant amount of time with his friends and his family?”

No. And that made me feel like an absolute asshole.

I knew how much he loved his clan, his Guardian role back home.

I knew how proud he was of being an orc and of his culture.

He’d just assumed I’d give everything up to return with him as his bride, and I’d assumed he’d give everything up to stay here with me as my husband.

I was just as much to blame for this whole mess as he was.

Abby patted my arm again. “You both haven’t known each other for long. This romance was fast and hot, and while I think that’s really amazing, it doesn’t leave either of you with much time to discuss your expectations, your hopes and dreams for the future, or how those can mesh together.”

I sighed, feeling worse than I had before this emergency friend meeting. “He hasn’t returned my text. He doesn’t want to see me again. He’s done. There won’t be any chance to discuss any of this.”

Willa rolled her eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Jordan!

He’s been on a bus to Chicago. Maybe he’s in a dead zone with no signal.

Maybe he accidentally stowed his cell phone under the bus with his luggage and hasn’t gotten it out yet.

Maybe he turned the ringer off to catch some sleep while they’re on the road and never turned it back on. Have some faith, girl. He loves you.”

“Yeah, he loves me. I love him.” It sounded like one of those affirmations you were supposed to repeat in hopes of willing the universe to deliver, and all three of us knew how I felt about those stupid affirmations.

“How could he throw what we had away just because I refused to give up everything I have here to be a wife in a clan in his homeland? I don’t speak his language.

I don’t know more than a handful of his customs. What the hell am I supposed to do there besides spit out kids and be a good wife? ”

Okay, that sounded pretty damned bitchy.

Willa’s lips twitched. “Yeah. They don’t have cars there or cell phones. What the fuck?”

“Or Starbucks. How will you survive?” Abby grinned.

And how would Ozar survive without his organic, farm-fresh, milk deliveries?

Or his coffee machine? Ice cream? Suddenly, all these happy memories flashed like a photo slideshow through my mind.

The rubber sword fight. Ozar presenting me with his tooth in an engagement ring box.

The steaks on my front porch that I had eventually realized were little gifts from him.

His expression as he tasted ice cream for the first time.

The look in his eyes when he’d glanced up into the stands mid-game and saw me cheering for him.

The way he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and snuggled me close to his side as we walked.

How he’d stood on the curb half-naked in the cold and watched until my Uber was no longer in his sight.

He was a great guy. He was the most amazing man I’d ever been with, the most giving and passionate lover, the kindest and most gentle man I’d ever dated.

He loved me. He loved my cat. He’d gone out of his way to show me how much I meant to him.

He wasn’t the sort of man, or orc, to throw that all away after our first fight. Ozar was a warrior, a Guardian. He didn’t give up at the first sign of adversity.

He wouldn’t give up on me. And I wouldn’t give up on him. Not without a fight. Not without giving everything I had for us to reach a compromise.