Page 19 of Horn in My Side

MAL

Mal stopped halfway as he placed the large bag of kibble on a shelf, feeling eyes on him.

“Are you taking another picture?”

Jasmine raised her phone higher, hiding her face. “It’s for our Picstagram account.” Click. “The, uh, label looks good facing out. It’s an indie brand and they love exposure like this.”

He shrugged and put the bag on the shelf. “Anything else you need me to do?”

“No, we’re good.” She ran her fingers down the long braid of dark hair over one shoulder, then twirled the ends. “Thanks for getting those bags up there. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

Those brown doe eyes held his gaze, sending his hearts into a gallop. When she’d asked for his help this morning, he couldn’t say no. In fact, he found himself unable to say no to any of her requests.

Can you finish the new locking spells, Mal?

Yes, Jasmine.

Can you change the hay in the griffin pen, Mal?

Of course, Jasmine.

And Gaku help him, he actually liked doing all those things for her. Jasmine could ask him to hunt down a hydra and nail its head to the wall and the only question he’d ask was if she wanted a six-headed or nine-headed one.

How had he got himself into this situation?

Mal had felt guilty after the whole cockatrice incident.

She’d been right—he did initially think it was her fault.

So, he went to apologize. She didn’t have to accept it, but she graciously had, and had told him about why she wanted to run the shop.

He’d been so caught up in her story, her passion and the animated way she spoke, and her brown eyes and her pretty lips, that he could only focus on her.

She had been so magnetic and for a brief moment he’d been tempted to hold her in his arms and kiss her.

Then he’d showed up.

Kap.

The name sent an acrid bubble up his throat.

She didn’t mention she had a boyfriend. It was none of his business, of course, as he and Jasmine had a completely professional relationship.

Still, it stuck in his craw, knowing another man was in her home, sharing a meal with her.

He couldn’t even stare him down as he was as tall as him, a rarity for Mal.

He was also a cop, based on the uniform and marked cruiser parked on the curb. Where did Jasmine find this guy?

Mal had paced around the kitchen most of the evening, a bolt in his chest tightening at the thought of them together.

The window had been too far away for him to see anything, though the lights had been on the entire time.

Thank Vorlak that after an hour or so he had heard Jasmine’s door open and close.

When the cop car drove away, the tightness in his chest loosened, but the pressure remained there.

She had a boyfriend. It was best to avoid her, so that’s what he did for the next few days. Sure, he treated her cordially, but he refused to get further caught up in her orbit. But then the assembly happened, and all that resolve went out the window.

Despite her worries, Jasmine had done an incredible job. She’d been confident, chose the perfect animals to present, and the children adored her, which Mal already knew would be the case. And much to his own chagrin, Mal had been riveted the entire time.

Since then, he found himself seeking her company in the shop or following her with his eyes.

When she wasn’t around, he wondered where she was and what she was doing.

Many nights, he would glance out his kitchen window, watching the light in the apartment above the stairs, waiting for it to turn off at ten thirty—her bedtime, he assumed.

For some reason, Kap never showed up after that first night, and though he tried to squash it, he clung to that glimmer of hope that maybe he wasn’t her boyfriend.

“I should get back to my work,” he declared.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll be at the counter in case anyone needs to check out. Sorry to have disturbed you, especially when I know you’re busy with work.”

The truth was, he didn’t have much to do, at least not for his contracting business.

Since he’d arrived in Dewberry Falls, he’d been replying to emails, checking in with his accountant, or working on bids for jobs that would start in six months or so.

But mostly he spent his days in the back office twiddling his claws, waiting for that email from the Orc Historical Society that might never come.

“All right.” He soaked in the sight of her, as she looked lovely in the morning light today. “Just holler if you need anything.”

As he strode back to the office, he couldn’t help but feel eyes on him again. Swinging his head around, he saw two women standing by the firebird cages, staring at him. “Can I help you?”

They looked at each other, then one of them, a petite blonde, spoke up. “You’re, uh, Mal, right? The orc?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we take a picture?” the other one burst out.

He held out his hand. “Give me your phone. Did you want to pose next to the firebirds?”

“Firebirds?” the first one said. “No, we want a selfie. With you.”

“Me?” The request took him by surprise. “Why?”

“Duh, you’re Mal,” she replied. “Please? Do it for the ’gram?”

Now he was even more confused. “What’s the ’gram?”

“Picstagram, of course.”

Ah yes, the social-networking app. He had an account for his business, but he outsourced the management to some young marketing whiz. All he did was send pics from his jobs and the kid took care of posting them, plus forwarding any job enquiries from the direct messages to his email.

“Please?”

“Uh, sure, I guess.” Jasmine would not like it if he were rude to the customers.

“Great! Scooch down, please? We’re not as tall as you.”

Mal did as she asked, bending down to about their height. The two posed on either side of him, then the blonde stretched out her hand, phone in hand, the screen flashing as she took several photos. “Thanks so much, Mal. We’ll tag you in the photos, okay?”

“You’re welcome.” It still confused him why they would want a selfie with him or how they knew who he was in the first place. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies, I need to go.”

“Thanks, Mal,” they chorused as he walked away.

Mal shook his head. So strange. Of course, he’d noticed other unusual things around the shop lately. There’d been an uptick in the amount of people coming in the last couple of days, but he figured they were nearing some kind of high season, perhaps due to that festival coming up.

Still . . . his gut told him something was up.

As soon as he was alone in the office, he pulled up the Picstagram app on his phone and searched for the Fantastic Tails and Magical Scales account.

The profile featured the store’s logo and address, all the usual stuff. When he scrolled through the pics, however, what he saw was definitely not usual. Mixed in with photos of the pets and flyers for their promotions were pictures of him .

He recognized the ones pinned on the top, which were from the school assembly, when he caught Cora the laelaps and when he held the snoozing Felix in his arms. After that, however, were photos he didn’t even know were being taken of him.

There was one of him fixing the squeaky wampus cat pens, oil can in hand as he sprayed the hinges, while another showed him refilling the amikuk tanks.

He refreshed the feed, and sure enough, a photo of him with the kibble bag on his shoulders popped up.

New product alert! Our friends at Ethereal Balance just sent us their latest offering—mandrake-flavored canine kibble.

Our fenrirs, blue foxes, and raijus go crazy for this one, so get it while it’s in stock.

#etherealbalancemandrake #fantastictailsandmagicalscales #dewberryfallsmainstreet #petshopcalifornia

The caption seemed innocuous enough, but the photos were more suspect.

Yes, the label was definitely at the forefront, but Mal took up most of the real estate in the picture.

It didn’t show his face, but his back and shoulders were prominently featured.

Hearts started popping up on the post and a comment came in with a sweating emoji that said “Zaddy Orc.”

Zaddy—

He groaned aloud. While he may not be social media savvy, he knew enough from working around the young guys on his previous jobs to know that these were what people called “thirst traps.”

He rose and strode out of the office, searching for Jasmine on the shop floor and found her at the counter with a customer, ringing up their purchase. He took deep breaths as he waited for her to finish, and as soon as the customer left, he marched toward her.

“Jasmine.”

“Mal?” She looked up at him with those big, beautiful eyes looking all innocent.

Yeah, right.

He planted his hands on his hips. “Explain the pictures, please.”

“Excuse me?” A hand landed on her chest. “What pictures?”

He held his phone up to her face. “These pictures. Zaddy orc?”

“I . . . er . . .” She bit at her lip, color rising under her tanned skin. “Well, you see . . . those pics from the assembly—which I didn’t take, by the way; the shop was just tagged—kind of went viral.”

“Viral?” he said, incredulous.

“Viral for Dewberry Falls, anyway. It’s gotten about fifty thousand hearts the last time I counted?”

“Fifty thousand—” He scrubbed a palm down his face. “Fifty thousand people have seen my photos?”

“At least.”

He glanced around them. “Is that why those women wanted to take selfies with me? Or why that teacher from the assembly has been by twice in the week to buy chew toys? Does she even have a pet?”

“Maybe? Er, I’m sorry, Mal.” She took in a gulp of air, face flushed. “I shouldn’t have been using your photos as thirst traps. I’ll take them down and untag you right away.”

“Thank you,” he said, relieved.