Page 27 of His Orc Warrior

“Well…you know how I’m carrying a baby?”

“I do.” He came over and sat beside me, Bolg settling onto his lap.

“That had me thinking—this is great and all, the way you come over all the time, but… I think we need something a little steadier. Or maybe not steady but planned out going forward. I’m saying this wrong.”

I turned so I could face him. “If I’m going to have a baby, they need some structure and stability. And this”—I gestured around the apartment—“doesn’t feel like that.”

Even after all this time, it was my place, not ours. And while that was fine for us, a child would feel it.

“So…you want to move?”

“Yeah. No. Maybe? I don’t know.” And that was the crux of the entire problem. I saw the need for change but didn’t have a clue as to what that change should look like.

I sighed.

“I made a list. A list of pros and cons.” I held up the notebook.

He arched a brow.

“It looks like you made an entire novel of pros and cons.”

“Har, har.” And it was more a short story than a novel, but I wasn’t going to split hairs there, not when there was so much we needed to discuss.

“Here it is.” I handed it to him. “Read it over and tell me what you think.”

And he did. He read it over slowly, carefully—adding a few pros and cons of his own. Best. Mate. Ever.

I loved that he didn’t cross out the things that were absolutely, positively ridiculous. And there were a few, including me not liking the handles on my cabinet drawers was no reason to lean toward one location over the other. Those were a ten-dollar fix. Maybe more. But not much. Certainly not move-worthy.

“They both seem equally good.” He set the book down.

“I know,” I groaned. “But they also both seem equally bad.” It would’ve been glorious if there had been an easy-peasy winner.

I fell back into the couch and let out an exasperated sigh.

“It’s not like our orkling is going to be just human or just orc.” Even if they physically were, which was nearly impossible, we weren’t going to raise them that way. They needed to learn about both sides of their family. “It kind of feels like a disservice, no matter what we decide.”

And that was the problem at its core.

Thrain leaned back, arms crossed. “Remind me again, me…why do we have to decide?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…can’t we split locations? I mean, definitely until school starts. We could live part of the week here, part of the week at my place in the village. Or every other week. Or every other month. There are so many options.”

I hadn’t given that much thought and was tempted to make a third list.

“We’d have to get two cribs and all of that.” It was only money, and we had some, but still had to be taken into consideration.

“I have my crib from when I was a child.” He nodded. “It was hand-carved for me. I’d keep that at my place. And we can buy one of those fancy convertible ones for here. Stuff would be easy enough to manage. And 100 percent doable.”

I stared at him.

He meant it. Thrain thought we could have the best of both worlds. Maybe he was right and we could.

“I think the big thing we need to consider is Bolg.” He rubbed behind Bolg’s ears. “How he would do settling into my place.” Which meant how he’d do in a community filled with orcs when most tall men terrified him.

Just the fact that he took it a step further into consideration was huge.

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