Page 44 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
“You were probably twitchy.”
He grins, stretches his legs out long in front of him. “Probably. But now I’m here. Wasting daylight with my favorite emotionally stunted in-law.”
I grunt again, but it’s not unfriendly. He knows how to translate me by now.
We sit quiet for a bit. Sip. Listen to the orchard whisper and shift. A pair of bluebirds dart by overhead, arguing about something in a language I’ll never bother trying to understand.
“You ever think about the future?” Brody asks suddenly, like he’s just remembered something he meant to ask hours ago.
I take another pull from the bottle. Let it settle. “All the time.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Used to just think about surviving. Then it turned into protecting the orchard. Then Ivy showed up and all of that got tangled together.”
He’s watching me with that sharp, deceptively easy gaze of his, like he’s weighing the words between what I’m saying and what I’m not. “And now?”
I exhale slow, stare out over the grove. “Now I think about making it last.”
He’s quiet a beat longer than I expect. Then: “You’re not who I expected for her.”
“I’m not who anyone expects.”
“No,” he says, lifting his bottle in mock salute. “You’re better.”
I glance at him, brows raised.
“Don’t get cocky,” he mutters, tipping the bottle back. “Took me a while to figure it out, but you’re good for her. In that way that doesn’t look soft, but still is.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t. Just nod.
“I never had brothers,” he adds after a while. “Had a cousin I punched regularly, but that doesn’t count.”
“You looking for a fight?”
“Nah,” he says, half-smiling. “I’m saying you’re family now. Even if your emotional vocabulary’s the size of a rock.”
My chest does something uncomfortable. Not bad—just tight, like something’s expanding in a space that was hollow too long.
“You’re not half bad yourself,” I say, which, for me, might as well be a damn wedding toast.
He laughs. “Gods help us all.”
We lapse back into silence. It’s the easy kind, not the loaded kind. The kind that lets crickets settle in and lets thoughts drift. My hand finds the curve of the swing’s chain, fingers wrapping around the cool metal like it anchors me.
Brody breaks it again. “Ivy mentioned names the other night.”
I freeze.
“She said you flinched like someone set your beard on fire.”
I roll my eyes. “I did not.”
“She said it was charming.”
“She’s a liar.”
“She’s an optimist,” he corrects, then leans back further, staring up into the eaves. “You scared?”
