Page 45 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
I swallow. “Terrified.”
He nods like that makes perfect sense. “Me too. About everything. Every day.”
I blink. “You don’t have a kid.”
“I know,” he says. “Still scared.”
“Of what?”
“Losing what I’ve built. What I care about. Failing people. Letting someone love me and then not being good enough for it.”
I exhale, sharp and short, like someone knocked the wind out of me.
“Sound familiar?” he adds.
“Too damn familiar.”
He chuckles, but it’s soft, not mocking. “So what names you got rattling around in that stone skull of yours?”
I hesitate. Then say, “Wren, if it’s a girl.”
His eyebrows rise. “Huh. Wren.”
“She’s small but fierce. Loud. Knows how to shake the trees. It’d fit.”
“I like it,” he says, voice quiet now. “Boy?”
“Haven’t figured that part yet.”
“I vote ‘Brody.’”
I glare at him.
“Kidding,” he says, but it’s a slow grin that spreads anyway. “Sort of. I mean, you could do worse.”
“Could name the kid after a root vegetable and still do better.”
He snorts. “Fair.”
We stay until the stars come out, until the bottles are empty and the orchard’s lullaby turns deep and hushed and warm. He stands eventually, claps me on the shoulder hard enough to jostle the swing.
“You’ll be a good dad,” he says. “Even if your kid has to translate your grunts.”
I smirk. “I’ll teach them the code.”
“Good,” he says, stretching. “Because we’re gonna need a few more wildflowers around here.”
And just like that, he’s gone, disappearing into the trees like a ghost with paperwork.
I sit a while longer, listening.
Thinking.
And for once, the future doesn’t feel like something to survive.
It feels like something worth building.
CHAPTER 29
