Page 40 of Pumpkin Spiced Orc
And the orchard exhales.
It feels like wind and warmth and weight all at once. Like sinking into a memory you didn’t know you’d lost. Like the entire world holding its breath just to watch uschoose.
Brody lifts his arms dramatically. “By the orchard, by the bond, by the love we’re all slightly embarrassed to be witnessing—I now pronounce you magically, emotionally, and literally inseparable.”
The applause is immediate and awkward and sweet. Garruk leans down before I can say anything, presses his mouth to mine in a kiss that tastes like home, like blood and root and something permanent. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine.
“We’re really doing this,” I whisper.
“We already did,” he replies.
And for the first time in my life, I believe in forever.
CHAPTER 26
GARRUK
She leaves her muddy boots by the door again, and it’s not just a matter of inconvenience—it’s symbolic now, like she’s testing the edge of something in me to see if I’ll break. They sit there, caked with orchard soil and crushed blossoms, evidence of her stubbornness and the wild pace she lives at when she’s in her element, and I stare at them like they’ve grown thorns. The floor’s barely sealed, the wood still carrying that scent of oil and elbow grease, and yet here we are—her carefree heel prints dotting everything I tried to keep neat. Controlled. Like the boots themselves are laughing at me.
I don’t mention it. I just step over them, jaw clenched, heartbeat heavy in that way it gets when something so small feels impossibly big because it’s not really about boots. It’s about change. It’s about how different it feels to share a space—not just a bed or a porch swing—but actual walls and routines and unspoken expectations that I’m still learning how to carry without making everything feel like a war camp.
She’s out in the north grove, planting again. I can see her through the trees, hunched low, hands in the dirt, hair falling out of its braid as she whispers encouragement to sprigs of green too young to have any real resilience. She talks to them likethey’re old friends. She never does that with people. Just plants. Animals. Me, sometimes.
The truth is, I don’t know how to be soft in all the places she needs me to be, not all at once. I know how to fight. I know how to bleed. I know how to stand still while the storm rips the sky in half. But I don’t know how to ask her to take her boots off without sounding like I care too much about the floorboards or not enough about her.
When she walks back in, her basket slung over one arm and her hands dirt-stained and full of life, the boots are the first thing she sees. Then me, sanding the window frame like it’s a war crime I’m correcting.
“Don’t,” she says flatly, dropping the basket on the counter. “I see your face. Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“The boot thing. I know, okay? I know I keep doing it. It’s not about the floor.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter.
Her brow lifts, and her mouth twists into that crooked smile that’s more sharp than sweet. “You think I don’t notice when you reorganize the entire kitchen after I use it?”
“I like order,” I say, louder than I need to. “There’s nothing wrong with knowing where things belong.”
“And I like chaos,” she shoots back. “It’s not a moral failing.”
We’re quiet then, both of us simmering just below boil, too aware of how stupid the fight is and too proud to back down. She leans against the counter, arms crossed, eyes watching me like she’s trying to see through skin.
“You want to tell me what this is really about?” she asks eventually, voice softer now. “Because I don’t think it’s about boots or cupboards or the floor.”
I put down the sander, slowly, the way you set down a weapon when you’re not sure if the fight’s over. I rub the back ofmy neck, eyes skimming the unfinished wall beside the nook I’ve been secretly building.
“I’ve never done this before,” I say finally. “Not like this. Not with someone who matters.”
She walks toward me, careful, measured, like she’s approaching a spooked horse. “You think I have?”
“I don’t know what you’ve done. What I know is that I wake up next to you and part of me’s still waiting for it to end. Not because I want it to, but because I’ve never had a good thing last.”
She exhales, slow and deep, and reaches up to cup my face in those calloused, clever hands of hers. “You built a house for me.”
“I built a house forus,” I correct.
She smiles. “And I keep tracking mud into it.”
