Page 29 of My Orc Contract Husband
You did WHAT??
He was my best friend, despite his perpetual anger, and I knew him better than anyone. Iknewhe wouldn’t react well to my announcement, but could he at least pretend happiness? My finger swiped across the keyboard.
I agreed to marry Sami. A year anda day, that’s it.
The fuck “that’s it” you idiot. You’re marrying a human.
It hadn’t been a question, but an accusation.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and yanked open the fridge. The beer was staring at me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted one this long after dinner. It had been a long day—work, the lawyer, dinner with Sami’s aunt where I tried to pretend this was a choice we’d made because we were in love—and now I just wanted to go to sleep.
But first I’d wanted to tell Abydos.
When my phone began to vibrate, I sighed and kicked the fridge shut.
Mashing the green button, I spoke before he had the chance to. “When we showed up in Eastshore, there were four of us crammed in this apartment. Seems weird to be alone now.”
Akhmim had Mated Rosemary right away, and Aswan and Hannah were happy in her large house. Abydos was never here, and going forward, he’d be staying at his fancy new cliffside place.
Apparently, my non sequitur had surprised him, but now Abydos growled at me, “So you’re going to change that by getting married?”
Actually, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I guess I’ll move in with her.” I slowly rotated, beginning to mentally catalogue what I would need to pack. The aloe would be the first to join me. “Her house is bigger. The lease on this place is in your name, and I assumeyou’ll want to hold onto it until your new house is built.”
“This conversation isn’t about me?—”
“Are you working?”
A pause. “What?”
“Are you in Colorado?”
A longer pause. “Yeah. So?”
“So, it’s not dinnertime yet there. Are you working? Online, or at the mine office? Or sitting around wracked with guilt about your life choices?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“So youaredoing the guilt thing?”
Another growl, and the sound of something slamming against something else that made my lips curl ruefully. Abydos was a lot of fun to tease sometimes.
“Tark, you don’t know shit about this female. On Monday you were talking about visiting houses with her, and now you’re going tomarryher?”
“On Monday I told you I liked spending time with her and thought she was fun.”
“And now you’re marrying her,” he repeated.
Sighing, I padded toward my bedroom, the tiny one with the too-small bed. “I like Sami.”
“You fucking idiot,” Abydos shot at me.
Maybe. “I’m notthatdumb. I had the lawyer explain the prenupbefore I signed it.”
“Yousigned a contractwithout me looking it over?” he roared, and something else slammed.
“I trust her.”
“You fucking idiot,” he repeated. “What if you just agreed to give her half of everything you own?”
