Page 25 of Pumpkin Spice & Orc Cinnamon Roll
“That is not a thing.”
“It isabsolutelya thing. You look like a woman who got kissed into next week and then wrapped in a blanket made of grumpy orc satisfaction.”
I slam the knife down and glare at her. “It was just amoment.A very… stupid, ill-advised moment of weakness.”
Tara blinks. “Was it, though?”
I hate how gently she says it. Like she’s reaching under the armor I haven’t even had the decency to finish re-lacing yet.
I scrub at my wrist with a damp towel and stop when I see the faint smudge of pine sap still there. Right where he held me against the wall, hands gentle, lips reverent, like he was afraid I might vanish if he stopped touching me for even a second.
“I don’t know what it was,” I admit softly. “I just know that I let him in again. And now I can’t figure out if I feel like flying or bolting for the hills.”
Tara watches me for a long moment, her gaze unusually quiet.
“Do you love him?”
My breath catches.
She doesn’t let me dodge it. Just raises an eyebrow and waits, like she always does when she’s aiming straight for the heart of the thing.
“I think I always did,” I whisper. “I just… buried it. Like bulbs in winter. Told myself it died.”
“And now?”
I press my hand over my apron pocket, feel the outline of that wooden acorn, warm from where my body’s held it close.
“Now I think it never really stopped growing. Just… waited. And I’m scared that if I let it bloom again, I won’t survive if it withers.”
“Sweetheart,” she says, crossing to wrap her arms around me without hesitation, “maybe it’s not about whether the bloom lasts forever. Maybe it’s about knowing you finally let it bloom in the first place.”
I sniff. “You’ve been reading the seasonal poetry rack again, haven’t you?”
“Shut up and stir your damn cider.”
I laugh into her shoulder, watery and uneven, but real.
Later, after Tara’s gone and the shop has opened to the usual stream of leaf-coated locals and overcaffeinated tourists, I pause by the front counter and run my thumb over the acorn in my pocket.
Drogath didn’t leave a note. He didn’t wait for thanks. He didn’t ask for forgiveness or promises or answers.
He justgave.Something small. Something careful. Somethinghim.
And now my heart—soft, stubborn, stupid thing that it is—feels like it’s cracked wide open.
And that terrifies me more than losing him ever did.
CHAPTER 12
DROGATH
I’ve spent my whole life wielding power like a weapon—cold, sharp, always angled to cut through obstacles before they could cut me first. I’ve dealt in concrete and steel, ink and pressure, boardrooms thick with cigar smoke and betrayal disguised as champagne. But none of it—none of it—ever lit me up the way she does just by looking at me with that sunshine-in-her-veins kind of stare. And now that I’ve tasted her again, felt her breath against mine like a prayer I forgot I needed, I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.
But I don’t press.
Not even when I wake up with the scent of her skin still clinging to mine like warmth that won’t let go.
Not even when I want to turn back, wrap her up in the quilt she half-kicked off in her sleep, and whisper every damn thing I’ve never had the courage to say.
