Page 57 of Orc'd At A Wedding
She pulls the sheet higher, and the defensive gesture makes my hands curl into fists at my sides. I force them to relax. She is not in danger. She is safe. The only threat in this room is the one I am trying to neutralize by creating a gap between us before the reality of our situation does more damage than I already have.
"Our circumstances," she says.
"Yes."
"Olog." Her voice sharpens. "What the hell is happening right now?"
I take a breath. I have delivered threat assessments to clients in active combat zones with more ease than this. "Last night, I violated my employment contract. The agency terminated my account this morning. My professional rating has been removed, and I am no longer eligible for future bookings."
"I am also," I continue, because stopping now will make it worse, "a six-foot-eleven Orc with a history of working high-risk security contracts and no formal education beyond military training. My income is irregular. My work frequently places me in dangerous environments. I carry weapons as a matter of standard practice. I have scars across sixty percent of my torso from a close protection assignment that went poorly three years ago."
"I've seen your scars," she says.
"You have seen them in low light, in a context where they were not the primary focus of your attention."
Her eyes narrow. "Are you seriously doing this right now?"
"I am attempting to provide you with an accurate assessment of the risks associated with continuing this relationship outside the controlled environment of a destination wedding."
"Risks." Her voice has gone very quiet, which I have learned means she is either about to cry or about to start throwing things. I cannot determine which is more likely. "You're calling yourself a risk."
"I am calling the disparity between our respective social and economic positions a risk," I say. "Your family is wealthy. Your cousin's wedding cost more than I earn in six months. You arrived at this event in designer formalwear. You are accustomed to a standard of living I cannot provide."
"Money doesn’t matter to me."
"You should." I keep my voice level. "Your family will care. They already care. Your father attempted to bribe me yesterday."
"My father is an asshole."
"Your father is also correct in his assessment that I am not an appropriate partner for you in any traditional sense." I watch her face, watch the way the words land, watch the way she flinches slightly and then sets her jaw. "I work irregular hours. I carry weapons. I have been shot twice and stabbed fourtimes in the course of my employment. The likelihood of future injury is statistically significant. You would be attaching yourself to a man whose life expectancy is measurably shorter than the average civilian and whose social standing is nonexistent."
She is staring at me like I have grown a second head.
"You are also," I continue, because I cannot stop now, "a woman who deserves stability and safety and a partner who will not attract the attention of violent individuals or compromise your reputation by association. I am none of those things."
The silence that follows is long enough that I start running through possible responses, cataloging her body language, measuring the tension in her shoulders and the way her hands have fisted in the sheet.
Then she says, very quietly, "Get out."
I go still.
"I'm sorry?"
"Get. Out." Her voice is shaking now, but not with tears. With rage. "Get out of this room right now before I throw something at your enormous, stupid head."
"Bliss—"
"No." She points at the door, her hand trembling. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to spend the entire weekend defending me and protecting me and canceling your contract and proposing to me with a knife in a parking lot and then wake up the next morning and decide I'm too delicate to handle your life."
"That is not what I am saying."
"That is exactly what you're saying." She shoves the sheets back and stands, and I have the presence of mind to avert my eyes because she is still naked and I am already barely holding myself together. "You're saying I'm some fragile society girl who can't handle the fact that you work security and carry weapons and have scars. You're saying I need to be protected from you."
"You do need to be protected," I say. "That is my function."
"Your function." She laughs, sharp and bitter. "Is that what last night was? A function?"
"No."
