Page 78 of Orc'd & Loaded
"There is dried blood in your left eyebrow."
"Also cliff face. Possibly hawk. The timeline gets blurry."
"You ran off a cliff, fought a bird of prey, and sprinted back carrying stolen herbs so we wouldn't lose a cooking competition."
"When you list it like that, it sounds unhinged."
"It is unhinged."
"It worked, though."
Her thumb traces the split in my lip. Light. Careful. The sting is exquisite.
"I need to clean these wounds," she says.
"Later."
"Some of these need stitches."
"Later."
"You're infuriating."
"You jumped into my arms holding a knife you haven't put down once since I gave it to you. Who's infuriating?"
She looks at the blade in her hand as if she forgot it existed, then immediately tightens her grip. Her chin lifts.
"It's a good knife. I'm a professional. I know quality when I hold it."
"So you accept."
"Accept what? The knife? Obviously. This is the finest piece of carbon steel I've ever-"
"Not the knife. Everything. The mornings. The arguments. The thirty years of root vegetables."
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"You can't just spring a thirty-year proposal on someone in a garbage alley."
"I forged the proposal three nights ago. The alley is incidental."
"There's a rat watching us from behind that recycling bin."
"He's a witness. Very traditional in orc culture."
She drops her forehead against mine. Our noses touch. Her breath tastes like the ginger reduction from the fusion dish and something underneath that is purely her, green and bright like fresh basil crushed between fingers.
"Yes," she says.
The word is small and fierce and certain.
"Yes to the mornings. Yes to the fighting. Yes to building menus until we're old and someone else does the chopping." She presses the flat of the blade gently against me, right over my sternum. Cool steel on overheated skin. "But I plate. Always. Your hands are too big for fine work."
"Agreed."
"And the smoker stays on your side of the street. I will not have ash particulate anywhere near my dessert station."
"Agreed."
