Page 41 of My Orc Has Big Tusks
“This girl needs to start carrying a fire extinguisher,” I said. “Or I do.”
“Do they make them in her size?”
“Probably not.”
“I wash your mug because it makes me happy to please you, to take care of you.”
“I should do it myself,” I said.
“You don’t need to.” He slid a strand of hair behind my ear. “Let me do this for you.”
“Thank you.”
His crooked smile rose. “You’re welcome.”
“It’s been lovely, but I should probably go,” I said. “We both have to be at work early tomorrow.”
“I’m not making you feel uncomfortable, am I?”
“No.” I sucked in a breath and released it and met his gaze. “I like having you take care of me. It makes me feel special.”
“You are special, Laina. Very special.”
“So are you.”
At the end of each day since I’d started working at the rescue league, when I started to leave, Sofia would fly off my shoulder to Brovish’s.
Today, as I headed toward the door, she didn’t move from my shoulder.
“Sofia, you need to stay with Brovish,” I said.
She peeped.
Brovish held out his hand. “Sofia. Come, to me, little one.”
She hid her face in my neck.
“She can go with you,” he said softly. “If you’re alright with that.”
“Are you sure?”
“She’s made her choice.”
But what did that choice cost Brovish?
Sofia rode home in my passenger seat, curled into a ball of orange warmth against the upholstery.
Just the once, I told myself.
I spent the drive trying not to think about the way he’d watched me read his notebook, the pages turning slow under my fingers while he stood silent, letting me see something he didn’t show anyone else.
How he’d looked braced over me.
How his voice had cracked when he told me I was special.
I’d opened a drawer he’d kept locked, and he’d handed me the key.
CHAPTER NINE
