Page 51 of Single Pucking Orc

He called at seven that evening to confirm the handover had gone fine. It had gone fine. Charlie was fed, Charlie was delighted, Charlie had discovered the giraffe Nora’s mother left behind and was conducting research on its ear.

He called at nine to confirm bedtime. Bedtime had happened. Down at seven-fifteen, the way she always went down at seven-fifteen, because Nora knew she went down at seven-fifteen and had for weeks.

He called at eleven and there was, if he was honest, no reason for it. Charlie was asleep. Charlie had been asleep for hours. There was nothing to confirm, nothing to check, no gap in the plan requiring his attention. He called anyway, and asked how the night was going, and Nora said, “She’s asleep, same as an hour ago,” and he said something, and she said something, and the something wasn’t about the baby at all.

He hung up and stared at the wall.

The fourth call had no pretext. He didn’t even build one. He dialed and she answered and he said, “How is she,” and Nora said, levelly and not unkindly,

“She’s fine, Rognar. She was fine at eleven. She’s still fine now.”

Charlie was fine. He knew Charlie was fine. He had not, for one second of any of these four calls, believed Charlie was anything other than fine. He was not calling to hear that Charlie was fine.

He was calling to hear Nora say it.

Fen figured it out first, because Fen figured out exactly the things you least wanted figured out, and had the constitution of a male who’d never once regretted saying anything.

By the fifth call—a fifth call, God help him, he was aware of it as he made it—Fen had appointed himself stadium PA.

“Incoming!” he bellowed across the hotel meeting room, both hands cupped around his mouth. “Call number five! That’s a new personal best! Let’s hear it for the rookie dad, folks, he’s calling home, he’s checking the baby, the baby is… What’s the baby doing?”

“The baby’s asleep,” he said, his phone already to his ear, heading for the corner.

“The baby’s asleep!” Fen relayed, to a room that did not need relaying to, being able to hear both of them. “The baby’s been asleep for three straight nights, folks, but Dad’s gonna call again, because Dad’s not calling about the⁠—”

“Fen.”

“—baby.” Fen grinned his broad crooked grin. “You’re not calling about the baby, big man. Everybody knows you’re not calling about the baby.”

Korvash didn’t join in. Korvash had been married for seven years, had four kids, and read paperback thrillers on the road because he’d learned to take quiet where he could get it. He looked up from his book, once, and studied Rognar over the top of it like a male whose friend had just mentioned, cheerfully, a pain in his left arm.

“You’ve got the look,” Korvash said.

“I don’t have a look.”

“You’ve got Tarmek’s look. From last year.” He went back to his book. “I’d get that seen to.”

Brogan let it run one more call.

Rognar hadn’t even meant to make the sixth call. His thumb had done it while the rest of him was thinking about something else. He decided not to look at that too closely. He was three rings in, standing by the window of the shared room, when a hand the size of a dinner plate arrived in front of him, palm up.

“Give me the phone.”

He looked at it. “No.”

Brogan didn’t repeat himself and didn’t look at him. He rarely did either. He stood there with his heavy silver-threaded beard and his terrifying resting scowl and his open hand, and he waited. Rognar would rather have had the argument. Brogan waiting felt geological.

“It’s not… I’m just⁠—”

“You’ve called five times.” A beat. “Six. You’ve called six times.” Another beat, and this one went in under his ribs. “She’d have called you.”

The phone was still ringing against his ear.

“If anything was wrong,” Brogan said flatly, “she’d have called you. She hasn’t. So nothing’s wrong, and you know nothing’s wrong, and you’re calling anyway.” He gave it a second. “Give me the phone. You’ll get it back in the morning. You won’t like it now, but you’ll thank me later..”

He hung up before Nora answered, and he put the phone in Brogan’s hand.

Brogan pocketed it without a word and went to sit down, and Fen opened his mouth. Brogan looked at him, and Fen closed it, which was the only recorded instance of that happening all season.