Page 17

I winced, because that poor email address was full to the brim with everything from press requests to Nigerian prince scams. The moment Daniella revamped the site and added some security as well as a contact form that filtered emails to the correct recipient, I’d be able to breathe a little easier.

Instead I gave Bernice my address at the PR firm, then added a whole lot more to my to-do list. I had no bio for Bwat, and the scant two sentences on the team’s website were horrible. The plan for who would get the table tickets and what to include in the auction basket could wait. I needed a bio, and the team would be on the road for two weeks, starting….pretty much now.

Glancing at my watch, I let out a whispered “fuck” and ran down the hall, down the stairs, and out into the parking lot. It was dark, the old-style lights buzzing and covering the vast asphalt with a golden glow. There was a huge charter bus idling under a set of lights, a couple of men loading equipment under the watchful gaze of a short but stern demon. The orcs milled about with duffle bags and leather satchels slung over their shoulders. I saw Jordan talking to Ozar, but it was Bwat that caught my attention.

The orc stood off to the side away from the others. His muscular legs showed under a pair of gray shorts. The white t-shirt advertising Phillip’s Seafood fit him appropriately, as opposed to the other orcs who looked like they’d been poured into their various styled shirts. Engrossed in his phone, he could have been any fit, good-looking professional guy dressed casually for a weekend trip to Philadelphia. The green skin and the faint hint of tusks jutting from behind his lower lip were the only thing that indicated he was an orc. In contrast to the others, he was slim, less bulky, not as insanely tall, and all that was probably what made him the most approachable orc on the team.

So I approached, drawn by who-knows-what. I’d raced down here to snap some pictures and videos for social media, but instead my phone stayed in my pocket. It was Bwat’s phone screen I looked at as I peeked around his shoulder.

He was reading something about the environmental benefits of electric and propane powered city buses as opposed to the traditional diesel ones.

“I’m pretty sure the team’s charter bus is diesel,” I informed him.

He jumped, nearly dropping his phone. “Abby!”

“That’s me.” I smiled, then pointed to his screen. “Are you interested in environmental matters? Or public transportation? Or civics?”

Bwat stuffed the phone in the pocket of his shorts. “No. I mean, maybe? I don’t know what those things are, but I am interested in almost everything. Reliable and quick transportation has been a problem back home, and here as well. I go to find information on something, then I see something else, then something else, then something else. I always go down the rodent hole.”

He was babbling, and that nervousness made him even more adorable.

“Rabbit hole,” I corrected. “I do that too. I’ll be Googling a good place to have brunch, and two hours later I’m watching videos about the Jamestown colony or reading about Dutch Elm disease.”

His eyes widened. “The fungal infection that affects the water flow in the tree’s vascular system! It’s very serious, sometimes killing the tree within weeks.”

I’d used it as an example, having not actually read about tree blight. But that was quite interesting to know. “I wonder if there is a treatment? Although it would need to be detected very early on to catch the disease before it killed the tree.”

Bwat nodded. “Very few fungicides work, according to what I read. Sometimes the diseased area can be removed and the tree saved, but the disease moves so fast. New types of elm that resist the fungus are probably the only way to avoid the blight.”

“Just like the American Chestnut.” I squirmed, a little embarrassed. “There was a presentation at one of the firehouses that I went to on that.”

Bwat’s gorgeous brown eyes met mine and held for several heart beats. “I would love to attend one of those presentations at the firehouse, or anywhere else. With you, I mean. Although I probably would enjoy attending without you, the presentation would be better if you were there too.”

For a second I thought this was his roundabout way of suggesting a date, but then I quickly dismissed the idea. He wanted to learn everything he could about the human world, and attending these things with someone else was always more fun than going alone. So I told him I’d let him know next time there was a talk or presentation somewhere, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and moved away to get some content before the orcs left town for two weeks.

Two weeks. Two weeks of an empty stadium aside from the guards and custodial staff. Two weeks to double the ticket sales for the next home game.

Two weeks without Bwat.

7

BWAT

It was a long and silent bus ride to Chicago, so I spent it on my phone. The device was a marvel of information and one of the best things about the human world. The language application had allowed me and the other orcs to quickly learn English. Another application summoned a vehicle and driver who would take us anywhere we wanted. Another application resulted in food being delivered to my den. Yet another application gave me a prediction of what the weather would be the week–although their skills at prophecy seemed less than adequate judging from how many times they were wrong. I could buy anything, connect with anyone, and an entire library of facts and resources was available at my fingertips.

With the entirety of human knowledge in my hands, it was “Abby Anton” that I typed into the search box. Judging from the pages of text, there were many humans named Abby Anton in the world. But as far as I was concerned, there was only one. Abby. My Abby.

Hopefully my Abby.

The very first link led me to a business website where My Abby beamed at me from her picture. I stared for several minutes, enraptured anew by the brilliance of her smile, by the green-brown of her eyes. Tearing my gaze from the image, I read about how Abby was a dynamic account manager at the company, specializing in social media marketing campaigns that could take a company’s reputation and sales into the stratosphere, that would make them go viral.

Viral. It was a word I didn’t know. I typed it into the search bar and saw that it had to do with the ability of males to have and maintain an erection. I’d learned over the past few weeks that there were many medications to assist human males with this problem, and that it seemed to be very prevalent among males here.

That Abby was an expert at such a thing was a little disturbing.

Oh. I’d accidently searched virile, not viral. Who knew that a slight spelling mistake could make such a difference in meaning?

Viral meant some sort of infection that rapidly spread. I frowned, wondering why Abby would be so skilled at spreading disease, like she was some sort of plague demon, then I read the secondary definition.