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Bwat: Oh, I am not giving up. I’m going to score so many goals against the Blackhawks during our next game that you won’t be able to count that high. I will try not to cause you any more brain damage with my tree-trunk arms, because you need the few brains you have.

Dylan: Don’t worry. I can count higher than zero.

Bwat: Put a one in front of that zero, because that is what I am going to score.

Dylan: In your dreams.

Dylan: Hey, gotta go. The baby is finally asleep and I should be too.

I smiled at the thought of tough Dylan up in the early hours of the morning, feeding and soothing his tiny offspring before tucking her into her furs and going back to climb into bed and pull his wife against his body. The male had all that I wanted with Abby.

I finally dozed off dreaming of children in their beds or cribs and a naked Abby in my furs, her breath soft and warm against my chest as she slept.

A jolt of the bus and the change in the sound of the engine woke me up. It was morning, but the sunlight was weak as it came through the windows. We were circling down the ramp from the highway onto the street called Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard.

I elbowed Pfton awake. “We’re home.”

“Huh?” He wrinkled his nose and frowned, picking random pieces of potato chips from his beard. “What are these?”

“A snack you devoured while you were half asleep. We’ll be in the parking lot soon. Straighten your hair and clothing.”

“Why?” Pfton asked. “I do not need to look nice for any of you or the demons and humans unloading the transportation beast.”

“Abby and her team will be taking pictures and video for the website and social media accounts,” I explained. “You do not want to look slovenly in those videos and pictures.”

“Why should I care about those web-things,” he grumbled, rubbing his eyes.

All the reasons why I cared would not be reasons for Pfton to do so, so I improvised. “Many human females will see the website pictures and social media videos. You want them to be interested and attracted to you, not turn away thinking you are a male who would not look his best for them.”

That catapulted Pfton into action. The orc frantically combed his hands through his hair and beard, rubbing the marks the seat had left on his face, using the window as a mirror. Then he shook the potato chip crumbs off his shirt and stared with dismay at the various coffee and gravy stains that no amount of laundering had seemed to remove. With a panicked noise, he ripped his shirt off just as we pulled into the parking lot of the arena.

I stepped off the bus and my eyes immediately searched the small groups of humans for Abby. There was Ozar’s mate, waving and calling to him. The demons and humans already opening the side doors of the bus to remove our luggage and the team’s equipment. Two humans were filming with their phones. And there was Abby, about fifty feet away with her back turned towards us, her phone pressed against her ear.

Shirtless Pfton flexed and posed for the two humans filming us. Ozar opened his arms and Jordan ran to him. The other orcs blinked sleep from their eyes and shuffled toward the arena. I stood and watched Abby, hoping she would turn around, hoping a smile would light up her face as she saw me, hoping….

Hoping for ridiculous things that might never happen. I wanted her to run to me and jump into my arms like Ozar’s mate had done with him. Or at least acknowledge my arrival and appear happy to see me. We’d developed what I thought was a friendship during my time on the road, and our conversations the last few weeks had led me to expect a different welcome home than this.

I turned away, rubbing a terrible ache between my ribs. I loved Abby. Not that I expected to find a true mate here among the humans when, as far as I knew, Ozar and Jordan were the only orc-human mate pairs in history, but I did want to be in love with the female I wed. And I wouldn’t settle for less than that. Making any willing human female my bride had never been my goal, even if the majority of the orcs who’d come here felt differently.

I was in love. With a beautiful human female who’d stolen my heart with the first glance of her swamp-green/brown eyes. I knew from that moment that it would take everything I had to win her. I didn’t have the advantage of the mate bond, I would need to do this myself. I studied human mating rituals. I took advantage of every opportunity to speak to Abby and learn what she liked, how I could best present my intentions. And I thought I had been making some progress up until now.

“Bwat! Give us a picture!”

I turned to face the two filming humans and smiled. Then my gaze drifted to Abby once more. She’d also turned so I could see her profile, and even at this distance I could tell she was upset.

Suddenly it wasn’t about me and my aching heart. What was wrong? Had one of her friends fallen ill? The way her hand gripped the phone, her hunched shoulders, the faint tremble of her lips….

I took a step forward, then halted. What was the human protocol for this? Was our friendship at the point where I could inquire about this obviously bad news and console her?

She shoved her phone into her pocket and walked over to the other two humans. They eyed her with the same concern I was feeling, but she waved it away and began looking at footage the male had taken. That was my answer. Even if it was appropriate for me to ask her to confide in me, it was not something she wanted to discuss right now. I’d learned that humans, like orcs, often needed time to process bad news before they were ready to share it with their friends–especially their brand new friends. So I would wait. And in the meantime, I would try to provide Abby and her team with appropriate material for their social media sites.

Abby pulled her phone out again, and this time began to film us.

Straightening, I swaggered a little as I walked over to pick up my bag. Then, like an idiot, I tripped over my own feet, nearly face-planting onto the parking lot.

Abby let out a sigh audible even from twenty feet away, and lowered her camera.

I winced, practically reading her mind. She’d need to splice the video to another scene because it wouldn’t be good for fans to see a member of the city’s hockey team falling in the parking lot. I was supposed to be an athlete, not a bumbling klutz.