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“So are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, or do I have to start making shit up?”

He glared down, but Lurielle had already turned her attention to the wares on the table before them, hand-crocheted kitchen scrubbers and towel holders. It had been ages since they had attended the Makers Mart together, but Khash was indisposed, and although his only interest in the weekly shopping bazaar rested outside amongst the food trucks, Rourke was certainly not going to complain over the boon of his friend’s attention.

“Nothing’s going on,” he muttered irritably. She didn’t bother raising her head, knowing he could see her rolling her eyes.

The most annoying part of it was that he wasn’t lying. Truthfully, nothing was going on. Everything was exactly the same as it had been for the last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that. He had lost track of how many weeks it had been at this point; he couldn’t tell how many months may have slipped by. It could have been one or six; it wouldn’t have made a difference to him.

He got up, he went to work, he came home, and he went to bed. It wasn’t as if his routine had changed, but his desires had, clearly. The empty rooms of his house were intolerable, his preferred peace and quiet a screaming, clanging void that pressed in on him from all sides. His empty bed was a sea that threatened to swallow up each and every night as he tossed and turned in its tempest, and he realized that the vague shape of loneliness that had hung over him for the better part of the last year had been a storm cloud, and the storm had at last descended.

Nothing had changed, and that was the problem. He was just as cranky and unsatisfied then, standing beside Lurielle in the Maker’s Mart, as he had been for the last half a dozen weeks, and there was no resolution in sight. He was nothing but a guest, a client, a patron. She was still just a milking technician, nameless and partially faceless, taking up an insignificant amount of his weekly schedule and an inordinate amount of space in his thoughts.

“Guess I have to make shit up. That’s fine. It’s not like Cambric Creek has any gossips or anything. Wait a minute, don’t we actually have a whole ass gossip column in the paper? It sure would be a shame if someone called up whoever writes it to let them know about the local Minotaur business owner who’s planning on campaigning for the no-pants referendum. Marching down Main Street with his balls swinging in the breeze.”

“Oh, I wouldnot; that would never happen!”

Lurielle grinned triumphantly, and he huffed.

“I’m serious; nothing is going on.”

“Nothing is going on, but something is definitely up,” she prodded, giving him an expectant look.

At the table, the middle-aged goblins selling the crocheted scrubbies looked back and forth between Rourke and Lurielle as if they were spectators at a tennis match, not bothering to hide their eavesdropping. Rourke sighed, knowing it was futile.

“Is it Veleena?”

“What? No!” He dragged a hand over his face as the goblins leaned closer. “No, nothing like that. I-I met someone.” Lurielle had turned to face him, and the goblin both leaned forward in their seats. “I’m . . . interested in her. Well, I think I would be. But I met her in a professional capacity, and it wouldn’t be ethical to pursue anything.” He scowled at the elf, turning his glare to the goblins, who were suddenly both too busy restocking their table to make eye contact. “Are you happy now?”

He didn’t mention that he thought of her constantly. He was still just as busy as he always was — running his own company was challenging and rewarding, and he wouldn’t change a thing. Even so, every spare minute of his days that was not taken up by work was spent crafting scenarios in which they might meet outside of the milking farm, and each and every moment of his nights was earmarked completely for her. He couldn’t remember another time in his life when he’d felt so helpless and foolish, including his divorce. Taking charge was his nature, being in control of his de facto setting, and this situation, one in which he was in control ofnothing, was one he could not abide.

“Hmmm . . . that sounds like bullshit. And yes, I’m well aware that you’re an expert in the field. What’s stopping you from pursuing it? People meet at work all the time; you just need to be honest about it. Take work out of the equation. Is she a private contractor or something?”

“Or something,” he grumbled, moving past the table and whispering goblins. He had already scoured the milking farm’s website for any trace of information about the technicians, searched for articles online, even going so far as to download several popular social media apps and create empty accounts just to search out any mention of the farm by the local user base, as if he might get lucky enough to find her there, posting about her new job. His efforts had turned up nothing.

The Makers Mart bustled, and he’d forgotten how crowded it could be. The table across the aisle was selling what they calledcentaur kilts— little more than pleated tartan saddle blankets, but they’d had the business savvy to put up a sign advising their four-legged clientele not to beleft behind in the upcoming pants referendum! Rourke snorted. Other people’s balls were the on-trend topic, clearly.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he said with a note of finality once Lurielle caught up to him, ignoring her eye roll once more. It was the truth. He was tired of his own endless internal monologue, and he had to imagine that actually voicing it would make him sound like the whiniest of whiners. “Where’s Mr. Perfect today? Busy getting his hair rebraided?” He congratulated himself on turning the conversation, but Lurielle seemed unbothered.

“Mudball tournament, which is where I’ll be going next. I really need to get a shirt that says ‘no, I’m not lost,’ although I don’t know if the mudball wives will notice.”

“How did your mom take the news?”

He already knew the answer. He’d been loading his dishwasher, the empty takeout containers of his dinner stacked on the counter for recycling. He’d just finished going over the day’s spreadsheets and decided to start a load of dishes before bed. His coffee cup would be clean in the morning, and the extra white noise would help to muffle the sound of his night’s entertainment — taking care of the stiff club in his gym shorts.

His erection had grown more pronounced as the evening went on in anticipation of the following day’s milking. He already had a human and minotaur porn clip queued up on his phone, one that featured a human woman with dark hair and soft curves — a favorite that had helped him over the edge a handful of times by then — and an unopened box of Deliquesce pods to break down the mess once he was finished. His cock would be temporarily deflated, his pipes would still be functioning in the morning, and he would be able to get some sleep.

Before he’d been able to start the wash cycle, his attention had been pulled by a tinny voice of distress coming through the open kitchen window. Rourke had moved across the room in a single stride, imagining his friend trapped beneath her patio table, or worse — pinned beneath the faulty garage door her idiot boyfriend had never quite lined up properly, but the sound of Lurielle’s voice cut through the shrill hysteria he was hearing. She was on the phone, holding it out away from her face, as whoever it was on the other line wailed and screeched.

He’d been glad the kitchen light was off. It wouldn’t do to have his big outline framed in the white light at his window as he watched his friend and neighbor abruptly end the call, letting her phone drop into the grass. He remained stock still in his kitchen as Lurielle’s outline tipped her head back, facing the inky, twilight sky. He listened to her sniffle several times, sucking in the air before her shoulders had squared, her miniature spine straightening. She’d scooped up the phone and gone back indoors, and he’d slipped soundlessly out of the kitchen.

“Oh, as well as you’d expect. I tell her I’ve met someone, he’s stable and successful, and he treats me like a queen; she cries hysterically and screams that I’m doing this intentionally to punish her. You know, if your crush is an elf, I’m just putting it out there, but you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“Don’t call it a crush,” he groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “That makes me sound even more ridiculous than I already feel.” By then, they had turned off the main thoroughfare of stalls, headed, at long last, towards the scoop truck.

“I mean, what am I supposed to call it?”

She paused before a corner booth on the last turn out of the main shopping area, peering down at the intricately embroidered cloths across the table. The proprietress was a grim-faced girl who looked to be in her early 20s, with dyed black hair and fire engine red bangs falling into her face. A thick industrial glass was placed over the cloths, shelving, Rourke suspected. It prevented anyone from being able to touch the delicate stitches, likely a necessary precaution when he took in the exorbitant price tags. Even still, the girl had a line of customers queued up, perusing the clothes on offer one at a time.

“‘Ceremonial altar cloths,’” Lurielle read out loud, humming in appreciation of the girl’s handiwork. “Wow, these are really beautiful . . . Anyway, yeah. You like someone, but you’re not acting on it. What do you call it?”

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