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Tears pricked her eyes.
Gunnar noticed. “Oh, hey, sorry—”
“No, you’re just…” Her breath hitched. “I think you’re the first person I’ve ever talked to about this who was unequivocally on my side about it.”
“What other sideisthere?” Gunnar shook his head. “No question about it, not getting the vasectomy is a dick move.”
“He’s with this nymph now.”
“Oh, shit,” said Gunnar.
She remembered saying that thing to him about nymphs, and she felt herself flush. She hid behind her tea. “Which I don’t even care about is the thing. I’m not, like, insecure about my… I’m proud to be an orc, and I would never get my tusks filed down or removed or do those weird bleaching things to make my skin a lighter green color or anything like that. I’m not—”
“Hey,” he said. “I didn’t accuse you of—”
“I’m just embarrassed, because you remember that thing I said to you—”
“I’ve never even been with a woman of a different species, though.”
“Never?”
He spread his hands. “It’s not likethat. I’m not… you know Iwould. There’s nothingwrongwith it, obviously. I’m not some kind of bigot, I just… Ancestors preserve me, what you probablythinkabout me.” He turned his hands over and examined his palms.
“I know what you were trying to say.” She wanted to reassure him, so she found herself touching his bicep again. She rubbed him there.
He looked up at her.
She pulled her hand back. She picked her tea back up and became interested in that.
“Uh, I haven’t… I don’t have a big and varied sexual history, that’s really kind of the thing,” he said.
She shrugged. “Me either. I, um, mostly orcs for me, too, really. Only a naga this one time. But, really, I’ve only had three sexual—four, I guess, because you would be four.”
“Oh,” he said, swallowing. “Well, uh, me, too. You’re number four.”
“Oh,” she said, smiling.
“And, like, so, two girls in high school, and one was this awful hookup thing at a party, and it was really, really bad. Just embarrassing and, uh, premature. And I had a girlfriend, and then another girlfriend and then…”
“Yeah,” she said. “Boyfriend in high school.Mated. Then, um, after that… just one night stands, really.”
“Youarestill into him.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“But, uh, if you tried to go back to him, he could never give you children, so… so, I’m not going to be insecure about it.”
She drank her tea. Now, she was amused again. “You just keep acting like this is all decided with us.”
“No,” he said. “No, not decided. But I’m looking for reasons why it won’t work, I guess? If there’s a glaring reason why it won’t work, better to know that up front before we both are attached and it’s all painful.”
“I mean, shouldn’t you ask if I even want to date you?”
“I did.”
She considered. “I guess you did. But I haven’t really answered.”
“So, answer. If you’re saying no, tell me that before I keep going on and on like an idiot.” He picked his tea back up.
