Page 61 of Orc Me, Maybe

“Losing the dream. Again.”

I step closer. “It’s not gone. It’s just… bigger now. And it’s still yours.”

His eyes hold mine. Warm. Steady. “No,” he says. “It’s ours.”

And gods help me, I believe him.

CHAPTER 25

TORACK

They whisper when I pass.

It starts subtle. A pause in conversation. A glance over shoulders. That odd cadence people get when they’re pretending they weren’t just talking about you.

At first, I think it’s about the new mage wards, or the incident with the supply goblin who tried to freeze-dry the camp kitchen’s entire inventory. Again.

But then Groth drops a stack of split logs at my feet, grinning like a sabertooth who found honey. “You hear what they’re saying?”

I grunt. “I usually don’t care.”

“Oh, you’ll care about this.”

He wipes his hands on a rag. “Camp thinks you and Julie are a thing now.”

I blink. “A what?”

“A thing. Like… a capital-R Relationship. Lovebirds. Attached at the horns.”

I stare at him. “Because she’s competent?”

“Because she’s everything you’re not and you haven’t shut up about her in days.”

“I don’t talk that much.”

Groth laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

“It’s not true,” I say.

Groth shrugs. “Doesn’t mean it couldn’t be.”

I pick up the axe. “I have work to do.”

“Don’t split your feelings like you split that wood, boss.”

I ignore him. Mostly.

But later, when Julie walks by wearing that threadbare camp sweatshirt and a glitter sticker on her cheek courtesy of Lillian, I find myself watching her a beat too long.

The rumors don’t go away.

If anything, they get worse.

A fairy calls me “Papa-in-Law” under her breath and flutters off cackling. Lillian asks me what color dress she should wear to our “wedding.” One of the elder dryads leaves a fertility rune under my soup bowl.

I bring it to Julie. “Did you put them up to this?”

She snorts. “Oh yeah, I bribed half the staff and a forest deity for a camp-wide prank. How’d you guess?”

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