Page 25 of My Ogre Husband
After we’ve placed our orders for food, I notice the ogress playing darts is watching us with a sideways smile on her face.
“Hey,” she says, sidling over to our table. She’s completely focused on Egorr, as if she’s greeting only him. “What’s your name?”
I balk. Egorr, too, seems startled at the stranger approaching us.
“Egorr,” he answers automatically.
She extends her hand to shake, and after a moment’s hesitation, he takes it. Where Egorr’s big hand dwarfs mine, theirs are about evenly matched.
“Do you want to play darts with us?” the ogress asks. “My friend is beating me handily, and I want to show him ogres aren’t all slouches.”
I suppose that’s why she’s here talking to Egorr in the first place. He did say there aren’t many ogres in the world, so this must be a pretty uncommon circumstance.
Egorr glances over at me, then back up at the ogress.
“I’m not very good at darts, either,” he says amiably. “Well, I haven’t really tried.”
“Come on, just give it a go.” She winks. “You might be a pro and you don’t even know it yet.”
I’m silently asking Egorr to turn her down. We’re here to hang out together and eat dinner, not to play darts with strangers. I can tell, though, that he’s undecided.
“All right,” Egorr says eventually, standing up. My heart sinks. “But my girlfriend wants to play, too, right? Maddie?”
I swallow down how annoyed I feel, because I want to be a good, fun girlfriend, not a stick in the mud.
“Sure.”
Maybe it won’t be so bad, and I’m just being territorial. We could even make some friends, as I don’t get the sense Egorr has many of those.
The ogress gives me a flat smile. “We can all play,” she agrees. Then she offers Egorr a handful of darts, held together with a rubber band, and nods to the dartboard. “Let’s show this lion what ogres are made of, huh?”
Egorr gets up and I follow to join them in front of the dartboards. As a side thought, the ogress hands me a bundle of darts, too, and her eyes glaze over me like I’m not even there.
I thought monsters out in the world would be scary—not rude. But I have to remember Egorr doesn’t see his own kind much, and this could be good for him.
The lion man crosses his arms and leans against the wall while Egorr lines up with the dartboard, aiming his first dart. He throws it, and it bounces right off the board.
The ogress chuckles. “You have to put a little more force behind it,” she says. She steps up next to throw, and her dart hits near the outside of the dartboard.
The lion man tallies her score on a chalkboard, and then it’s my turn. While I aim my dart, I hear the ogress talking to Egorr.
“So, what do you do for work?”
“Oh, uh, I’m a computer guy.”
“What sort of computer guy?”
Egorr’s about to answer when I throw the dart, and I put my entire arm behind it. Just this movement makes the ache between my legs burn, but I’m not going to let that stop me. To my surprise, my dart lodges itself in the dartboard on the skinny ring closest to the bullseye, on the red wedge marked with a “20.”
The lion man lets out a whistle. “Wow. Sixty points on her first throw!” He gives me a nod of approval. “Not bad.”
The ogress is still too busy talking to Egorr to notice my high score. I prickle all over at how close she’s standing to him as they chit chat. But they probably have a lot in common, that’s all. More than Egorr and I do.
I grab my beer and take a big gulp, hoping the alcohol will calm me down, because heat is spreading rapidly across my body. I’m embarrassed and irritated at the same time.
“My turn,” the lion man announces, though I’m the only one paying attention to him. When he throws, he hits in the wedge marked with a “6.”
“Damn.” With a shake of his head, he adds our scores to the chalkboard.
