Page 68 of Grumpy Pucking Orc
“Tough day at work?” Abby teased her.
“If it’s not a tough day, then I’m not working hard enough,” she shot back with a grin. “You hate crappy PR; I hate unfocused and inadequate sports training.”
“And Jordan hates poor dental hygiene.” Abby held out her empty beer cup and I tapped it with mine in agreement.
“Shall we drown our sorrows at a nearby pub?” Willa asked as we got to our feet and gathered up our coats and purses.
“I’m game,” Abby chimed in.
“Me too.” I’d spent the morning with Ozar, and while I did want to see him tonight, I knew he’d probably be here at the arena for at least another few hours. Maybe he could meet me at my house. Or I could go to his.
Or maybe I was going too darned fast with this whole thing.
Luckily, Willa steered us over to McHenry’s where we’d met the orcs after their last game. Just in case this wasn’t a team routine, I sent a text to Ozar, letting him know that we appreciated the tickets and how much we’d enjoyed the game. It ended up being a stupidly long post in which I rambled about how unmatched they were against the Maple Leafs, how proud I was of the team’s performance and improvements since last week, and expressing confidence that they were on the right track to an eventual win.
Staring at the text before hitting send, I realized it read like I was cheering on a toddler who’d just lost a pee-wee soccer game. Yes, the loss sucked, but Ozar was a grown man. He’d fought minotaurs and other scary beings. He didn’t need a participation trophy from me to make him feel better.
So, I deleted most of the text, sending my thanks, a briefcommiseration for their loss, and an invitation to dinner tomorrow night. Then I shoved my phone into my purse and focused on enjoying the rest of the evening with my friends.
Chapter 29
Ozar
Istared down at a tray full of water-insects. They were covered in some sort of spicy-smelling orange powder and had arrived at our table with small plastic cups of hot yellowish liquid. Jordan and I were dining outdoors at a river-side establishment. The temperature had dropped, and all the humans were wearing several layers of clothing even with the pillar-shaped heaters scattered throughout dining area. The chill wasn’t dampening anyone’s enthusiasm. Conversation and frequent laughter filled the air as a band tested their amplification system in the corner. The sun had almost vanished from the sky, but boats still came in to dock, disgorging their passengers to enjoy an evening of food and drink.
The drink was good. I wasn’t so sure about the food, though.
Glancing around, I noticed that most of the humans had also ordered the water-insects which Jordan had said were pretty much the official food of the state.
“Let me show you how to eat these.” Jordan grabbed one of the insects from the tray and held it up by the largestset of legs. “Start with the claws. You want to crack the joint here, then twist and gently pull apart.”
She demonstrated and the claw separated from the insect’s body, pulling a thick wad of white flesh with it. Picking up one of the creatures, I mimicked her movements and snapped the claw off without the white flesh.
“Is mine empty?” I scowled, thinking that the restaurant was ripping us off, selling us carapaces without meat.
“No, you just have to be gentler. Crack the shell, but don’t break the claw all the way off. Then gently twist and pull. If the meat doesn’t come out, then you’ll just get it when you open up the body.”
This had to be the strangest meal I’d ever had. Humans had many foods in common with us, and we weren’t opposed to eating large insect-like creatures, but we would never go to this much trouble for such a small amount of food.
“Here.”
Jordan dipped the white flesh in the yellow liquid and shoved it toward my mouth. I was in love, so I didn’t hesitate to eat it.
She watched expectantly, hopefully, as I chewed and swallowed.
“Butter?” I’d only spread the stuff on bread and hadn’t recognized it in the melted form.
“Some people don’t bother with the butter,” she explained. “And others like to butter, then add extra Old Bay Seasoning. Personally, I think that’s too much Old Bay, that it overwhelms the flavor of the crab, but that’s pretty close to a heretical sentiment here in Maryland. The Maryland natives believe you can never have too much Old Bay.”
“It’s very good,” I reluctantly admitted. The flesh was mild and sweet and tender with a rich peppery spice anda faint brackish, salty tang. It tasted like nothing I’d ever eaten in my life. I wished I could bring these home to my clan to show them that the flavor was worth the effort.
Half an hour later, I wasn’t sure that the flavorwastruly worth the effort. The next time Jordan wanted us to go out for crabs, I would need to remember to eat a full dinner beforehand because I would starve if I needed to fulfill my evening caloric needs with these water-insects. Those tiny little legs were absolutely not worth bothering with. It was a struggle to release what amounted to a splinter-sized piece of meat. The body was a bit more satisfying in terms of sustenance. Jordan advised me not to eat the gray bits that she called lungs and let me know that many people enjoyed eating the mustards, which were basically the innards of the creature. Jordan carefully scraped them aside, but I’d always been taught not to waste any edible part of an animal—to do so would be a disrespect to the creature who’d lost its life so you might survive—so I ate the mustards. And I liked them almost as much as the flesh.
As we took the last two crabs from the tray, my stomach growled, and I wondered if we might stop off for something more filling after we left here. Before I could voice my request, our server was back with yet another tray of the water-insects.
Jordan quit a few crabs into our second tray, sipping her beer and nibbling on the balls of fried bread that the server had also brought us. “Hush puppies,” she’d called them, explaining that the story behind the name was that you could throw them to a barking dog who would be silent as they ate the bread. I didn’t know much about dogs, but from what Bwat said about the ones at the shelter, canines would be silent if given just about any item of food.
As we ate, we talked. She spoke more about her childhoodhome and her family, telling me that while she missed them, she enjoyed living in Baltimore. She loved the rivers, the Bay, being close to the ocean and the mountains. And she loved that the weather wasn’t as harsh as back in Buffalo.
