Page 45 of First Comes Orc, Second Comes Baby
“Are you done?” she asked the Orc once he paused to draw in another healthy breath.
At least their kid would have a good set of lungs.
Brahnt turned on his heels and stalked towards Charlotte. “Am I done?” He asked the question too softly.
Charlotte eyed him, unimpressed. The Orc melodrama was fun except when she was tired. “You're right.”
Brahnt opened his mouth, then snapped it shut and narrowed his eyes. “What?”
“You're right. I can't keep doing this. I'm having worse than normal nausea and vertigo. I accept that. I'm going to have to sit the rest of the season out.”
Brahnt blinked, suspicion leaking out of his pores as he deflated. “You've decided to be reasonable. That saves me some trouble.”
She bet. Like bribing the board of directors, or maybe staging a hostile takeover of the company so he had the right to boss her around.
“That doesn't mean I'm going to stay home in bed all day working on my pregnancy weight gain.”
Brahnt paused, tilting his head. “What's wrong with that?” He bared his teeth in a. . .smile. “I like meat.”
She ran her hand over her face. One battle at a time.
Just one. At a time.
Charlotte didn't spend the rest of the week in bed, but she might as well have. Bed, the couch, sprawled on the floor, even sitting on the kitchen table one time because she was so bored out of her mind.
She'd had some type of job since she was a kid, first at Dairy Queen, then the car wash, then the Community Center where she'd taken her first ballet classes.
And it had all gone downhill from there.
Caro came over a couple of times to keep her company, but well, Caro would deviate from her writing routine only through divine intervention. Which meant Caro sat at the kitchen table with her headphones on listening to focus music as she dictated her latest story.
Which was fun listening to, but Charlotte had heard them all before.
“I’m as bad as you are,” Charlotte told her twin—who didn’t look up. “I have no life outside of my career. I need to find something to do.”
Or someone.
“I wonder if Brahnt is busy this time of day?”
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The answer to that,of course, was a big fat yes. Because it took a lot to irritate Charlotte, she chose to be amused that it took fifteen minutes and six different reroutes before she got through to Brahnt.
“What's wrong, Charlotte?” the Orc said, a thread of irritation in his calm voice. “Why are you calling my business line and not my cell? You would have gotten through on my personal line faster.”
“Could be worse. I could have DMed you on Insta.”
On her back, staring at the ceiling, listening to Caro’s theatrical voice in the background—her twin dictated like she was reading an audiobook or a play—Charlotte shrugged.
“Get your dog, Charlotte,” Caro yelled from the kitchen, “I’m trying to work and she’s bugging me.”
“Snowkiss,” Charlotte called, then put the phone back to her mouth. “I’m bored. If you're making me give up work, you have to suffer the consequences along with me.”
There was a beat of silence. “I guess there are more questionable ways you could amuse yourself, as you’ve proved, but really. Don't you have anything else to do? A hobby? Friends available this time of day?”
Charlotte put the cell on speaker and began thumbing through her contacts. Snowkiss ran across the open room and put her paws on Charlotte’s chest before she settled on her back, asking for a tummy rub.
“One or two,” Charlotte said, absently complying with the dog’s demands. The one or two were mostly exes, okay, they were both exes, but what Brahnt didn't know didn't have to piss him off. Though why should it? The exes were just friends now.
