Page 62 of My Orc Has Big Tusks
I pulled it out and the screen lit up with my mother’s contact photo. The one with the bright Florida sky behind her, her smile even brighter.
I read the text once. Then again.
Honey I’ve been worried since you abandoned the partnership. Are you sure you want to sell? Decisions like this need time. And this new job. I’m not sure. I’d like to see what you’ve gotten yourself into. I’ll be there Friday. I’ll stay with you so you don’t need to worry about finding a hotel in that town we both know has no hotel.
The warmth that had been pooling in my stomach turned to lead.
“What’s wrong?” Brovish asked.
“My mother.” I stared at the screen. “She’s coming Friday. She wants to see what I’vegotten myself into.”
He straightened, his expression going guarded. “Your mother is welcome here.”
“She didn’t ask to visit.” My thumb hovered over the screen without pressing anything. “She informed me. That’s different.”
He was quiet for a moment. “This is not how caring is shown in the kingdom.”
“It’s how she shows it.” I shoved the phone back into my pocket. “She left when I was eleven. Moved to Florida and started a new family. Now she likes to arrive unannounced and share her opinions about my life choices.”
His hands had dropped away from the table.
“What will you tell her?” he asked. “About this place? About—” He gestured between us, the motion uncertain.
About us. That’s what he wasn’t saying.
“I don’t know yet.” The honesty tasted bitter. “She’s going to have questions. A lot of them.”
The door opened again.
Drogar stuck his head in, his earlier enthusiasm dimming quickly by whatever he read on our faces.
“The fizzlings truly cannot wait much longer,” he said. “They’re creating a concerning amount of static charge in close quarters.”
I pushed off the table. “Right. Let’s get them examined.”
Brovish didn’t move right away. He watched me with an expression I couldn’t read, one between concern and retreat. “Laina?—”
“We should handle the intakes.” I couldn’t look at him. If I did, I’d see the questions forming, and I didn’t have answers yet. “Before they short-circuit something.”
I walked past him toward the door, and I felt the exact moment he let me go.
Traig and Drogar waited in the exam room next door with the crate of fizzlings sitting on the table.
Traig nodded my way and tapped on his tablet. “The fizzlings are siblings, from the Valadar region. The family couldn’t keep them once they started building a shared charge. It was too much for them.”
I leaned closer, studying the yellow and pink striped ferret-shaped creatures. Electricity zipped across their fur. They clustered together near the far side of the crate, tiny arcs of static crackling between their glowing stripes.
“Are they friendly?” I asked.
“Unless you’re a wallodroop,” Drogar said. “They’re sworn enemies.”
Krem’s lips thinned. “If the wallodroops would stop dumping water on the fizzlings, putting out their sparks, they might make friends.”
“We don’t have any wallodroops here,” Brovish said.
“Yet,” Krem added.
“If we ever do, we’ll keep them apart.”
