Page 8 of Geeky Pucking Orc

“Traveling all of my childhood means I love to see and learn new things. Coming here was not jarring or unsettling, it was what my dreams are made of.”

She tilted her head. “But you’re here to find a wife, right? And you’ll go back home once you find her?”

I shrugged. “I could stay here with my wife or bring her to my home. There are so many things to learn and do here that I would be happy to stay. I would also be happy to show her all the things in my homeland. It’s exciting to experience the familiar through someone who sees it all for the first time.”

“Bwat, that’s amazingly wise. What a great way to live your life. I hope you find a woman who has the same outlook.”

Abby glanced at her watch again, but I was desperate to keep her here with me. “What about you? Tell me about your childhood.”

She stiffened and sat upright, making me regret the question. After a few seconds of hesitation, she answered, though.

“It was just my mom and me growing up. My dad left when I was an infant and neither of us saw or heard from him ever again. We moved in with my grandparents for a few years, then into an inexpensive, one-bedroom apartment. Mom worked two jobs, and sometimes three during the holidays when she could pick up a shift on her off days. I loved the times when she was home, but most days that was just a kiss after I was already asleep or a bowl of cereal and a note when I woke up in the morning. The neighbors looked after me and made sure I got off to school and got home when I was supposed to, but that was it.”

I reached out, unable to stop myself from taking her hand. To my surprise, she let me.

“Abby, I am so sorry. Your mother sounds like a good person who was doing her best.” There were orc families back home that had gone through the same. A parent who had been killed while hunting or patrolling the borders. A parent who died in the plague. Thankfully our communities always helped so the remaining parent did not need to work all hours just to put food on their plates.

Abby swiped under one eye with a finger of the hand I was not holding. “She is a good person. I owe her everything. She taught me to be strong, and that I was smart and could do anything I wanted in the world. She taught me that I should never rely on anyone but myself.”

Her last few words filled me with sadness. It was important to have the skills to provide for yourself, but life also involved building a community of those you could rely upon, those who could rely upon you. Did Abby not have that? I saw her with her friends, and they seemed as if they were a community to me. But I didn’t fully understand humans. Maybe what I saw as close friendship was something less bonding, maybe even transactional.

Looking at her watch Abby sucked in a breath. “Shit. I’ve got to go. Can’t be late for the big pitch. Wish me luck, Bwat.”

I told her to have all the luck and watched as she walked with great speed through the stands around to where the owner’s suite stood. I didn’t stop watching her until she’d gone inside. The whole time I thought of Abby needing to take care of everything in her life by herself, without the support of anyone else.

I would return to the ice this afternoon to improve my skating, improve my ability to play this game, improve my ability to stop.

And tonight I would research these social media engagement content posting things and develop a plan. Then I would make sure I was the type of male Abby could trust, one she could rely upon.

I wanted to be the male that would help her believe she didn’t need to do everything by herself.

3

ABBY

Why did I tell Bwat all those things? Ugh, now I was going into this pitch session nervous, and emotionally wrecked from dredging up all the emotions from my childhood.

I could rely on my friends, but I was so careful not to ask, just in case they refused. It would crush me, even if they had a perfectly solid reason for not helping me out. So it was better not to ask at all. And while I one-hundred-percent could rely on my mom, I didn’t want to burden her after all she’d sacrificed when I was growing up.

It was okay. I could take care of myself. If my car broke down, I’d call AAA or a tow truck and an Uber. If a pipe burst under the sink, I knew where the shut-off valve was and had the phone number for the super on my fridge. If I was sick, Grubhub could deliver chicken noodle soup, and my bathroom cabinet was stocked with medicines. Life was easier when I didn’t need to worry someone wouldn’t show up when I was relying on them to do so.

I shook out my arms and blew out a breath, locking all of those anxieties in the back of my mind. I had a pitch to make, and the future of my career relied upon how well I could sell my abilities and the results I was promising. Most account managers would pitch branding, but I was going in a different direction.

If there was one thing I understood better than branding, it was spectacle.

Not the cheap kind—though that had its place—but the engineered kind. The kind that took something messy and unmanageable and turned it into something people lined up to see, talked about afterward, and paid to experience again. The kind of spectacle that looked effortless from the outside and required endless sleepless nights behind the scenes.

And I knew exactly what kind of man I was about to meet. Escallates Johnson was a demon. And the key to dealing with demons was knowing that they were not all the same. Just like us, they had different goals, ambitions, and motivations. Unlike us they had powers that made them lethally dangerous. Even with the angels laying down the law, demons found ways around those laws. But Escallates Johnson wasn’t a warmonger or a plague demon or one who structured his eternal existence around the sin of pride. No, this demon liked profit. And he liked entertainment.

Escallates Johnson didn’t just manage the Baltimore Tusks, he exhibited them.

The suite overlooking the arena wasn’t an office so much as an expensive viewing box. Glass walls allowed him to look down upon the action. The furniture was costly with an eye to comfort, but arranged to remind anyone who entered that they were there to perform.

And behind the desk was the demon himself.

He didn’t stand when I walked in. He didn’t need to. Presence radiated off him in a way that made the room feel smaller, tighter, like the air itself had been squeezed through a tube.

Demons could assume any number of forms, but from all the pictures I’d seen, Escallates Johnson had favored this particular appearance for the last thirty years. He was of middling height, dressed in a bespoke suit with a distinguished face that hadn’t changed in the last three decades. His skin was dark as polished walnut with a faint ember-glow beneath the surface. His nails were manicured. His expression was amused. Not polite amusement. Appraising amusement. Like I was already part of the show.