11. Ellie #2
I lowered the rest of my bread back to my plate and kept my gaze on my food. “The point is, you don’t need to keep doing this. I’m all grown up.”
He reached out and ruffled my hair, something he’d been doing to me since I was eight and him twelve, and we’d been neighbors and friends after my parents had moved to the orc kingdom to study their culture. “Even when you’re ninety, I’m going to be your protective older brother.”
“I’m not interested in Brashe.”
“Don’t protest too loudly.”
“I don’t do players.”
“Hockey players in general or those who fool around?”
I shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
Crim’s eyebrows rose. “And you think Brashe is both?”
“I just mean… Haley mentioned he doesn’t actually date much. So did Veskar. And I’ve seen him in the park, giving food to people.”
Crim went very still, his spoon suspended in midair. “You’ve been paying that much attention to him?”
“I’m observant. It comes to me naturally.” I held up my hand before he could speak. “You don’t need to worry. I wouldn’t give him the time of day. He has been so incredibly stupid.” All the fury from earlier rose at once, aiming for the same target.
“I’m not disagreeing in general, but this feels…newer than the picnic. What has he done now and can I kill him for you?”
“Stop. No killing.”
“It’s the orc way.”
“We’re on the surface, not back in the orc kingdom.”
“So I’ll just wound him badly, then.”
“Crim,” I warned.
“Tell me what he did, and then I’ll decide.”
“I gave him a treatment plan for his injury. A child could follow it. And he went and skated on a grade one strain because he thought he knew better than me. Not once, but twice!”
Crim winced. “Ah. That explains the text from Coach.”
“He’s out for at least two games now. All because he couldn’t do as he was told for a few days.”
Crim stirred his stew in that methodical way he did when he was thinking.
“He’s scared of not being enough,” he said with a sigh.
“Brashe isn’t like the rest of us. We grew up with families who told us we mattered outside of hockey.
He grew up in the orc equivalent of a group home.
Hockey was his way out. In his mind, his worth is tied to what he can do in the net. If he can’t play—”
“He thinks he disappears, that he means nothing.”
Crim nodded. “Yeah. Glad you understand.”
“He mentioned something like this.”
My brother grunted.
We ate a bit more. The khesva was rich and savory, but I barely tasted it.
“I felt bad about the picnic, you know,” Crim said quietly, staring at his plate. “But I shouldn’t have said anything. You’re right. You can protect yourself. And you’re an adult.”
“You love me. I’d do the same for you.”
He took my hand and curled the fingers into a fist. “With a fist that I did teach you to use.”
“You know I would never want to hit anyone.”
“Except one idiot orc.”
“Well, maybe him, though not too hard.”
“The thing is, I saw you walking up to him at the picnic, and my gaze met his, and I saw the change on his face. I suspected if you reached out, he was going to turn you down. But I didn’t want you to get involved and end up hurt.”
“I wish you’d let me make my own mistakes.”
“I know. I’m sorry. So if he made you feel rejected, it was because he saw me watching. Not because of anything you did.”
“Ah.”
Crim’s eyes met mine. “I saw his face when you walked away. He looked like I’d just crosschecked him into the boards. And then he spent the rest of the season asking about you in that casual way that wasn’t casual at all.”
The picnic rearranged itself in my head.
Not like puzzle pieces clicking into place.
More like someone had taken the whole picture and turned it upside down.
His face when I’d walked away. That’s cute.
The way he’d looked past me, not at me. I’d thought he was dismissing me.
But now it seemed he’d been looking at Crim and that whole moment had nothing to do with my body, my dress, or my stupid opening line, and everything to do with the scowling orc brother sitting twenty feet away.
“Maybe don’t be so rough on him,” Crim said. “I think I’m part of why it happened.”
“He’s still an idiot.”
Crim’s grin returned. “Oh, for sure. But he’s an idiot who’s been looking at you like you’re wonderful since you started working for the team.”
“I kicked him out of the treatment room today.”
“Good. He deserved it.” He tilted his head. “Should I let him keep his legs or…?”
“He’ll need his legs to play in the goal.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “I guess so. Kind of hard to play on stubs.”
“The team needs him.”
He dropped his hand onto mine sitting on the table. “I don’t care about the team. I care about you and your feelings. If you say you want revenge, I’m all over it. No one hurts you while I’m around.”
“Thank you.”
We finished dinner, talking about the upcoming playoff games, his parents, and mutual friends who’d moved away or had orclings. Normal sibling stuff, a conversation we’d had a hundred times.
But my brain was stuck on what Crim had said.
Before I left, he hugged me. He had to bend down; I had to stretch up on my toes. His arms wrapped around me the way they had since I was fourteen and drowning in grief.
“Take care of yourself,” he said, his hand on the knob, about to open the door. “Stay away from Brashe and things should work out fine.”
“I have to work with him until he’s back in play.”
He rested his hands on my shoulders. “If he messes up again, I’ll hand you my broadsword, and you can chop off his legs.”
I drove home with the windows down, letting the cold air sting my face.
Brashe had been asking about me all season. Crim said he’d looked stunned when I walked away.
He hadn’t turned me down because I was…well, me. The thought lodged in my throat like I’d tried to swallow a slice of Crim’s bread whole. I’d carried Brashe’s rejection for ten months, letting it confirm every shitty thing I’d ever believed about myself.
And it hadn’t even been about me.
Marzipan was waiting on the back of the couch when I got home. She meowed, demanding her evening attention.
I sank down on the sofa and buried my face in her long, gray fur.
She tolerated it for about twelve seconds before jumping down and stalking away with her tail high.
“You’re right,” I told her retreating form. “I’m a mess.”
My phone buzzed with a text, and I jumped.
The message was from Brashe. I iced my hip like you told me to.
My thumb hovered over the screen.
I should ignore him.
But some traitorous part of me remembered him folding and refolding my instruction sheet until the paper went soft.
I typed back before I could stop myself. Good. Don’t make me regret giving you my personal number.
His response came through right away. Too late for that?
I stared at the screen. My face did something I couldn’t control. Not quite a smile, more like my mouth forgot how to hold its defensive line.
Instead of replying, I got up and went to feed my cat. But my hands shook while I opened a can of wet food and scooped some into Marzipan’s bowl.
I’d spent ten months believing I was a punchline. I’d let that belief dictate how I moved through the world. I’d been wrong, though not about everything. Brashe was still an idiot who’d ignored medical advice and benched himself days before the playoffs. He’d still chosen to be dishonest with me.
But the look on his face today when I’d kicked him out still lingered.
I should’ve told you the truth at the picnic. I should’ve…
His incomplete text sat in my messages like a ghost.
I poured myself a glass of water and stood at the kitchen window, looking out at the row of buildings behind.
The yellow dress was still in the back of my closet.
I hadn’t been able to throw it away, even though I’d wanted to.
Every time I saw it, I remembered how I’d felt walking across that pavilion, hopeful and brave and stupidly confident that I could make someone see me.
Maybe I had made him see me. And that could be the whole problem.
Marzipan rubbed against my leg, her purr rumbling through her chest.
“I don’t know what to do with this,” I told her.
She butted her head against my calf, which I chose to interpret as solidarity rather than a demand for treats or a second dinner.