12. Grath
GRATH
Istand near the counter, trying not to take up too much space while the town packs in around us. Someone brought champagne. Someone else brought a cake shaped like a cat. The kitten sits on the espresso machine like a tiny dictator surveying loyal subjects.
Maris weaves through the crowd with practiced ease, accepting congratulations and hugs and offers of help rebuilding what the developer tried to tear down. Her cheeks are flushed, her hair escaping its bun in wild strands. She catches my eye across the room and smiles.
My chest does something stupid. Something warm and tight and permanent.
"Speech!" someone shouts. The crowd picks it up, chanting until Maris raises her hands in surrender.
"Okay, okay." She climbs onto a chair, wobbles, and I move instinctively to steady it. Her hand lands on my shoulder for balance. "Thank you all for coming. And for believing in us. In this place. In what we're trying to build here."
Applause erupts. She waits for it to die down.
"I also want to thank Grath." She looks down at me. "Who broke my doorframe, scared off three delivery drivers, and somehow convinced a kitten to become the most viral marketing campaign I've ever accidentally launched."
Laughter ripples through the crowd. My face heats.
"He also saved our home. All of our homes. So maybe we forgive him for the doorframe."
More applause. Someone claps me on the back hard enough that I have to brace myself. The goblin courier from my makeshift team starts a chant of my name that I desperately want to stop but also maybe never want to end.
Maris steps down. The crowd shifts, breaking into smaller conversations, and she tugs me toward the back hallway.
"Come here."
I follow. I'd follow her anywhere at this point, which should terrify me but mostly just feels inevitable.
She pulls me into the storeroom and closes the door. The noise from the party muffles to a dull roar.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi."
She's still holding my hand. I peer at our fingers, tangled together, hers small and calloused and perfect.
"I have a proposition," she says. Her thumb brushes across my knuckles, a deliberate gesture that makes my pulse kick up.
My heart lurches hard against my ribs. The word comes out before I can think. "Yes."
She looks up at me, eyebrows raised, mouth quirking at the corner. "You don't even know what it is yet."
I squeeze her hand gently, careful not to crush those small fingers. "Still yes."
She laughs, the sound soft and private. "The rowhouse next door is mine. I bought it years ago when old Mr. Boris moved to live with his daughter. I was going to expand the café eventually, but." She pauses. "I think I'd rather have a neighbor I like."
I look at her. Really look. The hope in her eyes. The careful way she's holding herself, like she's braced for rejection.
"You're offering me a home," I say slowly.
"I'm offering you permanent residency. Rent's negotiable. Repairs are your problem. The kitten gets visiting rights."
"Maris."
"And maybe." She takes a breath. "Maybe we could make it official. Not like, legally official. Just. Us official."
My brain stalls. "Official."
"A ceremony. Small. Stupid. The kitten can officiate since it's basically responsible for this whole mess anyway."
I acknowledge her. She fidgets, picking at her apron.
"Is that. Do orcs even do ceremonies? I don't want to assume. We can skip it if it's weird or if you think it's too fast or—"
I kiss her. Hard and sudden and probably too rough but she makes a small sound and kisses me back and I pour everything I can't say into it. All the terror and hope and stupid desperate love that I've been carrying since the first time I saw her scowl at a hissing kitten.
When we break apart, she's breathless.
"Is that a yes?" she asks.
"That's a yes to everything. The home. The ceremony. The kitten's visiting rights. All of it."
Her smile could power the entire city.
"Good." She straightens my collar, which I didn't realize was crooked. "Because I already told my best friend and she's planning something involving flower crowns and possibly a folk band."
"Flower crowns."
"You're going to look ridiculous."
"I don't care."
And I don't. I'd wear a thousand flower crowns if it meant I got to keep this. Keep her.
She kisses me again, softer this time. The party continues beyond the door. The kitten probably needs rescuing from overeager admirers. There's cleanup to do, plans to make, a future to build.
But for now, in this small cluttered storeroom that smells like coffee beans and cardboard, I let myself have this moment.
I let myself have her.
The last of the guests trickle out near midnight. Maris locks the door behind them and leans against it with a long exhale.
"Never again," she says.
"You said that after the fundraiser."
"This time I mean it." She turns, surveying the chaos. Plates and cups everywhere. Champagne stains on the floor. The kitten asleep in a nest of napkins.
I start gathering dishes. She joins me, and we work in comfortable silence, establishing a rhythm. She washes, I dry. The hot water makes her cheeks flush.
"Leave the rest," she says eventually. "I can't look at another fork."
"You sure?"
"Positive." She dries her hands on a towel, then looks at me. Really looks. Something shifts in her expression. Softens and sharpens all at once.
My pulse kicks up.
"Come here," she says quietly.
I set down the dish I'm holding and cross to her. She tilts her head back to meet my eyes, and I'm struck again by how small she is. How perfectly she fits against me when I pull her close.
"We're really doing this," she says. Not a question.
"We're really doing this."
She reaches up, fingers brushing my jaw. I turn into the touch, pressing a kiss to her palm. She shivers.
"I want you," she says. Simple and direct, the way she says most things when she stops overthinking.
Heat floods through me. "Here?"
"Here. Now. Before I lose my nerve and start making lists of all the reasons this is impractical."
I laugh, low and rough. "The kitchen is very small."
"You'll manage."
She's already tugging at my shirt. I help her, pulling it over my head and tossing it aside. Her hands splay across my chest, exploring. When her fingers trace one of my scars, I tense.
"These hurt?" she asks.
"Not anymore."
"Good." She leans in, pressing her mouth to the raised tissue. My breath catches. "Because I'm going to kiss every single one until you believe me when I say you're beautiful."
My throat tightens. "Maris."
"Shh." Another kiss, lower this time. "Let me."
So I do. I let her map me with her mouth, cataloging scars and muscle and all the parts of me I learned to think of as ugly or shameful. She treats each one like treasure. Like something worth keeping.
When I can't take it anymore, I catch her chin and tilt her face up. Her eyes are dark, pupils blown wide.
"My turn," I tell her.
I lift her onto the counter. She gasps, grabbing my shoulders for balance. The kitten stirs, opens one eye, and relocates to a safer distance with an annoyed chirp.
"Rude," Maris mutters.
I grin and kiss her throat. She arches into it, and I take my time working my way down. The buttons of her shirt give way under my fingers. She's not wearing anything underneath. My brain short-circuits.
"You're staring," she says.
"You're perfect."
"I'm average. Completely normal."
"Perfect," I insist, cupping her breasts. They fit my palms exactly. When I brush my thumbs over her nipples, she makes a sound that goes straight to my cock.
"Grath."
"Tell me what you want."
"You. I want you."
I kiss her, deep and claiming, and she hooks her legs around my waist. The angle presses us together, friction and heat even through layers of fabric.
We fumble with the rest of our clothes. Her jeans stick at her ankles. My belt buckle won't cooperate. She laughs, breathless and bright, and I drink in the sound.
Finally, skin against skin. She's warm and soft and fits against me like she was designed for exactly this.
"You're sure?" I ask, even though my control is hanging by a thread.
"I've never been more sure of anything."
I slide into her slowly, watching her face. Her eyes flutter closed. Her mouth opens on a silent gasp. When I'm fully seated, she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me down for a kiss.
"Move," she demands against my mouth.
So I do. Slow at first, letting her adjust, then harder when she digs her nails into my shoulders and demands more. The counter creaks. A mug crashes to the floor. We don’t care.
I lose myself in the rhythm, in the feel of her around me, the sounds she makes, the way she says my name like a prayer and a curse.
"Touch me," she gasps.
I slide my hand between us, finding the place that makes her whole body tense. She's slick and hot and perfect. I work her with steady pressure while keeping the pace of my thrusts deep and deliberate.
"Don't stop. Don't—"
She comes apart in my arms, clenching around me, and I follow seconds later. The pleasure slams through me, whiting out everything but her name on my lips.
We stay tangled together while our breathing evens out. Her head rests on my shoulder. My arms cradle her close.
"The table survived," she says eventually.
I laugh. "Barely."
"Worth it."
"Absolutely worth it."
She pulls back enough to look at me. Her hair is a disaster. Her lips are swollen. She's never looked more beautiful.
"I love you," she says. Matter of fact. Sure.
My chest does that stupid tight warm thing again.
"I love you too."
She smiles and kisses me, slow and sweet. The kitten meows from its nest of napkins, demanding attention.
"Moment ruiner," Maris accuses.
The kitten chirps, unbothered.
We clean up, eventually. Get dressed. Bring the kitten home to Maris's tiny apartment above the café. Fall into bed together with the kitten wedged between us like a tiny chaperone.
And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I fall asleep not bracing for loss.