Chapter 6 Lacy #3
The silence stretches. Stone looks at his papers. At me. At the floor. Anywhere but directly meeting my eyes.
"So you're here to—"
"I don't know why I'm here." The admission bursts out.
"I don't know anything anymore. A week ago, my life made sense.
I had plans. Goals. A clear path forward.
Then you crashed through my awning and everything got complicated and now strangers on the internet are debating whether we're adorable or evidence of societal decline and the city might pull my grant funding and Evan's offering solutions that would fix everything if I just—"
"Step back." Stone finishes quietly. "From me."
"He didn't say that exactly."
"He didn't have to."
I sink into a chair. Exhausted suddenly. "The civic office wants to review my festival application. Because of the publicity. The tweets. Us."
Stone's jaw tightens. "I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong."
"I exist wrong. In their eyes."
"That's not—"
"It is." He sits across from me. Careful. Like approaching something skittish. "I'm orc. You're human. We cross boundaries people want kept solid. That makes us political whether we want to be or not."
He's right. I hate that he's right.
"Tess thinks I'm falling too fast. She's worried I'm repeating old patterns. Committing to complications because I can't help myself."
"Are you?"
The question sits between us. Honest. Necessary.
Am I falling for Stone because he's real? Or because he's exactly the kind of impossible choice I always make when I'm scared of actually being happy?
"I don't know," I admit. "I felt something with you that first night. Something big. But maybe that's just chemistry. Maybe Tess is right and I'm confusing intensity with substance."
Stone looks at his hands. They're scarred, massive, incongruous against the cheap laminate table. I remember those hands on my skin. Gentle despite their size. Learning me like I was something precious.
"When I was young," he says slowly, "my father told me orcs don't do human love.
We're practical. We choose mates based on strength, compatibility, shared goals.
Love comes after, if it comes at all. But I always wanted the human way.
The falling. The madness. The choosing someone because your heart demands it even when your head knows better. "
He looks up. Meets my eyes.
"I came here hoping to find that. Hoping maybe humans would let me be foolish in ways orcs don't allow. Then I met you and thought—" He stops. Swallows. "I thought maybe I could have it. The mad, illogical, completely impractical thing poets write about."
My chest aches. "Stone."
"But if you need practical, I understand. Your life is complicated. I make it worse. Evan offers solutions. Stability. Everything you actually need versus what you want in moments that feel big but might just be temporary."
"Is that what you think this is? Temporary?"
"I don't know. You're the one who went to brunch with your ex and came here looking lost."
Fair. Painfully fair.
I reach across the table. Take his hand. It engulfs mine, warm and solid.
"I'm terrified," I say. "Of losing the bookstore. Of proving Tess right. Of falling for you and having it blow up in my face like every other time I've chosen heart over head. But I'm also terrified of walking away from something that feels this real because I'm too scared to trust it."
"What feels real to you?" His voice is soft. Careful.
"You do. This does. Us." I squeeze his fingers. "Even when it's complicated and messy and potentially career-ending. Even when strangers tweet about us and city officials clutch pearls and my best friend warns me I'm repeating patterns. It still feels more true than anything safe Evan's offering."
Stone's expression shifts. Hope mixing with caution.
"But?"
"But I need to figure out if I'm choosing you because you're right or because you're difficult. If that makes sense."
"It does." He turns my hand over. Traces my palm with one careful finger. "I don't want to be your rebellion. Or your mistake. I want to be your choice."
"You are."
"Even if it costs you the grant? The festival? Evan's money?"
I think about Aunt Rene's words. About breaking dishes and slapping biscuits and choosing the real thing even when it's scary.
"I built that bookstore from nothing. Me. Not Evan. Not anyone else. And if I lose it because I chose something true over something safe, at least I'll know I went down fighting for what matters."
"The bookstore matters."
"You matter too."
The words hang there. Simple. Enormous.
Stone shifts his chair closer. Cups my face with both hands. His thumb brushes my cheekbone.
"I want to kiss you. But I need to know you're sure. Because if I kiss you now, I'm not stepping back. I'm fighting for this. For us. Even when it's hard."
My heart hammers. "I'm sure."
He kisses me. Slow and deep and nothing like the frantic need from before. This is deliberate. A promise shaped like lips and tongue and the small sound he makes when I thread fingers through his hair.
When we break apart, I'm breathless.
"Okay," I say. "So we're doing this. The complicated, public, potentially disastrous thing."
"Apparently." The word comes out half-laugh, half-disbelief.
"People will talk." Stone's voice is careful, giving me space to back out if I need it.
"They're already talking." I gesture vaguely at my silent phone, at the world beyond these walls that won't stop having opinions about us.
"The city might pull my funding." Saying it aloud makes it more real, more terrifying. The grants office email sits in my inbox like a ticking bomb.
"We'll figure it out." He says it with such quiet certainty that I almost believe him.
"Evan thinks I'm making a mistake." I hate how his opinion still matters, still worms its way under my skin even now.
"Evan can shove his opinions somewhere anatomically uncomfortable."
I laugh. Surprised. "That's very human of you."
"I'm learning." He grins. Crooked. Devastating. "Besides, I have opinions about him too. Want to hear the orc version?"
"Desperately."
He launches into a description involving livestock, questionable parentage, and several phrases I'm fairly certain don't translate properly. I laugh until my sides hurt. Until the fear loosens its grip.
My phone buzzes. More notifications. More opinions. More strangers invested in our story.
I silence it.
"I need to call the grants office Monday," I say. "Figure out what 'review' actually means."
"I'll come with you."
"You don't have to."
"I want to." He stands, pulls me up with him. "We're in this together now. Whatever happens."
Together. The word settles warmly in me.
My phone vibrates again. I glance at it despite myself.
Evan.
Thought about my offer? Happy to discuss details whenever you're ready.
I should feel grateful. He's offering a lifeline when I'm drowning. But all I feel is tired of his particular brand of rescue. The kind that comes with strings and expectations and subtle reminders that I owe him for his generosity.
Stone reads over my shoulder. "What are you going to tell him?"
"The truth."
I type quickly before I lose my nerve, thumbs moving across the screen with more certainty than I feel.
Thanks for the offer. I'm going to pass. I need to figure this out on my own terms.
Send.
My stomach twists as the message disappears into the digital void. There's no taking it back now. No leaving the door open for Evan's convenient rescue package with all its hidden costs and unspoken expectations.
His response comes fast. Almost too fast, like he was sitting there waiting, already composing his reply before I'd even decided.
You're making a mistake. Call me when you realize that.
I show Stone, turning the phone so he can read Evan's presumptuous certainty. He snorts, that rough orcish sound that's become oddly endearing.
"Confidence. Attractive quality."
"Right?" I shake my head, feeling lighter somehow despite everything crumbling around us.
Another message buzzes through before I can pocket the phone. This one from Tess.
Damage control meeting tomorrow. My place. Ten AM. Bring coffee and your orc. We're fixing this mess.
I show Stone the screen again, watching his expression shift from amusement to something more guarded. "She wants to help."
"She hated me last week." His voice is carefully neutral, but I catch the uncertainty underneath.
"She's protective. It's different from hate." I reach up, touching his arm. "She's my best friend. She just needed time to see what I see."
"If you say so." Still skeptical, but willing to trust my judgment.
I relax against him, letting myself sink into his warmth and solidity. Real. Present. Mine in a way that feels both brand new and ancient, like something I've been searching for without knowing what I was looking for.
"This is going to get worse before it gets better," I say quietly, voicing the truth we've both been dancing around.
"Probably." No false reassurances. Just honesty.
"The tweets. The scrutiny. The city making examples of us." I catalogue the disasters waiting in the wings. "Councilwoman Blair will use every sound bite, every screenshot, every misstep to prove her point."
"Yes." His arms tighten around me.
"You could still walk away. Find a different placement.
Avoid the mess." The words hurt coming out, but I force myself to say them anyway.
To give him the exit I'm not sure I could take if our positions were reversed.
"Start fresh somewhere that doesn't have angry internet mobs and politicians looking for ammunition. "
He wraps his arms around me more firmly, solid and immovable. "Could. Won't."
"Why not?"
"Because I want the mad thing. The impractical, illogical, completely unreasonable thing. With you." He kisses the top of my head. "Even if it breaks dishes."
I smile against his chest. "Aunt Rene would like you."
"Your aunt sounds terrifying."
"She is. You'll love her."
We stand like that. Holding each other while my phone continues its futile buzzing. The world demanding attention, opinions, justifications for choices that are ours alone.
Let them talk.
Let Evan offer his conditional rescue.
Let the city review and scrutinize and make their judgments.
I've spent too long choosing safe over true. Practical over real.
Not anymore.