Page 20 of Single Pucking Orc

“You keep doing that,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Being the guy I don’t expect.” She held out her arms for the baby, and it looked like it cost her something. “Stop it. It’s annoying. Give me the genius before she recruits me into a cult.”

He handed Charlie over. Charlie went to her without a fuss, settling against the robe like she’d been doing it for months and immediately grabbing a fistful of dark wavy hair. Nora made a small resigned sound and he had to look away before she saw an expression that would not have helped his case.

“Diaper bag’s got everything. I’ll text the other information, and I’ll be back by nine-thirty. Nine-forty-five if there’s traffic on the⁠—”

“Nine-thirty. Go do your little skating.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. She did all the work.”

“She really did.” He looked down at his daughter, who was chewing her fist with the serene confidence of somebody who had never lost a negotiation in her life. “You should know she’s completely without shame.”

“I noticed.”

“Bring it up with her. She doesn’t listen to me.”

The locker room found out at six-fifty-two, roughly eleven seconds after he came through the door. He’d known it was coming and had still underestimated it. Fen, the youngest member of the team, got there first, jumping up on the bench, both arms in the air.

“THE FATHER RETURNS.”

“Sit down.”

“I have questions. I have a list of questions. I wrote them in the newsletter.”

“There is no newsletter,” said Tarmek, from the corner.

“There’s a newsletter now, Cap, there’s a whole section⁠—”

Somebody had put a diaper in his stall. Somebody else had drawn something on the whiteboard that Coach Morrison would have to erase before video. Groznick wanted to know if it was true that he’d bought seventeen kinds of bottles. Jensen said Clara wanted to send over a casserole. They were happy for him. They were loudly and stupidly happy for him. The Enforcers expressed every emotion they had that way, and he loved them for it.

“A daughter⁠—”

“How old⁠—”

“Since when, you sneaky green⁠—”

“Is this why you’ve been weird, you’ve been weird all summer, I knew it⁠—”

“He hasn’t been weird all summer, he found out yesterday⁠—”

“YESTERDAY?”

“Congratulations! I think! Is it congratulations?”

“Who’s the⁠—”

“—six months old, her name’s Charlie⁠—”

“CHARLIE—”

“—Charlotte, she goes by Charlie, and I would appreciate it,” Rognar said, raising his voice over the top of the avalanche, “if the next question was something other than who’s the mother, because the mother passed away three weeks ago and I didn’t know either of them existed until 2 p.m. yesterday, so.”

That killed the celebration. The noise dropped off a cliff. Petrov set his skate down. Korvash put a hand on Rognar’s shoulder, a big warm heavy hand, and squeezed once, and said nothing.