Vastos had just set down the phone when there was a knock at the door.
‘Who could that be?’ He wondered irritably. Whoever it was, they had better be gone by the time the food arrived—Vastos had no intention of sharing with anyone.
Ok, he would share with Jaegar, but that was a given.
He opened the door, intending to politely send whoever it was on their way, but he found himself engulfed in brawny arms and his face pressed against a beefy chest before he could say a word.
“Howdy, neighbor!” His attacker boomed jovially, squeezing so hard Vastos what little breath Vastos had was pushed right out of him.
“Hello, Orphus,” he wheezed, his voice muffled by the pecs he was squashed against. They were nice pecs—not as nice as Jaegar’s (Orphus was overweight, and his pecs were on the pudgy side rather than being the solid slabs of muscle that Jaegar had), but not many people had a body as nice as Jaegar’s.
After another squeeze, Orphus let Vastos go, and the tiefling hastily backed out of grabbing range. “What did you need, Orphus?”
“Aren’t you gonna invite me in?” His neighbor/coworker asked with a broad grin as he looked down at Vastos. Orphus was a half-orc, half-human, and the different racial traits had blended together handsomely, in Orphus’s case. His skin was a warm bronze, and his eyes a rich amber. His head was shaved near-bald, save for the tall Mohawk crowning his skull and a single braid that fell across his forehead and down to mid-cheek. The hair was a glossy black, but died bright blue at the tips. With his square jaw (dusted with permanent five o’clock shadow), broad forehead, and ruggedly handsome (if blunt) features, he turned more than a few heads wherever he went. The two cute little tusks jutting up from his lower lip only made him more adorable.
That said, he’d never been Vastos’s type. While Orphus had the thick, beefy musculature common to orcs and half-orcs, he was also more than a few pounds overweight. He had a bit of a paunch that sloped over his waistband that wobbled when he walked and jiggled whenever he laughed (which was often). His pecs, which should be works of art, were veering unacceptably close to man-boobs for Vastos’s taste (though the gleaming rings pierced through them were intriguing), and Vastos just wasn’t into the punk aesthetic his coworker cultivated off the clock. Vastos wasn’t even sure the other man owned a shirt for casual wear—Vastos had never seen him in any manner of torso covering other than a leather vest when off the clock. Combined with the ripped and faded jeans and the sword earrings hanging from both pointed ears (swapped out for tasteful jeweled studs at the office), and Vastos had never found Orphus to be particularly attractive before.
“Aren’t you gonna let me in?” Orphus repeated, and Vastos shook his head to clear his wandering thoughts. What was with him today?
“Sure,” he said, a little less graciously than he otherwise might have, still wanting his visitor gone before the food arrived. “Come on in, Orphus.”
(Vastos’s eyes lingered on Orphus’s pudgy paunch for a moment as the half-orc came inside. The slight wobble that went through it with every thudding step the man took was…intriguing for some reason)
“Where’s Jaegar?” Orphus asked, hurling his big body onto the couch (which creaked in protest at the combined great weight and hard landing) and immediately manspreading, throwing his arms over the back and spreading his legs wide.
“He’s changing in the bedroom,” Vastos said, folding his arms and beginning to tap one foot in his irritation. “Did you need something, Orphus?”
“I need a reason to visit my favorite neighbor?” Orphus asked with another one of his broad grins. “I didn’t get to see you at work today, so I decided to drop in.”
“Well, now isn’t a good time,” Vastos said. “I’d just ordered dinner, and-“
“Great!” Orphus interrupted. “I’m starving!” He slapped one of his huge hands to his gut and squeezed a handful of his pudge. “Look at me, bro, I’m wastin’ away, here! How long ‘til it gets here? What are we having?”
“Jaegar and I are having pizza,” Vastos said frostily, not appreciating the gregarious half-orc just inviting himself to dinner like that. “I don’t know what you’re having.”
Orphus pushed his lower lip out in a pout. The little tusks made the expression cuter than it had any right to be when made by a grown man. “Don’t be like that, Vastos. I’d let you stay for dinner at my place!”
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