Chapter Five
“So you’re telling me that you’re going to be a foul grandpa?” Lyle asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee a week later. The alehouse was quiet at the moment, the lunch crowd having returned to their respective jobs save Lyle, who had taken a day off. So far, he’d spent the entire morning and into the afternoon seated at the bar with some other regulars giving me shit all day.
“Fowl. F. O. W. L. as in poultry,” I explained for the fifth time.
I should never have mentioned the fact that Wilma was setting eggs. The jokes and bad puns had been coming steadily.
And boy howdy was she locked in tight on that nest. Seven days had passed, and she had only left her nest in the morning when I opened the coop door for a light breakfast, then a drink and a splash in the creek. Fred followed her around, looking confused, then stood or slept near her throughout the day. He’d been less than warm about me coming into their pen to feed them or freshen their water dish. Although why I had a water dish in there now as the babbling brook that ran through myproperty was gurgling along nicely escaped me. Maybe so they didn’t have to waddle too far for a sip? Who knew? I was starting to worry I was becoming my mother. She fretted constantly over my sister and that unborn baby. If I started buying those goslings little footie jammies, hand to God, I would have Kenan push me in front of a moving milk truck.
“I think F.O.U. L. is more fitting,” Lyle tossed out with a wink for Kenan, who slipped around me with a trayful of dirty mugs.
“He’s quite excited. Every night before bed, he reads goose-keeping books instead of watching porn on his phone,” my boyfriend replied.
I nudged him with my hip. “First of all, now that I have you, I don’t need gay porn as I am intimately familiar with your penis and the surrounding area.” Lyle snorted into his beer as Kenan flushed bright red. “Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I want to make sure I do things right for Wilma. This may be her last chance to be a mom.”
Lyle sipped his coffee thoughtfully for a moment. “You do love them geese.” I was kind of taken aback. Most of the guys in here were not exactly deep, emotionally available sorts. “I might be willing to take a couple of them when they hatch if you’ve not found homes for them already.” I paused from washing the mugs to gape at him. Lyle shot Kenan a questioning look before bringing his attention back to me. One of the mayor’s aides dropped a quarter in the old jukebox and sat back down to read her book. Shania Twain began singing about feeling like a woman. “Or not,” Lyle hastened to add when I stood there like a dummy without replying.
“He’s probably not given that any thought, have you, babe?” Kenan asked.
No, no, I had not given that a bit of thought. The goslings weren’t even here yet and people wanted to take them from me? Wilma. I meant Wilma, obviously.
“Sorry, I just…yeah, I haven’t really thought about that. They might all be duds.” I said, hurrying to wipe my hands on a clean bar towel. “I need to make a beer order.”
Kenan and Lyle stared hard at my back as I raced out of the bar. Up the stairs I went, then dropped down to the couch that had been Kenan’s resting spot when he first arrived here in Whiteham. That seemed a lifetime ago. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it now. I’d beensolonely forsolong…
The fourth stair creaked. I leaped up, scrubbed at my face, and threw myself into my old office chair as if I were actually doing some work. By the time the gentle rap came on the closed door, I had shaken off the near-crying jag that had welled up out of nowhere.
“Yep,” I called out as I stared blankly at the screen of my new desktop. The old one suffered a terrible drowning death when two randy guys decided to fuck on the desk and mistakenly knocked a bottle of beer into the tower. Oops. It was time for a new one, anyway. The old one was running Office ’97 or something like that.
Kenan poked his head around the door warily as if he were sticking his head into a lion’s cage. I raised an eyebrow. He stepped in, closed the door, and padded over to sit his delectable ass on the edge of the desk. He smelled of old beer and deep fryer grease. His apron was speckled with mustard. His hair was pulled back into a bun that was now losing control of the vibrant curls.
“You okay?” he asked. I nodded. “You sure?”
“Yep, I’m good. Just working on the beer order.” He glanced from me to the dark screen. Shit. “In my head. I like to envision what’s down there inside my mind, then I can make the order.”
“Oh-kay.” He was far too clever.Note to self: next time you’re pretending to do work, turn on the computer.“I was justwondering if you were mad about Lyle asking to buy some of the goslings? You seemed kind of rattled, babe.”
As if. Rattled. Me. Silly, gorgeous man. “Nope, I am finer than frog fur. Just remembered I needed to get the order in today. So the holiday won’t fuck things up.”
“What holiday is that?”
“National corn on the cob day.” Damn I was good.
“Oh okay, right.” He hesitated as his nose crinkled in thought. “Is that a big sales day for beer?”
“Huge,” I lied. “Nothing goes better with corn on the cob than a cold brewski. We sell corn on the cob to celebrate.” That was another lie. I never sold corn on the cob, but now I would have to just to save face. Stupid lying always bit you on the ass.
“Ah. Huh. Okay, well, as long as you’re not mad. Lyle was worried he’d offended you.” He stared at me as if trying to pick my brain via some sort of boyfriend mental telepathy. I forced a smile that he did not buy at all. “Not to step on a sore toe, but you do realize that if you keep all the goslings—”
“Potential goslings. Fred might be shooting blanks,” I rushed to say.
He nodded, the small rings in his ear catching the dingy light in my equally dingy office. “Right,potentialgoslings. We don’t want to put our geese in front of our…uhm, goose cart?” I snickered at that. “If you do get attached—”
“Pfft,” I tossed out all Randy “Macho Man” Savage-ly.
His lips twitched like he knew my scoffing was pure drivel. “On the off chance that you do get attached, not that I think a rough and tumble dude like you would do that, but if you should happen to become fond of the new arrivals, I just wanted to point out that Fred would be, next spring, breeding his daughters.”
“I know that.” I did. Truly. I just was not thinking about that right now. “Why don’t we wait and see what happens? No point counting your goslings before they hatch, right?”
