A sudden squawk rips through the barn, followed by the unmistakable clatter of a metal tin hitting the floor and the cascade of what sounds like thousands of tiny beads.
"No!" I shout.
The scene before me is pure pandemonium. The sort of mess that makes my mother wonder where she went wrong.
Not one, but at least half a dozen white doves are swooping through the main floor of the barn. One is perched precariously on a stack of fabric bolts, another doing a fly-by past a half-finished foam-core castle. Glitter, an entire tin of it, judging by the shimmering disaster zone on the floor, is everywhere.
I stand in the middle of it all, a ridiculously small net in my hand, resembling a defeated fairy queen whose subjects have staged a coup.
Above me, I hear Mason's chair scrape against the loft floor, followed by footsteps approaching the railing. Through my peripheral vision, I see him pause, assessing the madness.
"Having some trouble with your romantic vessels?" he asks.
I start, whirling around to face him. I can feel the grit on my cheek, a suspicious sparkle clinging to my hair, and my eyes are wide enough to give me away.
"It's under control." The lie is thin and translucent.
"It appears your assets have liquidated themselves and are currently roosting on the infrastructure," he replies, his gaze sweeping the barn. "This qualifies as a significant operational failure."
"It was a momentary lapse in security," I fire back, chin lifting. "One of them played dead while I was checking on them. The others were accessories after the fact."
"I see." He clasps his hands behind his back, settling into his preferred observation pose. "And what's the protocol for avian containment in a rustic barn environment?"
"The protocol," I grit out, "is me, with this net, trying to negotiate with these uncooperative symbols of love. So unless you're secretly an ornithologist, you can go back to your spreadsheet kingdom."
I turn my back on him and head for the wobbly wooden ladder. I can feel his eyes on me, calculating, assessing. Then I hear his footsteps.
"That ladder won't support you in this task," he says.
"It supported my weight yesterday when I was hanging fairy lights."
"Fairy lights don't flap in your face and make you lose your balance. Maddy, stop."
But I'm already on the third rung, the net clamped between my teeth. The ladder sways beneath me.
Without warning, strong hands grip the sides, steadying it. I can feel his presence behind me. Solid, warm, uncomfortably grounding.
"I've got it," he says, his voice sharper than usual.
I pause, glancing down at him. He looks surprised at his own actions. For a moment, we freeze. Me mid-ladder, him holding it steady, and a bunch of doves acting as our feathery, cooing witnesses. The agreement didn't cover this. There is no clause for involuntary teamwork during a dove crisis.
"Thank you," I say, my voice quieter than I mean it to be.
What follows is a masterclass in inefficiency. We try to be strategic, methodical, but the doves are faster, slipperier, and having the time of their lives. One steals a ribbon. Another knocks over a vase of silk roses. A third, I'm fairly certain, leaves a little white gift on the corner of what used to be Mason's milk-crate desk.
"This is impossible!" I cry after another failed lunge. "They're supposed to be trained!"
"Who trained them?" Mason calls, ducking as a bird swoops past his head. "A committee of squirrels?"
A laugh bursts out of me. Quick and startled and real. "Me, with the help of a YouTube tutorial from a guy with a five-star rating and a surprisingly convincing website."
Mason's expression shifts at the sound. He studies me, then nods as if he's decided on a point that matters.
"We're thinking like lawyers and planners," he says. "We need to think like birds. What do they want?"
"World domination? Endless birdseed?"
"They want to be together. They're flock animals. If we catch one or two, the others might follow."
