Page 34 of Sink or Swim

I hop out of the bed, careful to not wake her. Let sleeping lizards lie and all that, right? Then I’m off to the bathroom down the hall to rub one out before I get back to sleep, myself.

NICK

SIX MONTHS LATER

My chicken coop door keeps opening at random intervals during the night. Not ideal, considering the number of foxes that live in the area. Scratching my head, I lean over to inspect the coop door one more time just as Ingrid, my best layer, rushes out to peck me. I snap my hand away and shake it.

“Ouch! Ingrid, seriously?” I scowl at the fluffy white hen, who clucks angrily at me. Without a rooster, she’s taken it upon herself to be the flock’s protector. Not that I’m complaining, but I could do without being pecked to death. “This is for your own good, you know. I’m trying to fix your door, you little bully.”

I lean over and am rummaging through my tool chest when soft footfalls approaching make me straighten.

Living out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by dense trees and lakes, might bother some folks. In Pine Crest Hills town center, they whisper about me behind my back, but I know what they’re saying. Strange young man. Loner. Weirdo. I knew when I moved out here that the denizens of the town wouldn’t take too kindly to someone new moving in. Especially when I’ve made absolutely no attempts to integrate.

But I didn’t move here for them. I moved here for Oona.

Maurice, true to his word, cut me a solid deal on an old farmhouse that no one wanted. It needed a lot of repairs, but that didn’t scare me off. In fact, fixing it up has been a lot of fun and gives me something to do when my sweetheart is busy hunting. Which is … a lot of the time.

Oona’s tail swishes behind playfully as she bounds up to me, and before I can greet her properly, she scoops me up and squishes me to her chest before setting me back down in the grass.

“Missed you,” she murmurs.

I stare up into her bright lilac eyes. Lilac, I’ve come to know, means she’s in a lighthearted mood, and I smile at her. “I missed you, too. What have you been up to today?”

Ingrid lets out a squawk at Oona and charges her. Oona leans over and scoops the chicken up and squishes the hen to her chest, too. More gently, at least, but I still can’t help but wince every time she does it. Like calls to like, they say, and Oona and Ingrid must recognize each other’s ferocity. They’ve been fast friends ever since she hatched. It also helps that Oona has never enjoyed the taste of poultry, preferring her water moccasins to chicken breast.

“Built a fire,” she says. “And worked on the new room.”

Oona’s been working on Treehouse 2.0 every single day since our arrival to the Hills. She’s already put up two rooms, which I insisted was good enough, but when she puts her mind to something, there’s no stopping her. She stocked her cupboards high of fermented flies, newt eyes, and other things I don’t dare poke my nose into.

Luckily, I don’t have to anymore. Because I also have a truck … and access to a grocery store and fast food again.

“How’s that coming along?” I ask.

She shrugs and sets Ingrid down with a pat on the head. “Not bad, but it would be better with you in it,” she says in her own tongue.

I smile. Once Oona declared herself “more or less fluent” in English, she decided it was my turn to become proficient in her language. I don’t disagree. After all, our lives are so entwined with one another’s, it only makes sense, but I still struggle with it.

I chuckle and scrub my hand through my hair, which is still damp from my shower a little while ago. Doesn’t matter. My t-shirt and jeans are already caked in mud thanks to chasing Freddie, my new donkey, through the field. Why I thought getting another animal when I can barely take care of the hens was a good idea, I’ll never know. But Oona loves the animals and delights in helping me with them.

“I need to get the coop fixed first, then we can head over there,” I say, and crouch down in front of the door.

She kneels next to me and grumbles. “This is still giving you problems? Why don’t you hire someone to come fix it for you?” She raises a brow and stares me down. A common argument we have that I refuse to budge on. “Just throw money at the problem, Nick.”

“Oona, no. I need to be able to fix my own coop,” I say.

Ingrid pecks at my boot, and I wave her away.

“Why? Why is this so important? Just learn how to do it from someone else. You weren’t born with the knowledge to fix coop doors, Nick.”

I run my fingers over my stubble and sigh. “Yeah, but you’ve done everything yourself and it worked out for you.”

She fixes me with a look. “And I’ve learned that I don’t have to do everything myself. Doing everything myself was lonely. Besides, if I could have done something in a few hours instead of a few weeks, I would have. But I didn’t have anyone to teach me. Don’t be so stubborn.”

I sigh. “Okay. I’ll call someone.”

Her eyes light up like crimson firecrackers.

“On one condition,” I say, shooting her a look. She furrows her brows. “Have a meal with me. Inside the house.”

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