Page 21 of Honey Bee Hearts

“Oh that one?” Gunnar frowns. “I don’t think she has a name yet.” He bumps his shoulder with mine. “Wanna do the honors?”

I squint my eyes, trying to think of something good.

“Nugget,” Jinx exclaims. When I glance at her with a raised brow, she shrugs. “You know I was never good at names. I named my pet frog ‘Frog’ for fuck’s sake.”

Which is true. Frog lived for a total of three years before he met an untimely death when Jinx forgot to close both the top of his aquarium and the window. I like to think he leaped to his freedom more than he died, but realistically, he probably died. Still, Frog indeed had the worst name ever.

“Hennifer Lopez,” I finally say with a smile.

Gunnar grins. “Hennifer Lopez. I like it.” He taps Hennifer on the back and she makes a little clucking sound before dancing away. “Welcome to the flock, Hennifer.”

We fill both my basket and Gunnar’s full of eggs of all sizes, reaching into the nests to grab what’s there. A few of the nests have hens sitting on them and we have to reach under them to fetch the eggs. I get pecked a few times and it hurts more than I expect it to. The hens have sharp beaks. We run out of room in the baskets so Gunnar pops a few in his pockets that won’t fit.

We take them all inside the big house before he leads me back outside and around the chicken coops. Here, there are lots of pigs, not just Bacon. I wrinkle my nose at the smell of them but immediately forget about the smell when the little piglets come running up to the fence.

“Oh! Babies!” I cry, moving over to the fence.

“Don’t reach over with the momma there,” Gunnar warns. “She’ll bite the shit out of you if you touch her babies.”

“They’re so cute,” I muse, looking down at them. “Do they have names?”

Gunnar shifts. ‘We don’t name the pigs on account of. . . well, we eat them.”

I blink. “Oh. Yeah. Of course. That makes sense.”

Still, my eyes linger on the large pig and her gentle sniffing at me. The temptation to reach through and pet her is strong, but I resist in front of Gunnar. If she bites me, I don’t want him to see.

“And finally, we have the main guineas,” Gunnar says, pulling me to another large coop looking structure.

“Guineas?” I repeat, looking in at the large grey birds. They’re simple looking. A little bit bigger than the chickens but more derpy looking. “We collect their eggs, too?”

“Yep,” Gunnar says. “Just go on in there and grab them. There probably aren’t as many eggs as the chickens.”

“You aren’t coming in with me?” I ask, frowning at him.

“I will in a second.”

His expression is serene as he unhooks the door and opens it for me. I hesitate when all the guineas turn to look at me. A few of them have babies clustered under them, peeking out at me.

“Okay,” I draw out, stepping inside the door slowly. “Why are they all looking at me like that?”

“Oh, Guineas are just hyper aware of predators. You’re a big creature in there with them,” he explains.

I take another step and the Guineas with babies under them straighten and make sounds of displeasure. I stop. “Uh, Gunnar? They’re not gonna attack me, are they?”

“You should be fine,” he says.

I take another step, and the guinea takes one closer to me. I stop again. “Maybe you should do this.”

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of a few Guineas, Everhart,” he teases, but there’s laughter in his words. “Just move fast and they won’t get you.”

Taking a deep breath, I take a step toward the nests. The nearest mother lets out a sound that I can only describe as a war cry and lowers her head. She flaps her wings and immediately rushes me. I screech and throw the basket at her, which seems to only piss off the other moms. They make the same sort of sound and rush me.

“It’s an ambush!” Jinx shouts in my head. “Fall back, Everhart!”

I stumble backward toward the door, trying to get out before they get me. Gunnar opens it just in time for me to trip and fall down on my tailbone. He closes the door behind me and doubles over, laughter spilling from his ridiculously kissable lips.

“You should have seen your face,” he gets out between laughs as he points at me.

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