Page 65 of Work with Me

“You won’t have to wait too long for Jay to be back in the Bay Area,” Cooper said. “He’s coming back to headquarters when the project’s buttoned up in a few weeks.”

I shot a glance at Jackson. He’d told me he’d stay in town longer. So was he lying to me or to his best friend?

Jackson slashed a hand through the air. “Coop, let’s—”

“In that case,” Jamila said, “we need to make sure you get the full Austin experience. Ever played Chicken Shit Bingo?”

Jackson wrinkled his nose. “Can’t say I’ve done that yet.”

“What about you, Coop?”

He shook his head. “We’re not talking actual—”

“Tonight. Alicia, you come, too.”

“Tonight?” The evening routine of dinner and homework spun through my head.

Jamila read my mind. “Diane and Esmy can handle it,” she murmured.

But it was Jackson’s hopeful smile that convinced me. “Okay.”

“Chicken shit.” Cooper shook his head. “The things you two get me into.”

24

JACKSON

“Nineteen!”Cooper roared, throwing his arms into the air.

On the overhead TV screen, the chicken pecked at the number and then wandered to the corner of the cage.

“Fuck.” His hands thumped to the top of his head.

I nudged Alicia. “I can’t believe he’s being competitive over where a chicken shits. Can you—”

She shushed me and muttered, “Come on, honey.”

A thrill ran through me. She’d never used an endearment for me before. It was probably best if we didn’t until the project was over. I turned and found her eyes fixed on the screen. “Do it on number five,” she whispered.

I tried to catch Jamila’s gaze across the high-top table, but her attention was on the screen, too. She gripped her wooden chit painted with the number twenty-two.

I scraped my chair back across the patio pavers. “Anyone want a refill?”

All three of them shushed me, so I took my empty and wandered toward the bar. But something caught my eye before I reached it. I went over to investigate.

Away from the bingo cage and the crowd were a few poultry cages, and the strangest creature I’d ever seen pecked at a bowl of seed inside one of the cages. Tawny like a lion, it looked like it had fur instead of feathers, but it had a sharp, blue-black beak. Its feet were hidden by puffs of fluff, and another pouf on the top of its head obscured its eyes.

I bent to examine it. “Is that a chicken or a tiny llama?”

A teenage girl with a voice as thick as molasses drawled, “That’s Leo. He’s a Silkie.”

“So what is he?”

She laughed. “He’s a rooster. A chicken.”

I straightened. “Is he yours?”

She flipped a red pigtail behind the shoulder of her plaid western shirt. “Since he was an egg. I raise them.”

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