Page 81 of Trip Me Up

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NIALL

Chores on a farmaren’t like chores in a regular house. Forget to do the dishes after dinner? No big deal. Sure, they might stink up your kitchen, but no one’s life or livelihood is at stake. Once, when I was seventeen, I’d been rushing through my chores, wanting to get to a high-school basketball game—my crush was on the girls’ team—and I’d forgotten to latch the door to the chicken coop. A neighbor’s dog had gotten in, and it looked like the aftermath from the bloody elevator inThe Shining.Not only had I grieved for all the hens for months, but we hadn’t had fresh eggs to sell until the following summer.

But as hard as I tried, my mind wasn’t on my chores that night. It was on Sam. On the way her skin had gone pearlescent in the sunset. How her hair had flowed across the blanket like molten chocolate. Her eyes, betraying a hint of…something as she came. I couldn’t wait to make her come again and try to decipher that secret emotion.

I counted the chickens clustered against the coop. All there. I raised the door and counted them again as they tumbled inside, ready for their nests.

I’d bring Sam with me the next day. We’d spent too much time in the hayloft and hadn’t met any of the animals. She’d love the goats with their velvety ears. And running her fingers through the alpacas’ rough wool. I’d introduce her to each of the quirky chickens. I imagined the delighted look on her face.

She’d be delighted, right?

Gabi certainly hadn’t been. We’d made sense. We met on the college newspaper staff and bonded over fantasy literature and old movies likeLabyrinthandThe Dark CrystalandClash of the Titans. The sex was good, and I thought we had a future together. Until I’d brought her to the farm, and two hours into her visit, one of the goats had nibbled on her expensive jacket. She’d demanded to be returned to the airport. Immediately.

Sam hadn’t been like that at all. She’d traipsed through the mud and shivered, naked, in the hayloft. She’d washed dishes with Mom, and she’d asked to help feed the animals in the morning before we left. Could Sam, a city girl, be happy on the farm?

Could she be happy with me?

I hadn’t felt this way about anyone since…ever. Not with Gabi. Sam had set me on fire, and I never wanted to be put out. I was completely infatuated. Obsessed.

In love.

Could she love me, too, after only two weeks together? When we had less than a week left of the tour?

We needed more time. Time together, on dates. Time apart, with air to breathe, space to reflect, outside the forced proximity of the tour.

I’d ask her if I could stay in San Francisco. Not with her, but near enough for us to see each other. Sure, it’d be more expensive and less productive than coming back to the farm as I’d planned, but thinking about the end of the tour, the end of our time together, felt like I’d swallowed one of the river boulders.

Fuck.

I was in love.

The unrequited kind.

Sam wanted a fling. A literal roll in the hay.

But it was too late to stop my fall.

When I dropped the door behind the last chicken, they squawked.I latched the door, then double-checked it, before I trudged back around the pen toward the barn. When I stepped into the bright light of the barn, Grandpa looked over his shoulder from the milking stool.

“Took you long enough.”

“Sorry. I guess I was thinking.”

“Woolgathering, more like.” Grandpa turned back to Sally’s white flank. “Thinking about your Sam.”

My Sam. I wish.“Was it that obvious?”

Grandpa chuckled. “I’ve known you all your life, son. Your thoughts show on your face.”

I ambled over to stroke Sally’s long, floppy ear. “What d’you think of her? She’s great, isn’t she?”

Grandpa kept his gaze on the milk bucket. “Bit harder to read, that one.”

“Oh?” When Grandpa was cantankerous, I had to let him spin out his words in his own time.

He picked up the pail and then nodded. I untied Sally and led her to her stall. I’d taken too long with the chickens, and Grandpa had already milked Susie.

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