Page 35 of Crossing the Line
Hurdles at high school only made sure he'd broken his nose.
So, with as much male swagger as he could manage after he'd all but smashed his thumb into oblivion, he walked away.
JANICE
Janice moved over to the coop that was in progress and inspected it for the first time since it started looking like more than a Lincoln Logs set she'd played with as a child.
"This is looking a lot bigger than I thought it would be."
Hank looked confused and stepped over to her to look at from her perspective.
He folded his arms across his chest and shrugged. "You have six chickens, right?"
She shrugged as well. "Sure. Six, but this looks like a coop for sixty."
"Well," he frowned, "they need room to grow!"
"Grow?" Janice looked at the coop and then at him. "They're not going to be ostriches or... or velociraptors! They're going to be chickens!" She held her hands out in what she hoped was the size of a football. "Chickens."
"They need room to... play, right?"
"Play?" Janice shook her head. "I looks like you're creating a play area the size of the Roman Colosseum!"
"Hmm," Hank lifted his chin and grinned at her, "great idea. Maybe I'll build Jenny's like that and have flags and awnings over the main area."
Janice sighed and took out her phone.
With a quick touch on the screen she dialed and Jenny picked up almost immediately.
"Janice! Hey!"
Before Janice could say a word, Jenny continued. "Has Hank done something idiotic? I'll kick his butt!"
Janice almost swallowed her tongue.
"No, that's not enough." Jenny sounded like an Amazonian warrior. "I'll spank his butt!"
Hank started to cough and Janice realized that she had her phone on speaker.
"Babe! Really?"
"Ha!" Jenny laughed out loud. "He heard that?"
Janice looked at the man beside her. "Yes, he did. And right now he's showing almost a dozen shades of red on his face. He probably thought I was joking, but seriously, he's building this coop with space for ten times the number of chicks I have."
"He's going a little overboard?"
"A little?" Janice sighed. "I'm going to have a full blown egg operation here."
"I know just the fix for it."
Janice turned to look at Hank and saw the slight wobble of fear in his almost-smile.
"What's that?" She asked her friend.
Jenny laughed. "I've got my keys in hand. I'm going to come over and play with the chicks while we see what we can do to get my lovable, but dorky husband to scale back your coop to dimensions that won't be seen from the International Space Station."
"Drive safe, Jenny. We'll bring the chicks out into the backyard for some sun while you wrangle your man."
