Chapter 5

If you don’t like chickens, you can stay outside.

-Welcome mat

Kennedy

Other than my sister being on my mind, there was one other person who was in my head and wouldn’t go away.

If I wasn’t worrying about my sister, I was worrying about him.

Why, I couldn’t tell you.

I’d had all of four encounters with the man, but each time I did see him, even if from a distance, it was enough to send shock waves through my body.

I wasn’t the only person that watched him, though.

Yesterday, when I’d been at the grocery store, Evander had been there, also.

He’d been two people ahead of me in line and everyone had stared. The checker that’d been ringing up his food. The security guard who was getting the money for the security place that deposited the money for them. The manager had his hand on his phone like he was ready and waiting for Evander to go off and start shooting people.

Then there were the women.

My God, even the elderly Mrs. Henry had stared.

Me, I stared probably more than most.

But he hadn’t turned around. He’d kept his head forward, had paid in cash, and didn’t look around as he made his way to his truck.

The only animation on his face at all had been when he’d opened his truck door and a German Shepherd had licked his face.

Now, I was standing less than ten feet away from him again at the feed store, and he was haggling with an old man about pricing for hay.

Hay which I needed, too.

Bad.

I’d been buying it from the feed store since my supplier had passed away, and I hadn’t found any since that I could get without using a trailer—a trailer in which I didn’t have.

I was also over spending nine dollars and fifty cents a bale, which was bad since I went through it as fast as I did.

I was listening unrepentantly to him talk with the old man and suddenly his eyes turned to me.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

There was no anger in his voice. In fact, there was nothing. No inflection. No, why are you staring like a weirdo. Nothing.

“Yes, actually. I need some hay, too. Can you get us both some, me one round roll like you’re getting, and I’ll pay you for the use of your trailer?”

He stared at me so long that I started to fidget.

Why had I done this? Could I leave without him seeing?

I glanced around and saw that I was in the middle of Tractor Supply, and the only thing around were the chicks that they kept in a large, six-foot cage to keep all the kids and people from reaching into the bins and petting the babies.

There was a very large metal yard art chicken that was standing about four feet away from me. Although it would’ve hidden my upper body significantly, the spindly legs wouldn’t have done the job.

Needless to say, there was nothing for me to hide behind to shield my embarrassment.

When I finally looked back up to see if they were still looking, it was to find the old man staring at me like I’d grown a second head, and the big man, Evander, staring at the old man like I hadn’t just interrupted his conversation.

I chose to run while I still had a chance.

Except, as I did, the box of chickens that I had in my hand started to go wild at the movement of my body.

I chose to keep going, knowing that at first, I’d be covered since the chicks in the bins behind me were making just as much noise as the ones in my hand.

When I’d come in here, it sure as hell hadn’t been to buy more chickens.

In fact, I’d been adamant with myself. I would not get any more.

I had twenty-six at home and that was more than enough due to the size of the coop and the yard that I now had them in. If I got any more, I’d be pushing it.

I knew it. Yet, that hadn’t stopped me.

It’d all started with me just going for a look.

Barred Rocks. Bantams. Rhode Island Reds. Copper Marans. Oh, and ducklings, too.

Then I saw the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, and I became lost.

I’d seen a photo of the Blue Laced on Facebook a few months ago, and I’d fallen in love.

But when I’d gone onto the hatchery’s website and seen that they don’t ship the Blue Laced Red Wyandottes in anything less than an order of fifteen, I’d been able to corral myself.

Fifteen chickens, no matter how freakin’ cute they were, weren’t on the table for me at this point.

I was already pushing the limits of my twenty acres, and I didn’t have the room to add any more pens to it without taking away from my giant ass’s grazing pasture.

Jack Jack, my ass, was also the reason I needed a freakin’ round bale of hay.

The bastard ate and ate. And ate.

He also decided that he no longer liked my goats and had started picking them off one-by-one when they came near his hind legs.

Which meant I had three goats in my backyard that chose to shit on my porch non-stop.

Then my UPS driver delivered my boxes directly in the shit.

Yeah, I needed more room. Yesterday.

And I needed six more chickens, Blue Laced Red Wynadottes or not, like I needed a hole in my heart.

Yet, there I was, darting down the aisles to hide from the man who looked at me like I was crazy.

So, I was staring at trailer hitches, when I didn’t even have a trailer to hitch, wondering how long I would have to wait before the big man left, putting me out of my misery.

Jesus! What had I been thinking when I’d asked him if he could bring me a bale of hay?

Of course, he couldn’t!

I was paying so much attention to my non-existent trailer hitch that I didn’t even hear him coming.

And by the time that I did hear him coming, he was in the same damn aisle as me, barreling down on me.

But, by some miracle from above, an elderly woman stopped him, asking him what he thought of the trailer ball that she was holding in her hand, and whether he thought that it would fit her husband’s boat or not.

When Evander made some rumbled reply, his eyes never leaving me, I realized that he was mad for some reason.

Why was he mad?

Was it due to me interrupting his conversation? Was it because he didn’t want to bring me a bale of hay?

Whatever his reason, I decided that now was the time to leave and darted out of the end of the aisle, and all but ran to the front of the store.

However, when I got to the front it was to find not one, but eight other people in line, and I realized that I wouldn’t be getting out of here any time soon.

I bit my lip as I weighed my options.

Stand in line, check out and hope that he didn’t talk to me, or hide again. I was hoping that he’d leave before I found my way out of the aisles.

The question was answered moments later when I heard him say something, causing me to turn.

His eyes were once again on me, but I could tell that he was running out of patience.

When he rudely dismissed the person, this time a young woman who was in her twenties with breasts the size of cantaloupes, I realized that he really was set on talking to me.

I bit my lip, hunched down and started to hide behind the giant chicken, remembering what I noticed earlier about the legs, and took off again, right back to the trailer hitches by way of moving around the entire back of the store.

Past the dog food, the horse hoof trimmers and the generators.

When I arrived back at my original starting point, I took a look around and moved outside, thinking that would be perfect.

What I didn’t think was that the door would be locked, causing me to smash not only my face, but the box I was carrying, into the glass.

“Shit!” I hissed, dropping down to the ground and immediately opening the box.

I’d meant to just take a peek, but the moment that the box opened, all fucking six of my new little chicks took that as their cue to jump out.

“No!” I squeaked, catching the first three very easily and placing them carefully back into the box.

The last few, however, proved to be devious little devils.

“Come here,” I whispered, reaching behind one of the hitches for the cutest little chick I’d ever seen, only for it to dart away from my hand like I was the evilest thing on her little planet.

But I caught her when she thought she could fit through the end of one of the trailer hitches.

When she went to turn around and come back, she ran straight into my hand and I put her directly into the box.

When I came up to look for the other one, it was to find a pair of dusty, grime covered cowboy boots, within inches of my hands, firmly planted on the floor.

When I looked up, I knew what I’d find.

The man who was practically chasing me around Tractor Supply. Though, I had to admit, a lot of the reason he was doing that was because I was the one hiding.

But whatever.

I swallowed, went back on my knees, and looked at him.

He was holding my chickens.

And let me just tell you something.

A big, sexy man like Evander—holding tiny, fluffy baby chickens—was enough to cause every nerve ending in my body to start firing.

He had them cradled in his palm, his large fist curled protectively around the little terrors, and he was staring at me with a mixture of exasperation and humor tinting his features.

“You are incredibly annoying.”

I winced.

“Here,” he held the chicks out to me.

I took them and carefully placed it back into my box, then stood up with my spine stiff and straight.

“I don’t know where you live, but I’ll bring the bale by tomorrow around noon.”

I nodded, finding it hard to swallow.

“Bye.”

It wasn’t until he was all the way across the store, which I could see because he was a head and shoulders taller than every single person he walked past, and out the door, that I realized that I hadn’t told him where I lived.

I should’ve known, though, that he’d figure it out.

What I didn’t want to admit, however, was that I was extremely embarrassed that he called me ‘incredibly annoying.’ I hoped he didn’t find out where I lived, because then he would know that I was a whole lot closer than he realized.

And what would he do when he found out that he had an incredibly annoying neighbor, even if multiple acres separated us?