Page 66 of Ring Rust

Jasper smiled. “You are.”

“Let me take care of the costumes. I have nothing going on tomorrow. You can go relax.”

“Okay. Thanks, Ry.”

A third, loud noise came from the bedrooms and Jasper paused in the hallway again. Before Ryan noticed Jasper looking at him, his face was pinched—worried, or confused, which only added to Jasper’s need to identify the source of the noise.

“Okay, that’s it. Whatisthat?”

“Okay, Jasper, wait?—”

Jasper opened the only closed bedroom door, the room Ryan had been staying in, and stopped dead, his jaw dropping at the chaos in front of him. Two chickens were in roosting positions in the corner of the bedroom, and every bit of it was covered in literal shit—the furniture, the floor, the windowsills, even the extra linens Jasper kept in the closet. One chicken was scratching at the now discolored mattress, pecking and pullingat the bits of fuzz it had uncovered like it was a robin finding early morning worms.

“What the hell!”

“I can explain?—”

“There are chickens in my house!” Jasper turned to Ryan. “You can explain? Did you do this?Why?”

“No! It wasn’t me. The girls did it, and I thought?—”

“If you knew, why the hell didn’t you put them back outside? They destroyed the whole room!”

Ryan twisted his hands together. “I know, I was planning on dealing with the mess, but then you walked in and looked so sick, I wanted to make sure you ate. And I was hoping I could clean up before you realized they were in there.”

“Nina, I understand, she’s five. But Winnie? She’s almost seventeen years old! Is this some sort of rebellion thing? Did they tell you?”

“I’ll talk to them about it.”

“God,” Jasper said, rubbing his eyes. “There’s no way I can sleep now. Can you help me move them back to the coop so at least the mess ends here?”

“Of course,” Ryan said, grabbing a chicken wearing an ankle bracelet and shoving it under his arm. He picked up another and headed towards the side door.

“No!” Nina shouted. “I wanted to have a sleepover with Carl!”

“You named a chicken Carl?” Ryan asked.

“Yes,” she whined. “I made her a bracelet so I knew which one she was, and I wanted her to sleep in my room tonight.”

“Okay, well, no chicken sleepovers. They ruined my house!” Jasper said, passing by them with another chicken. “Can you help get them out, please, Nina?”

“Yeah,” she said sadly. Ryan handed her Carl and she gave the bird a hug before following Jasper out the door.

Okay,so, Ryan’s plan hadnotbeen the flawless invite into Jasper’s bed he’d imagined. Now, he was out two hundred dollars, the chickens had done way more damage than he’d thought possible, Jasper was angry and sick and very likely not horny for his ex-husband, and Nina was crying about her best friend—a chicken—having to sleep outside with a bunch of other chickens. Winnie’s smirk in his direction was salt in the wound when he realized she almost certainly predicted this result, but had no reason to tell him, because he was stupid enough to approach her with the dollar amount instead of his desired outcome.

Not that he needed that type of advice from his niece, but he could have framed it differently.I need your uncle to love me again,for example.

Lessons learned, and all that, but he’d appreciate the knowledge more if he wasn’t now forced to spend the remaining nights of their babysitting gig on the slightly too small couch, with scratchy blankets and an uncomfortable pillow.

At least Jasper was still awake, now showered and in clean, comfortable clothes with no chicken debris on them. He’d returned about ten minutes earlier from brushing his teeth and saying goodnight to the kids. Ryan had held his breath when he heard Jasper’s footsteps coming down the hall, sure he’d be faced with Jasper hidden behind a mountain of bedding to make Ryan as comfortable as possible on the couch.

He’d been right. Jasper had dropped the linens on the chair and took a spot on the couch. Ryan was happy when he’d sat sort of close, relatively speaking. Instead of an entire couch cushion between them, Jasper had sat on the crease between the firstand second cushion, putting his thigh a barely-distant eighteen inches from Ryan’s.

He tried not to read into it. But how could he not? Nobody sits on the crease on purpose.

“What a day,” Jasper finally said.

“No kidding. At least tomorrow you get to go to work. I’ll be here cleaning up chicken poop and trying to get the house pulled together so you can relax after the girls leave.”