Page 23 of While the Sun Shines

His stomach hurts.

Drew grabs a bucket and dumps a scoop of grain into it. One of the ewe’s ears perk up at the sound and Drew holds out the bucket toward her, trying to entice her to walk forward.

Twenty years, he thinks as Whit comes over and swings open the gate to the sheep pen. What a damn joke.

Though that’s exactly what it is—a lighthearted jest, one of Cooper’s usual. Drew jogs a few steps backward, rattling the grain in the bucket. Drew’s the one who went and got his feelings twisted into a knot when that wasn’t Cooper’s intention at all. So Drew can lighten the fuck up. Play along. Not make it weird.

“Yeah, okay,” Drew says, and at least his voice doesn’t come out as pinched as the pressure in his chest. “Coop, if that hay gets cut, the tractor gets unstuck, and these ladies are grazing happily by tonight, sure, you can be my best man.”

“Fuck yeah.” Cooper pumps his arm in the air, but at the motion, the ewe skitters backward. “Shh, shh, hon, c’mere. I got a lot riding on you now.”

“Penny, can you guys stay over there?” Drew calls over. “Make sure the sheep don’t run toward the road? I’ll try to lead them out.”

Penny gives a thumbs up, and Cooper hops into the sheep pen.

“Whit, you know what to do. Stand there and look pretty,” he says.

“I’ll bring up the rear,” Whit says.

Cooper winks at him. “It’s what you do best.”

“See?” Penny asks, her voice carrying from the barnyard. “This is what I have to live with.”

Sheep, Drew tells himself, though he turns and looks anyway, and sure enough, Abelardo’s hugging Penny into his side again.

With gentle coaxing from Whit and Cooper, one ewe, and then the next, and then the next poke curious noses out of their pen and edge their way toward the sunshine beyond the barn door.

Drew can feel Abelardo watching them. Of course he is, here to visit and interested in everything about the farm. It’s fine. Fine. Drew squats down, holding out a handful of grain.

If he looks over there again, he’ll probably see them still hugging each other.

Fine, he repeats to himself, and fuck it; he wants to dive into that huddle of sheep and stay there, as hidden from the world as they seem to want to be.

But the ewe edges closer to him, intrigued by the scent of grain, and Drew makes himself let out a long, slow breath. If he’s tense, they’re going to sense it and make today all that much harder.

Fake it, he tells himself.

The hot knot in his chest softens when the ewe sniffs his palm, then gingerly, quickly, takes a nibble of grain straight from his hand.

“That’s a good girl,” he says softly. “That’s a good, good girl, just like that.”

This’ll all be fine. What had he told himself? That he’d have a nice summer, finally. That this was the year everything would fall into place, hay filling the barn, orders coming in and cheese going out, and his new herd of sheep happily settling in to their home.

Drew’s phone blares from his pocket and the sheep scatter, rushing back toward their pen so fast their hooves kick up straw in their scramble.

“Shit,” Cooper yelps, dodging out of their way.

“Get them, the gate—” Whit lunges for it, slamming it shut before the panicked ewes can make a break away from Cooper.

“Ah, fuck,” Drew says, grabbing for his phone. B flashes on the screen. Right fucking now, Brad? Really? “Shit, hold on. Hi?”

“Drew?”

A deep voice. Calm and stern all at once, though with a warmth behind Drew’s name.

“Uncle Bert?”

“Hey there, kid. Glad I caught you. How’s it going?”