A Bird in the Oven - Kata Cuic Page 0,2

small talk normal people make.

I sputter on my mouthful of beer. “Oliver and I aren’t together!”

“Huh. Could’ve fooled me. Is it one of those modern arrangements? What do they call it? Polyamory?”

“What?” I practically scream. “No!”

Ollie returns to the scene, a questioning expression on his face. He hands over the battery pack to Mr. Hooper while addressing me. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine, fine,” Mr. Hooper assures him. “Thanks for this. I’ll get it back to you tomorrow.”

Within minutes of his departure, the leaf blower roars to life again.

Ollie reclaims his seat. And his beer. “Why were you yelling?”

“He thinks we’re a polyamorous couple!” The horror. Not that I’m judging, but that kind of lifestyle isn’t for me.

Ollie’s eyes flit back and forth at the air like he’s seriously contemplating that idea. “Did he perhaps mean platonic?”

This is why questionable women always get the best of Ollie. He wears rose-colored lenses. The man absolutely refuses to see anything but the best in people.

“Why did you give him your battery pack? You’re usually so clingy with your tools. You don’t even know him well enough to know if he’ll actually return it.”

Ollie shrugs. “If I need it, I know where he lives. I will simply ask him to return it. Also, I assured you at least another hour of entertainment for the evening.”

I bark out a laugh. He really does know me so well. “What’s the catch?”

There’s always a catch.

He smiles around the bottle that’s already at his lips. “I am going to nurse my broken heart tonight, and you are going to put me to bed when I’m too drunk to do so for myself.”

“Are you sure you’re not depressed about turning thirty soon? Because from where I’m sitting, it sounds a hell of a lot like you want to relive your college glory days.” I don’t mention that Ollie put my drunk ass to bed plenty of times.

“From where I am sitting, you are approximately a week away from visiting a sperm clinic.”

“Jerk!” I make a mental note to clear my web browser history.

He winks and drains the rest of his second bottle.

2

Oliver

When I groan, the warm body beneath me groans, too. She pats my head that is resting on her stomach. Likely because she knows I have a massive headache.

“Not yet, Ollie. Go back to sleep,” she mumbles.

I crack open one eye to glance at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It’s already ten, but Liv likes to sleep in on the weekends. To be clear, she sleeps all day.

It is perhaps a form of masochism, but I tighten my grip around her waist and nuzzle my cheek against her flat stomach. My whiskers catch on the fabric.

Ugh. I need to shave, but I need aspirin and a large quantity of water before I touch my face with a razor.

In spite of all these perseverative thoughts, for precisely four minutes I lock down all the discomforts pecking at my brain and enjoy the quiet morning with the woman who is sprawled out like a starfish in my bed.

Her body is warm and soft beneath me. Sometime after I passed out, she must have grabbed a t-shirt out of my dresser. It looks way better stretched across her breasts than it ever has on me. I will likely never see it again. She has a closet full of the hoodies she constantly borrows from me then never returns. I do not reclaim them. It brings me great joy to see her wear my clothes.

My arms fit around her waist like they are meant to be here all the time. The last man she dated thought I touched her way too often, but that is not the case. At all.

I do not usually pull stunts like I did last night to get some alone time with her. I do not have to. We live next door to each other. We have been best friends since fourth grade. We went to neighboring universities. She has always been a part of my life, but I am terrified that time is slipping away.

She joked about it last night around the fire—tried to project her feelings onto me—but she is taking this big 3-0 business seriously.

The last time her laptop crashed, she asked me to fix it. No problem. Computers, their operating systems, and their maintenance are one of my strongest skill sets, and I do not mind donating my time to Liv. Then I discovered exactly what overwhelmed her system. Pages upon pages of online