“What the hell are you doing? You scared me half to death.”
He runs around me a few times, then takes off to see Tyler. You’d think we were gone for days. I laugh. Who needs a watchdog when you have a possessive rooster who keeps tight reins on the family?
I push through my door, and the cool air conditioning of the simple, one-room cottage with a loft overhead washes over me. I wipe my forehead with the back of my arm. I used to think a cooling system in an old, converted carriage house was a crazy idea, but… Juanita insisted on it. She insisted on a lot of things—including the adoption of a goddamn offensive parrot named Capone—before she up and left without so much as a backward glance.
From his cage in the corner, Capone flaps his wings, and his head bobs as I turn on the tap for a drink of water.
“Fuck me,” Capone blurts out.
I turn and glare at him. I have no idea why Juanita thought a rescue parrot would be a fun pet, or why I ended up with him in the split.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Fuck me,” Capone says again.
“Do you always have to be so offensive?”
“Jay’s an asshole.”
I shake my head. I’m going to kill Tyler for messing with my bird and teaching him this kind of shit. Then again, after living in a bawdy pool hall until it closed down, he came with his own raunchy vocabulary.
“You’re the asshole,” I say, even though I’m not helping the situation. Jesus, I really need to stop arguing with my parrot.
“Jay’s an asshole,” he says, his head bobbing like he’s the biggest and baddest bird on the farm as he struts around his cage. He’s not.
I open the gigantic cage that takes up half my place, and he hops onto my arm. With his red, yellow, and blue feathers, he’s a beautiful bird. Sometimes I think about getting him a friend. Sometimes I question my sanity. “Want to come up to the house for a bit? It’s Beck’s birthday.”
“Beck is boss.” Head bop. “Tyler is tight.”
“Fuck me,” I say and shake my head.
“Fuck me,” Capone repeats.
“None of that language in front of Mom.”
“Mom’s a peach,” he says, but he’s referring to Juanita, not my mother Barbara. It was one of the first things she taught him, and every goddamn time he says it, it reminds me how Juanita tore my heart out when she up and left without a backward glance. I shut my mouth and resist the urge to counter that if his mom, my ex-fiancée, were a peach, she wouldn’t have chosen the city over us. No need to hurt his feelings. Not to mention, arguing with a parrot is futile, and I hate that I know that from firsthand experience.
“Mom’s a peach,” I echo and head up to the loft with him on my arm and set him on my dresser as I tug on a pair of clean boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt.
“No comments,” I say. One time I got naked, and he spouted some pretty derogatory remarks. My “giblets,” as Capone so lovingly likes to refer to my balls, do not hang low, thank you very much.
“Beck is boss.”
“Come on.” He hops back onto my arm, and I make my way back to the farmhouse. The sound of a car pulling into the driveway next door carries in the quiet country air. I chalk it up to tourists wanting to buy local produce from Mr. Matthew’s Market, not knowing it’s still closed.
I settle Capone into the cage in mom’s farmhouse, spend a few minutes steaming the lobster, and then go looking for my mother.
“Lobster ready?” she asks, a strange smile on her face.
I nod and step out back to ring the big old dinner bell my grandfather hung years ago. The piece is nostalgic, and it brings a smile to my mother’s face every time she uses it. My brothers come running. I chuckle. Food and sex. They’re both driven by it.
“Something funny?” I ask Mom as she continues to smirk.
Her piercing green eyes narrow in on me as we both move back inside. “Looks like the new neighbor is here, sooner rather than later.”
“Oh, you met him.”
She reaches into the drawer and pulls out utensils. “Heard a car and sauntered over.”
“I heard it, too. Thought it was tourists wanting to check out the petting zoo and market.”
She laughs and gives a slow shake of her head. “It’s such a small