threatened her again, and this time she swung her arm out to warn him back. “I mean it, Randy. I have had it with cock-swinging fuckboys.”
“Good to know.”
Liv jumped and looked over her shoulder. Mack was twenty feet away and drawing closer, all smooth swagger and confidence in a pair of golf shorts and a thin athletic pullover. The misty rain that had turned her hair into a stringy mess against her neck made his own hair dance with little dots of dew. He was a goddamned Nike ad.
“What are you doing here?”
Randy flew from his perch and ran straight for Mack, feathers fluffed and wings flapping. Mack hopped on one foot and then the other to avoid the attack. “What is wrong with this thing?”
“Roosters are assholes.”
Mack kicked his leg out. Randy leaped into the air and kicked with both feet. Mack stumbled back with a curse. Liv grabbed a wire basket hanging from a hook by the door of the pen and swung it. Randy finally got the message and ran off in search of a hen to molest.
Liv handed the basket to Mack. “Make yourself useful.”
“What’re we doing?”
“You are going to collect the eggs while I throw down some chicken feed.”
“Collect eggs from where?”
Liv pointed to the nesting box. “Lift the lid. Look in each box to see if there are any eggs. If there are, put them in the basket. Carefully.”
Mack looked at the box like death itself waited inside. “Are there chickens in there?”
“There might be. They’ll move for you. Just reach under them and be gentle.”
“You want me to reach under a chicken?”
“They’ll move.”
“But under the chicken? Like where the vagina is?”
“First of all, chickens don’t have vaginas. Second of all, if they did, it’s a chicken. She won’t mind.”
“But—”
“For God’s sake, Mack, be a man.”
“Hey,” he said, pointing at her. “Just because I’m a man doesn’t mean I should have no fears or—Wait. Chickens don’t have vaginas?”
“Oh my God. Just get the stupid eggs.”
Liv opened the door to the pen as Mack gingerly lifted the wooden hatch to the nesting box. He all but deflated in relief to see just one hen waiting inside. The rest had run out in search of freedom and wet dirt when Liv opened the pen.
Hazel didn’t get very far, though. Randy leaped on her back and did his business. It was over in three seconds.
“Christ, Randy,” Mack said, voice dripping with disgust. “Pace yourself.”
Liv tossed some feed on the ground to cover her smile.
Mack lowered three eggs into the basket. “Hey, does a chicken know when it’s about to squeeze out an egg, or does it just plop out?”
“I have no idea.”
“How about the first time they lay an egg? They must be like, What the fuck is happening right now? What the hell just came out of me? Maybe I’ll sit on it and see what happens.”
A puff of laugher escaped before she could reel it in. His satisfied grin said he’d heard it. Damn him.
He moved on to the next empty nest. “But seriously, what do chickens have if they don’t have vaginas?”
Liv replaced the scoop in the bucket of feed. “I don’t want to talk about chicken vaginas with you anymore. Like, ever.”
“I’ll just google it if you don’t tell me, and then imagine what my pop-up ads will be like.”
She sighed. “They have a vent called a cloaca. It’s, like, a universal hole for everything.”
“Everything?” He shuddered. “Why do you know so much about chicken vaginas?”
“One of the chickens had an egg stuck a few months ago. We had to help her pass it.”
“This is quite an interesting life you have. Tell me again why you live here?”
Liv walked away instead of answering. She got that question a lot from different people. She didn’t owe anyone an answer. Especially not Mack.
Mack followed her into the house, where she kicked off her muck boots and took the basket from him. “Wash your hands,” she said, with a nod to the bathroom.
Rosie was sitting at the island with a cup of coffee and the morning paper. It was one of the things Liv loved about her. Rosie still had a newspaper delivered every morning, just like her grandmother used to. The only times Liv ever truly felt secure as a child were the mornings she spent curled up on the couch next to her grandma as she read the morning paper.
Liv swiped her wet hair back and set the eggs on the counter. “Randy is