Aiden nods as if in approval. “Nice. Good, I’m glad to hear it.”
I sneak up to the two men, the stress of having a rooster to take care of as well as a rogue BMW flying down my road slowly waning with all the laughter and manly back-patting.
“I take it you two know each other,” I say, eyeing the rooster at our feet who seems content wandering around his cage.
Aiden nods. “Yeah, this guy got me in all sorts of trouble when we were teenagers.”
“Um, you were the one who secured us fake IDs.”
“You were the one who suggested stealing a full keg would beeasy.”
“Hey, no harm, no foul.”
“Yeah, no harm only because my mom donated her entire paycheck to the police station to get us out of there scot free.”
Ryder shivers. “Oh man, I still remember her grounding us for eternity after that. I didn’t even question her authority to do so. Just said thank you and went home with a pair of shriveled balls.”
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. “I hate to interrupt the reminiscing, but the rooster?”
“Right,” Ryder says. “Um, what are you guys doing with it? Didn’t mean to come in swinging, just didn’t recognize you at first and didn’t know if you were taking him to a slaughterhouse or anything.”
Aiden snorts. “Nah. Evie just doesn’t have time for chickens and didn’t want him getting lonely.”
“You couldn’t have waited a couple hours? He’s not going to get lonely that fast.”
“That’s what I said.” Aiden shrugs, as if he doesn’t know what to do with me.
I hold my hands up to slow everybody down. “Okay, there was a rooster placed in my care that I did not consent to caring for. I don’t have the time to be checking up on him every other hour today, and considering I was pretty sure this rooster is the result of Ryder’s poor decision-making—which seems to be a lifelong affliction, apparently—I figured he needed a good home regardless, because he cannot live in a BMWora Manhattan apartment.”
“I wasn’t going to take him home with me. And I didn’t steal him, FYI. I bought him.”
I pause. “Fixing Reed’s problem was that easy? Buying the rooster?”
Ryder shrugs. “I bought the rooster and the neighbor’s agreement to not buyanotherrooster.”
“For how much?”
“Twenty grand.”
Aiden whistles.
I swallow. “You bought a rooster fortwenty grand?”
“I bought awritten agreement to not buy another roosterfor twenty grand.” His eyes jump between the two of us. “In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty cheap way to get what we all want. I mean, Eve, that twenty grand protects the farm. It allows me to continue with the plan as we made it.”
I stare at him. “How do you know Reed isn’t going to reject your proposal for any number of other reasons?”
Proximity to my land being the big one I’m thinking of.
“Because he agreed last night. I brought him the bird and sent him a copy of the neighbor’s agreement to not buy another one. I took your suggestion to heart and greased him in the way he wanted to be greased.”
Aiden eyes me. “This whole thing wasyouridea?”
I hold up my hands, shaking my head. “Never did Ieversuggest you buy a rooster for twenty fucking grand.”
Ryder shrugs. “What’s the issue here? That I overpaid for a bird? Who gives a shit? Reed agreed to approve my proposal. Twenty grand well spent, in my mind.”
The three of us are silent for a moment, but Roo decides to make his presence known by letting out a long crow that nearly has me jumping out of my skin.
