I gesture at the rooster, who pecks calmly at a cracker crumb and then gives me a look that clearly suggests I’m the one who wandered into his house. “Read the room.”
Ace crouches to the bird’s level. “You’re causing a scene, brother.”
The rooster lifts his head all the way up and lets out a sharp, aggressivebwarkthat sounds alarmingly opinionated.
Ace straightens slowly. “Right. That was my warning.”
Luca, who has apparently decided this is beneath him, starts across the room with all the confidence of a man who thinks he’s still the apex predator here.
The rooster notices. The neck lengthens, chest puffs, feathers flare at the edges, and it makes a strange rattling sound that starts in the little maniac’s throat like he’s winding himself up for violence.
North, watching this with his usual criminal calm, says, “He’s picked one.”
Luca keeps walking. “He’s two pounds.”
The rooster launches.
One second he’s on the coffee table, and the next he’s a rust-red missile with wings, flying straight at Luca’s face. Luca yelps and throws himself sideways into the armchair so fast the towel flies off his neck. The rooster lands exactly where Luca had been standing, spins in place, and fixes him with one blazing orange eye.
Ace turns away, shoulders shaking, one hand over his mouth.
I point at the bird. “That is what I was dealing with.”
Luca, from the chair, lifts both hands. “I’d like it noted that I was ambushed.”
The rooster hops once toward him.
Luca immediately pulls his feet up off the floor.
North folds his arms. “Interesting. He doesn’t respect you.”
“I don’t respect him either,” Luca mutters.
“Terrible time to announce that,” I say, because the bird is clearly listening.
The rooster gives Luca another furiousbwark.
Ace finally manages, “He really hates you.”
“I don’t know what I did,” Luca says, offended now.
That’s when the rooster makes his move. He shoots across the room before any of us can cut him off. North goes left. I go right. Ace tries to circle around from the couch. Luca, in a move that suggests panic has overtaken dignity, grabs a decorative throw blanket and attempts to herd the bird toward the open doors.
But the pesky thing spins sharply and cuts past Ace’s bare feet, heading for the hallway.
“No,” Luca says, breaking into a sprint. “Absolutely not. You are not getting the bedrooms.”
North gets there first, stepping neatly into the bird’s path with a speed that feels unfair. The rooster brakes, flares up again, and swivels toward the kitchen instead.
Ace lunges for him, arms outward to catch him in a swoop, and gets nothing but air.
Luca tries the throw blanket again, tossing it at him, but misses. “Why is he this athletic?”
“Because he’s fighting for his life,” I say. “And apparently winning.”
The rooster darts between my ankles, I stumble, Ace catches my elbow before I go down, and North disappears into the open kitchen.
A second later, he comes back with a plate.
