23. Nick

My chicken coop door keeps opening at random intervals during the night. Not ideal, considering the number of foxes that live in the area. Scratching my head, I lean over to inspect the coop door one more time just as Ingrid, my best layer, rushes out to peck me. I snap my hand away and shake it.

“Ouch! Ingrid, seriously?” I scowl at the fluffy white hen, who clucks angrily at me. Without a rooster, she’s taken it upon herself to be the flock’s protector. Not that I’m complaining, but I could do without being pecked to death. “This is for your own good, you know. I’m trying to fix your door, you little bully.”

I lean over and am rummaging through my tool chest when soft footfalls approaching make me straighten.

Living out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by dense trees and lakes, might bother some folks. In Pine Crest Hills town center, they whisper about me behind my back, but I know what they’re saying. Strange young man. Loner. Weirdo. I knew when I moved out here that the denizens of the town wouldn’t take too kindly to someone new moving in. Especially when I’ve made absolutely no attempts to integrate.

But I didn’t move here for them. I moved here for Oona.

Maurice, true to his word, cut me a solid deal on an old farmhouse that no one wanted. It needed a lot of repairs, but that didn’t scare me off. In fact, fixing it up has been a lot of fun and gives me something to do when my sweetheart is busy hunting. Which is … a lot of the time.

Oona’s tail swishes behind playfully as she bounds up to me, and before I can greet her properly, she scoops me up and squishes me to her chest before setting me back down in the grass.

“Missed you,” she murmurs.

I stare up into her bright lilac eyes. Lilac, I’ve come to know, means she’s in a lighthearted mood, and I smile at her. “I missed you, too. What have you been up to today?”

Ingrid lets out a squawk at Oona and charges her. Oona leans over and scoops the chicken up and squishes the hen to her chest, too. More gently, at least, but I still can’t help but wince every time she does it. Like calls to like, they say, and Oona and Ingrid must recognize each other’s ferocity. They’ve been fast friends ever since she hatched. It also helps that Oona has never enjoyed the taste of poultry, preferring her water moccasins to chicken breast.

“Built a fire,” she says. “And worked on the new room.”

Oona’s been working on Treehouse 2.0 every single day since our arrival to the Hills. She’s already put up two rooms, which I insisted was good enough, but when she puts her mind to something, there’s no stopping her. She stocked her cupboards high of fermented flies, newt eyes, and other things I don’t dare poke my nose into.

Luckily, I don’t have to anymore. Because I also have a truck … and access to a grocery store and fast food again.

“How’s that coming along?” I ask.

She shrugs and sets Ingrid down with a pat on the head. “Not bad, but it would be better with you in it,” she says in her own tongue.

I smile. Once Oona declared herself “more or less fluent” in English, she decided it was my turn to become proficient in her language. I don’t disagree. After all, our lives are so entwined with one another’s, it only makes sense, but I still struggle with it.

I chuckle and scrub my hand through my hair, which is still damp from my shower a little while ago. Doesn’t matter. My t-shirt and jeans are already caked in mud thanks to chasing Freddie, my new donkey, through the field. Why I thought getting another animal when I can barely take care of the hens was a good idea, I’ll never know. But Oona loves the animals and delights in helping me with them.

“I need to get the coop fixed first, then we can head over there,” I say, and crouch down in front of the door.

She kneels next to me and grumbles. “This is still giving you problems? Why don’t you hire someone to come fix it for you?” She raises a brow and stares me down. A common argument we have that I refuse to budge on. “Just throw money at the problem, Nick.”

“Oona, no. I need to be able to fix my own coop,” I say.

Ingrid pecks at my boot, and I wave her away.

“Why? Why is this so important? Just learn how to do it from someone else. You weren’t born with the knowledge to fix coop doors, Nick.”

I run my fingers over my stubble and sigh. “Yeah, but you’ve done everything yourself and it worked out for you.”

She fixes me with a look. “And I’ve learned that I don’t have to do everything myself. Doing everything myself was lonely. Besides, if I could have done something in a few hours instead of a few weeks, I would have. But I didn’t have anyone to teach me. Don’t be so stubborn.”

I sigh. “Okay. I’ll call someone.”

Her eyes light up like crimson firecrackers.

“On one condition,” I say, shooting her a look. She furrows her brows. “Have a meal with me. Inside the house.”

She lets out a soft little indignant huff. Oona isn’t fond of my house. She says it creaks too much, which is rich considering she is literally living in a tree. But she also says it’s not made for her, which I understand. But when I lie in that king sized bed at night, alone and shivering underneath the blankets, all I want is her beside me, curled up against my body like she used to when we lived in the woods.

“I’ll have a meal with you inside your house if you sleep with me in the woods by the fire tonight,” she says, and lightly runs her claws across the tip of my nose. I chuckle. At least twice a week, I’ll sleep with her beside the fire. We compromise where we can, and so far, it’s working for us.

“It’s a deal,” I say. “But first, the chickens. I need to make some calls. We don’t want Ingrid getting nicked by a fox.”

When Oona rumbles her dissent, it sounds like a deep, cat-like purr. “The chickens are fine, I told you. I scared away all the predators from the area months ago. Please don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that there’s barely anything out here aside from gators, snakes, and fish anymore.”

I had noticed. And call me whatever names you want, but my pride is at stake, here. I need to fix the damn coop door the same way she needs to add an extension to her tree house.

The sound of a car door slamming shut has us both bolting to our feet. Oona is about to dive behind the coop if she needs to, but we both sigh with relief when we see the familiar black BMW beside the house.

Maurice steps out of the drivers seat first, then Kyle, Reese, and Dwight tumble out like it’s a damned clown car. We wave to each other as they start heading down the gravel path.

“Hey, you two! Guess what?” Dwight yells. Reese holds a large box in his arms and Kyle hurries down the hill to meet us.

“We got donuts,” Kyle says, rolling his eyes. “That’s … that’s it. It’s nothing special.”

I laugh as he and I hug briefly. “Donuts are special.”

“I hate donuts,” Oona announces.

“We know,” Kyle and I say in unison. Oona lets out a soft snort and crosses her arms.

Reese pulls out a plastic bag and beans Oona in the head with something white and pillowy. I shoot a glare at him. “Hey. I told you last time to quit doing that.”

Oona doesn’t give a shit she’s being smacked in the face with candy. She lets out a girlish squeal as she snaps up the marshmallows and devours them in a single bite. Reese throws another marshmallow at her, and she catches it mid-air.

“What?” Reese says, frowning. “She loves them!”

“My girlfriend is not an alligator,” I warn him, but Oona ignores me and snaps up another marshmallow.

A month ago, after bringing yet another box of donuts from the city, Reese decided to experiment with my girlfriend. “Gators love marshmallows,” he said, and brought a bag for her just to see if she’d like them. Turns out, he was right. Gators do love marshmallows. And, it turns out … so does Oona. But I’d still prefer if he didn’t throw them at her like she’s some sort of wild animal.

Maurice meets us by the coop and scoops Ingrid into his arms while the other hens stay far, far away from us. “Still can’t fix the damned thing? Let me take a crack at it. I bet it’s easier than it looks.”

“No,” I sigh. “Oona’s convinced me to call someone about it.”

“Nonsense. I’ll have this sorted in no time,” he says.

Maurice and Ingrid fuss over the coop door together while Kyle, Reese, and Dwight open the box of donuts. The logo isn’t one I recognize. I pull out a plain glazed and take a bite of it. My eyes widen as the sugary sweetness coats my tongue and makes my heart do a happy dance. Goddamn, this is delicious.

“Where did you get these? This is the best donut I’ve ever had in my life,” I say.

Oona sneers at the donut in my hand as I hold it up, offering her a bite. She shakes her head, and I laugh. She plops down in the grass and goes back to munching on her bag of marshmallows. She’s going to get a stomachache, and I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with it later. Thanks, Reese.

“It’s a place called No Sugar Coating It, in Sugardove. Across from that financial firm, Fletcher and Sons,” Kyle says before taking a bite out of his own Boston cream. “Dwight and Reese are in love with the woman who works there.”

“Worked,” Reese says bitterly, and reaches into the box to grab a donut. “She doesn’t anymore. She got married to some dick from the firm. Figures, right? It’s always the hot ones who get scooped up by the biggest assholes.”

I flash him a wry grin and say, “Okay, let’s be fair for a second. Do we know if that guy is actually an asshole, or are you just being bitter?”

Reese and Dwight shrug. “He worked at the firm, so he’s an asshole,” Dwight mutters.

“Fair enough,” I say. “Too bad. But at least the donuts are good. And there’s no shortage of hot women in the city.”

Oona’s tail thrashes in the grass, and when I look up at her, I notice her eyes flicker from purple to yellow. Caution. Like a traffic light.

“But human women don’t do it for me anymore, I’m afraid, so what do I know?” I add quickly, earning myself a placated smile in return from my lizard queen.

“I’m jealous,” Reese mutters before taking a bite of his donut. “I want a giant woman to take care of me.”

“I don’t take care of him,” Oona hisses as she stands up to loom over the trio menacingly. No matter how many times I’ve asked her to not do that, I can’t stop her. She loves messing with them too much. And let’s be honest, it is pretty funny to see Kyle pee his pants every now and then when she gets the jump on him. “We take care of each other.”

Oona’s tail wraps around my calf in a familiar protective grip, and my heart thrums in my chest. Content. This is what it means to be content, at last.

The trio scarfs down the rest of the donuts while Maurice tinkers with the coop door. Oona and I almost forget they’re there as we look into each other’s eyes, our hearts full. Her claws trace my cheek, and she bends over to kiss me.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I’ll keep her.

The End

Thank you for reading Sink or Swim by D.J. Russo. If you enjoyed this book, could you do me a favor and leave a review? Reviews are especially important for indie authors and I appreciate each and every single one I get!