Chapter 17 #2
“Okay, that’s it. What is that?”
“Okay, Jasper, wait—”
Jasper opened the only closed bedroom door, the room Ryan had been staying in, and stopped dead, his jaw dropping at the chaos in front of him.
Two chickens were in roosting positions in the corner of the bedroom, and every bit of it was covered in literal shit—the furniture, the floor, the windowsills, even the extra linens Jasper kept in the closet.
One chicken was scratching at the now discolored mattress, pecking and pulling at the bits of fuzz it had uncovered like it was a robin finding early morning worms.
“What the hell!”
“I can explain—”
“There are chickens in my house!” Jasper turned to Ryan. “You can explain? Did you do this? Why?”
“No! It wasn’t me. The girls did it, and I thought—”
“If you knew, why the hell didn’t you put them back outside? They destroyed the whole room!”
Ryan twisted his hands together. “I know, I was planning on dealing with the mess, but then you walked in and looked so sick, I wanted to make sure you ate. And I was hoping I could clean up before you realized they were in there.”
“Nina, I understand, she’s five. But Winnie? She’s almost seventeen years old! Is this some sort of rebellion thing? Did they tell you?”
“I’ll talk to them about it.”
“God,” Jasper said, rubbing his eyes. “There’s no way I can sleep now. Can you help me move them back to the coop so at least the mess ends here?”
“Of course,” Ryan said, grabbing a chicken wearing an ankle bracelet and shoving it under his arm. He picked up another and headed towards the side door.
“No!” Nina shouted. “I wanted to have a sleepover with Carl!”
“You named a chicken Carl?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” she whined. “I made her a bracelet so I knew which one she was, and I wanted her to sleep in my room tonight.”
“Okay, well, no chicken sleepovers. They ruined my house!” Jasper said, passing by them with another chicken. “Can you help get them out, please, Nina?”
“Yeah,” she said sadly. Ryan handed her Carl and she gave the bird a hug before following Jasper out the door.
Okay, so, Ryan’s plan had not been the flawless invite into Jasper’s bed he’d imagined.
Now, he was out two hundred dollars, the chickens had done way more damage than he’d thought possible, Jasper was angry and sick and very likely not horny for his ex-husband, and Nina was crying about her best friend—a chicken—having to sleep outside with a bunch of other chickens.
Winnie’s smirk in his direction was salt in the wound when he realized she almost certainly predicted this result, but had no reason to tell him, because he was stupid enough to approach her with the dollar amount instead of his desired outcome.
Not that he needed that type of advice from his niece, but he could have framed it differently. I need your uncle to love me again, for example.
Lessons learned, and all that, but he’d appreciate the knowledge more if he wasn’t now forced to spend the remaining nights of their babysitting gig on the slightly too small couch, with scratchy blankets and an uncomfortable pillow.
At least Jasper was still awake, now showered and in clean, comfortable clothes with no chicken debris on them.
He’d returned about ten minutes earlier from brushing his teeth and saying goodnight to the kids.
Ryan had held his breath when he heard Jasper’s footsteps coming down the hall, sure he’d be faced with Jasper hidden behind a mountain of bedding to make Ryan as comfortable as possible on the couch.
He’d been right. Jasper had dropped the linens on the chair and took a spot on the couch.
Ryan was happy when he’d sat sort of close, relatively speaking.
Instead of an entire couch cushion between them, Jasper had sat on the crease between the first and second cushion, putting his thigh a barely-distant eighteen inches from Ryan’s.
He tried not to read into it. But how could he not? Nobody sits on the crease on purpose.
“What a day,” Jasper finally said.
“No kidding. At least tomorrow you get to go to work. I’ll be here cleaning up chicken poop and trying to get the house pulled together so you can relax after the girls leave.”
Jasper nodded. “Thank you. We’ll see if I make it to work tomorrow.”
“Still feeling bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry,” Ryan said, his hands itching to reach out and pull Jasper closer.
It had been so long since he’d felt Jasper’s body pressed against his.
Sick, with his nose stuffed up and his voice rough from a sore throat, Jasper stirred something protective inside Ryan.
His chest felt the loss acutely, no longer the place Jasper wished to rest his head when fighting a bad cold.
“I’m getting rid of the chickens.”
Ryan burst out laughing. “No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not, but seeing the amount of mess they made in one day did make me question eating anything that comes out of their body.”
“Remember that time I ate those oysters and got food poisoning?”
Jasper snorted, then whimpered and rubbed his nose. “Ow, laughing hurts. Don’t make me laugh.”
“I should have listened to you. You said they were warm.”
“They were being sold out of a car in the middle of summer, of course they were warm.”
“He had a cooler!”
“I don’t care if he had a cooler! He was just some guy, and I told you not to eat them! And then you ate a dozen.”
“Well,” Ryan said, crossing his arms. “I’m bringing it up because you said I would never eat oysters again.
And guess what, I have eaten oysters about a thousand times since then.
” Never from a guy on the side of the road, and always at what Ryan considered to be restaurants where the staff knew what they were doing, but he did eat them again.
“Okay? That’s good, you love oysters.”
“I’m saying you’ll probably eat eggs again, once the witnessed horrors of the day have faded from your memory.”
Jasper laughed, then whined—again. “I asked you to stop being funny.”
Ryan let that hang between them for a moment, not interested in causing Jasper physical pain, but loving his little smile.
They were quiet for a while, and with every passing moment on the couch, Jasper sprawled further into the cushions.
His head tipped onto Ryan’s shoulder, then slowly slid down to his chest, where it settled as Ryan shifted his arm to hold him there.
Sleep finally took over, and Jasper's warm breath against Ryan's skin stirred the neglected embers in his chest back to life.
They stayed like that for an hour, Ryan too afraid to wake Jasper and lose the moment forever.
Eventually, he was too tired to hold Jasper’s head up, and he didn’t want to fall asleep on the couch, afraid Jasper might freak out the next morning and distance himself.
Despite how much he wanted to stay there forever, Ryan nudged Jasper gently until he lifted his head.
And, much to Ryan’s expectations, Jasper jolted himself upright when he realized he’d been snuggled against Ryan’s body.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Jasper said, wiping his mouth of drool.
“That’s okay. But you should go to bed, it’s late.”
Jasper nodded. “Yeah.” He stood up and looked at Ryan, then to the bedding on the chair and back to Ryan. “I always forget how big you are.”
Ryan snorted a laugh. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Jasper shrugged. “It’s neither. The couch is small, though. For someone your size.”
“I’ve slept on this couch before. It’s not ideal, but it’s survivable,” Ryan said, not sure why he’d offered that reminder.
“It’s just… um.”
Ryan held his breath, hoping with everything he had that he knew where Jasper was going. He stayed silent, terrified he’d say something Jasper would read as pressure.
“You don’t have a bed,” Jasper said.
“That’s true.”
“My bed is really big.”
“I know. I bought it.”
Jasper sighed. “Do you want to sleep in my bed? Just for tonight.”
Ryan stood immediately. “Yes. I really—”
“Not for… I mean, just because you don’t have a bed. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jasper said, eyes focused on the couch.
“Of course not.”
“Okay. Wait, do you have any clean clothes, or did the chickens destroy them?”
“I got lucky, they were all in the wash.” On purpose, because Ryan didn’t want to risk getting chicken poop all over his clothes. But Jasper didn’t need to know that.
“All of them?”
“Yeah. Laundry day,” Ryan said, shrugging.
Jasper nodded questioningly. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you in there, then.”
When Ryan came into the bedroom a few minutes later, Jasper was already asleep, snoring softly from his stuffy nose.
He’d placed a wall of pillows down the center of the bed to drive home the point he’d made earlier.
Ryan let out a quiet laugh and climbed into the bed, pulling up the extra blanket Jasper had left on his side.
He shoved his hand under one of the pillows, just far enough to feel the warmth from Jasper’s now feverish body.