Cody picked something up from one of the end tables. “Why aren’t they wearing these?”
Joining us, Jacinda explained, “Because I always worry they’ll get caught on something when they’re out there alone, and I didn’t want them to choke themselves. What if they got them caught on the doggy door when they came through it?”
Pointing at the tag hanging off the collar, I told her, “That’s what opens the doggy door, Jacinda. Without it, they can’t get in and out.”
“Oh, my God,” Katy said through her laughter as she joined us. “I didn’t realize how much your chicken looks like Bob Ross until just now. He was playing catch with the dogs, and his little bouffant was bopping around.”
Alex, me, and Cody all looked at each other and then sprinted toward the backdoor.
The party had been thrown because our friends and family wanted to let Cody know how special he was and make him feel loved.
Yes, it was weird that there were only adults and three small kids at it, but no one had known who to call and what Cody’s friends' numbers were. It’d also been an attempt for Cody to get some positive attention from the men to offset the uncaring bullshit from his dad.
Nowhere in all of the plans was there anything that said we’d all spend an hour trying to get the chickens back in the coop after we’d gotten the dogs back in the house. Yet, we did, and by the end of it, Cody was laughing so hard he had tears running down his cheeks.
“When El Chapo appeared in Alex’s yard, and Garrett and Raoul were talking to him like he was a crazy perp,” he wheezed, flopping down onto his back on the grass. “I swear the chicken was looking at them like they were the ones with issues.”
Snorting, Dave took a mouthful from his bottle of water. “I liked it when we turned around and saw Cher watching us from the windowsill… inside the house.”
Back and forth, the men traded stories while the ladies all sat with their legs in the swimming pool.
“Your chickens are assholes,” Tabby hissed, holding her water bottle on her neck.
“I thought Bob Ross was cute,” Bex grumbled, shooting a glare at the coop where all of them were standing in a line, watching us. “That asshole took a chunk out of my ankle.”
“I think he took my toe,” Rose agreed, squinting through the water at her foot. “He looks adorable, has the name of one of the sweetest guys who drew happy trees and happy clouds, but he has the soul of the devil. Why’s he so mean?”
That was a question we’d asked ourselves a thousand times since we’d brought him home.
“I like Weird Al. He’s a cuddler,” Katy said quietly. “Maybe we should get some chickens?”
Only Katy Klein could go through what we just had with my little poultry shitheads and see it as good marketing that’d sold her a product. She was one of the sweetest women I’d ever met, and her new husband was an absolute god, but she found the weirdest things appealing.
Smiling at her, Sayla asked, “What would you call them?”
It took her all of a second to reply. “Geralt, Sonic, Mario, Luigi, Jaskier, and—”
“Wait, wait!” Jacinda held her hand up. “I know who the three dudes in the middle are, but who are Gerald and the other guy?”
“Geralt,” Katy corrected her. “The character from The Witcher, and Jaskier was the bard in it who accompanied Geralt on his adventure.”
“I know who you’re talking about,” Jacinda cried excitedly. “I’ve watched it, like, twenty times.”
Looking freaking ecstatic, Katy squealed. “Oh, my God. Do you play the game? We should play sometime. I had no idea.”
“Oh, girl, no,” Jacinda snorted back. “I watched it for Henry Cavill’s character. He never did it for me before, but the second he put on that wig, stuck those contacts in, and started doing his Witcher thing, I was a convert. Sign me the fuck up! And that scene when he’s in the bath.” She made a show of wiping her mouth with her hand.
Leaning into my side, Tabby whispered, “How did we go from discussing your asshole chickens to Katy buying herself some to Jacinda drooling over a guy with a white wig?”
“I wonder if they do The Witcher vibrators?” Jacinda mused, tapping her chin. “I’d buy one.”
“Add that onto my list,” Tabby said before straightening up.
After the shit night Cody had and the stress of what Alex and I had gone through getting to him and making sure he was okay physically and mentally, we shouldn’t have been here laughing and breathing easy.
We were, though, and it was all thanks to the incredible people who were around us, and it came naturally to them to help us through it all.