Page 25 of Rent a Bad Boy

“You might want to slow down,” the girl with the nose ring offers. “Those are pretty strong.”

“I’m fine,” I tell her with a smile, because I am fine. I feel completely normal. Totally regular Isla. The brownie was a non-event.

Twenty minutes later, I am not fine.

It doesn’t hit me all at once. It sneaks up, which kind of feels like a personal betrayal from a baked good. One minute I’m on the couch listening to a conversation about whether a hot dog is a sandwich—which, by the way, it is not—and the next minute, the couch feels like it’s slowly swallowing me, and my thoughts are moving at a speed I can only describe as syrupy.

“Oh,” I say out loud to nobody in particular. “There it is.”

“There what is?” Everett asks.

“The brownie. It’s happening.” I hold up my hand and look at it, really look at it, and it’s like I’m seeing my fingers for the first time. “My hand is so weird. Why do we have five fingers? Who decided five was the right number? Four would be fine. Six would be too many. But five? Five is such an arbitrary⁠—”

“She’s high,” Red Hair announces with a grin.

“I’m not high. I’m just... noticing things.” I lean back into the sofa cushions, which are definitely swallowing me now. I don’t even care anymore. It’s actually kind of nice. “Did you guys know that chickens can remember over a hundred different faces? Like, a hundred. Most people can’t even remember a hundred faces. My chickens are literally smarter than most humans.”

And now I’m talking about the chickens. I don’t remember deciding to start talking about them. It just happens the way breathing happens. One second, I’m thinking about the number five, and the next, I’m telling football players about Cardigan’s dietary preferences and how Betty refuses to roost next to Tennessee even though they’re inseparable during the day. How Starlight was a runt I fed sugar water with an eyedropper, and she almost died, but she didn’t. She didn’t die, and isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t survival the most beautiful thing?

“I think she’s crying,” someone whispers.

“I’m not crying. I’m just... emotional.” I wipe my face with my sleeve because I am, in fact, crying. “Anyway, Brad Pitt is my rooster. He’s the ugliest rooster you’ve ever seen, but he has the most confidence of anyone I’ve ever met, including every person in this room. No offense.”

“None taken,” Red Hair replies. Even in the state I’m currently in, I can tell he’s entertained.

“I have pictures.” I’m already pulling out my phone, shoving the screen toward the nearest person. “Look at this. This is Marjorie. She’s the smart one. Look at her eyes. You can tell she’s thinking.”

“She’s cute,” Nose Ring Girl offers, passing the phone along.

“She’s a genius. She once figured out how to open the latch on the coop from the inside, and I had to redesign the whole thing. Do you know how many YouTube tutorials there are about chicken-proof latches? Eleven. I watched all of them.”

The phone is making its way around the room, and people are actually looking at the pictures. A few of them are even making sounds that could generously be interpreted as interest. The weed is helping, probably. Everyone’s a little more relaxed, a little more open, a little more willing to look at a stranger’s chicken photos and nod along.

Then “Cardigan” comes on.

I don’t know who’s controlling the playlist. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or if the universe is just messing with me tonight. But the opening notes of the song float out of the speaker and hit me right in the chest, and my eyes start watering up again.

“Oh, no,” I whisper. “This is her song. This is Cardigan’s song.”

“The chicken has a song?” somebody asks.

“They all have songs. They’re named after Taylor Swift songs. Cardigan was my first. I got her when she was just a little...” I sniffle and wipe my eyes. “A little yellow puffball. She fit in my hand. She was so tiny.”

I am now fully crying in front of fifteen people I don’t know while Taylor Swift plays in the background, which honestly is not that different from my usual Friday nights except for the audience.

“I love them so much,” I announce to the room at large. “I would die for them. Every single one. Even Brad Pitt, and he’s kind of a jerk sometimes.” I wipe my eyes and then add, “I even have chickens on my underwear. You wanna see?”

My hands go to the waistband of my jeans, but Everett’s hand clamps over mine so fast I don’t even see him move. “No,” he says firmly, holding my hands in his. “They don’t want to see.”

“They might.”

“They don’t.”

“I’m just saying, they’re really cute underwear. There’s little chickens all over them, and they have tiny⁠—”

“Isla.” He gives me the kind of look that manages to be patient and deeply serious at the same time. “No.”

“Fine.” I slump against his shoulder because the effort of existing is suddenly exhausting. “But they’re missing out.”