Page 7 of Cattle Stop

“Is that a hint you want help with chores?” Cooper asks.

“I want to have cut the board to the right length the first damn time.” Drew cups his hand around his mouth and shouts toward the ceiling, “And it’s a hint to the fucking squirrels.”

“Measure once, cut fifteen times. And excellent communication skills. A bit more of that and I’m sure the squirrels’ll be packing their bags.” Cooper laces up his boots and frowns at Whit, who’s zipping his coat neatly up to his chin. “What’re you doing? Isn’t it your day off?”

“You can’t do chores by yourself. You haven’t been here in six months,” Whit says.

Cooper pushes past him out into the chilly wind in the barnyard. “I think I can figure out how to feed a bunch of damn cows.”

“And pigs.”

“Oh, we already have pigs for the season? A shocking notion, feeding a pig. I wouldn’t have thought I’d need supervision since they’re, well, pigs.”

“We?”

“Next you’re going to tell me something else surprising, like we’re expecting calves anytime this spring.”

“We are expecting calves any day now.”

Cooper walks quicker, which is always a losing battle because Whit has a couple of inches on him, and it seems to be all in his legs.

The barn’s the same as always. The watering trough by the fence, the hose coiled and hanging, the pitchforks set against the wall—everything where it’s been since that first summer day Cooper’s grandfather dropped him off, back when Cooper was still in high school and Mom had judged him too rambunctious—Cooper, I’m working, please—and had shipped him upstate to his grandparents. The worst, he’d thought with Grandpa promising he’d be back in a couple hours, waving to Drew’s uncle and reminding him about their weekend’s golf plans. Cooper had stood in the barnyard, skinny and full of his early adolescent awkwardness, with no clue about cows or pigs or chickens.

But Drew had been there to show him the ropes. And Whit to critique him, every damn step of the way.

What joy, Cooper thinks as Whit trails him down the barn’s center aisle. The spigot set into the wall rattles as Cooper turns it, letting out a hiss of air. A far-too-weak stream of water flows from the end of the hose.

“You still haven’t fixed this?” Cooper asks.

“Sorry, I didn’t know there’d be an inspection this afternoon.”

“I told you: clipboards and a checklist.” Cooper sets the end of the hose in the watering trough. “You might be able to find the time, if you didn’t have to stand around waiting for this to fill all damn day.”

“If that’s what you’re planning to do, I’ll let Penny know not to hurry with dinner,” Whit says. “Wedge the hose so it stays and feed out the hay while the water’s filling.”

Cooper throws his hands up. “Oh my God, you just stumbled upon the secret of farming, thank you so much for sharing that with me.”

The hose tips out of the trough and dribbles across Cooper’s thighs. He turns a shoulder to Whit and reaches down to grab it. There’s a bracket in the wall and a dirty mark on the hose where Whit must push it in every morning and evening.

Cooper has to try twice to get it set just right, and he can feel Whit watching him like a burn across the back of his neck.

“Should I tell Penny about dinner?” Whit asks.

“Thanks for giving you a hand, I think you mean. You’re welcome.”

Cooper climbs the ladder to the loft quickly, his jeans sticking to his legs where the denim’s soaked. How lovely it would be to go back down there, yank the hose out, and accidentally-on-purpose drench Whit’s pants too. Though it probably wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as he imagines, what with the trickle of water the broken spigot lets out.

Or, he could go down there, throw off years of nerves and worry over Whit’s reaction and blurt out, I’m so fucking into you. He snorts a soft laugh to himself. It might be worth it, just to see the look of disgust on Whit’s face. The exasperation he has in spades for Cooper and the horror of the thought that Cooper could be anything more than the irritation of a rock wedged in the sole of his shoe.

Though that soft, hurt spot in Cooper’s chest would ache, the one it’s better to shield with thoughts of poking back at Whit’s ire with him by being a pest in his own right, than having to hear once and for all, out loud and forever imprinted in his memory, that Cooper will never, not ever, be good enough for him. Too impulsive, too distracting, too rash, talks too much—Whit probably keeps a list of what he dislikes about Cooper and adds to it every time Cooper swings by the farm.

Socks, the barn cat, lounges in a weak beam of spring sunlight. His ears prick when he sees Cooper, the end of his tail flicking and his claws flexing. He relaxes when he sniffs Cooper’s fingers, then butts his forehead against his knuckles, trying to get Cooper to rub his neck. Well, at least someone likes Cooper. Drew, Socks, and Sadie—what a crew of best friends. Cooper’ll take it. Spend his time petting Socks’s long fur, rather than have to deal with Whit for another minute, but he takes a look around at the hay bales and—no. Just no.

“Socks,” he whispers, chucking the cat under his chin. “What the fuck is Whit doing to this place?”

But Socks just purrs and Cooper calls down, “Whit?”

“Cooper.”