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“I can set it to go off if anyone comes into the house,” she said. “Arm it. But I’m showing eight window sensors unattached. The back door sensor is out of batteries. And even if I did arm this, the alarm wouldn’t call the cops like it was intended.”
“Do it,” I grumbled.
Anything was better than nothing.
Then I walked home and tried really hard not to feel bad about leaving her in a house by herself, in a bed that was hard as hell, with two birds that couldn’t help her if she needed anything.
I would like to say that night I slept like a baby, but I hadn’t done that in what seemed like a lifetime. What was one more night, with one more worry added on top?
CHAPTER 5
Don’t be sad over someone that would’ve given you ugly kids.
-Greer to Sara
GREER
“Is it me? Am I the drama?”
I blinked open one eye to see Bo Seefus staring at me like I was the world’s worst bird owner.
“I’m up,” I grumbled.
I was the world’s worst bird owner. I’d forgotten to feed them last night.
“Mur. Mur-der,” he quoted one of my favorite TikTok quotes. “Judas, no!”
I got up, wiped the sleep from my eyes and groaned.
The bed underneath me was hard.
Very hard.
“I’m up,” I complained.
I hated being up, but I was up.
I wasn’t a morning person.
In fact, I wasn’t an afternoon person, either.
I was a middle of the evening and night until nine p.m. kind of person. I was an almost middle-aged woman who could barely stand to get up.
“Feed me, Mother.”
I sighed, brushed my teeth, then dried my mouth off before hitting the stairs again.
I moved out of the hallway and straight to their food dishes. As soon as I had them filled up, both birds flew at me like I’d fulfilled their every want and dream.
I moved back to my bathroom to relieve myself, then sat in wonder at how long it’d taken me to empty my bladder. When was the last time…
I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten home last night.
Alarm flared in me, but I decided that Sara must’ve been the one to get me here, because how else would I have wound up in a bed in my house? Sure, it wasn’t my actual bed. Sure, it was a fake bed made of plywood that I’d decorated to look like a bedroom because I was tired of my house looking as if I was still moving in when, in fact, I’d been there for two years.
I mean, eventually, if I got money, I’d do more to it. But that money didn’t grow on trees. And being a taxidermist paid well if you owned your own business. But since I liked Herb, I wouldn’t be getting my own business started anytime soon.
It didn’t take long before both birds were on the shower curtain staring down at me. The creepers.
I’d gotten Bo Seefus, and his brother the Bible quoter, from an elderly lady that had come in for a taxidermy job for her last bird. When she’d died, she’d left me the two cute, adorable things, and I hadn’t looked back since.
Bo Seefus had been able to change his Bible-quoting ways, switching to TikTok, which I might or might not listen to a lot.
Now Bryan, on the other hand, he’d continued to quote the Bible at me, no matter what I’d tried.
“Fire and brimstone!” Bryan squawked when I got a bit aggressive with my hair washing.
I didn’t overly think about the ins and outs of my life and moved on to more important matters. Like shaving my legs.
Once I’d gone from Chewbacca to my usual self, I got out, dried off, and headed to my closet where I pulled out my favorite pair of comfy jeans and a t-shirt.
Today would be a no-bullshit kind of day.
It was about an hour shy of dawn, and I needed to run to the office to open it up with Herb before I headed back out to hit the bank up, run a few errands, and then get back to work and start on the few jobs that I had left after hunting season had wrapped up.
This year, I’d had two gators, nineteen white-tailed deer, and even an iguana.
But since I was the only one actively working right then, I didn’t take many jobs. There was only so much of me to go around.
“All right, boys,” I said to the birds. “I’ll be back around two. If you need anything, call.”
“All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory,” the bird said in reply.
I rolled my eyes and headed back for my fake bedroom where I got my phone, keys, and purse.
My phone was dead as a doornail.
Luckily, I’d gotten a ride to work yesterday from Sara, meaning that I had a bike that I could ride to work today.
