Louder and more intense.
Very intense.
Like, are there chicken police? Because we might need the chicken police.
I drift directly behind Tripp while we approach the noise, shameless in using him as a human shield if this is a chicken uprising. What’s that movie? The one with the apes that rebel and take over the world? That’s what this sounds like, except with feathers and clucks instead of chest-pounding and grunts.
“Should we call security?” My self-defense classes didn’t cover protecting yourself from rabid chickens.
“That’d be a foul,” he murmurs. And then chuckles to himself, and oh my god.
“Foul—fowl? Like a bird-fowl? Did you just make a dad joke at a time like this?”
“A time like this? You mean a random Tuesday night at a deserted ball field?”
“At a time when the chickens are gathering for a ritualistic sacrifice of one of their own.”
His shoulders shake, and he seems to be struggling to cough.
“Oh, god, did you inhale a feather? Is that how this starts? They shed their feathers to choke us to death?”
“Please don’t talk about chickens and choking in the same sentence.”
“That was not a dad joke.”
“No, it was—oh. Duck.”
I squat low, spinning to see what I’m ducking from.
Tripp flips his flashlight on me. I squint and cover my head. “Stop! I can’t see! What’s coming?”
“Lila. Ducks. Ducks. Not chickens. It’s mating ducks.”
He swings the flashlight to the dugout, and—oh.
Oh.
“Is it…supposed to be that violent?”
There are two ducks under the bench in the dugout, one flapping its wings and chasing the other, who’s squawking so loudly she could wake the dead.
And— “Ohmygod, I did not need to see that!”
Duck penis.
Duck penis.
Oh my god. Duck penis. Duck penis should not look like that.
Tripp’s bent double laughing.
“Where’s security?” I demand. “Hello? Security? Security? I’ll give whoever removes this duck a ten-thousand-dollar bonus. Right now.”
No one comes running for ten grand, because no one can hear me.
The squawking. It’s a cry for help.
“It’s nature,” Tripp says. He’s wiping his eyes now, he’s laughing so hard. “Give ’em a few. They’ll finish up.”
The girl duck is racing back and forth under the bench.
The boy duck is chasing her with that thing.
And I am not having it. “Shoo. Shoo!”
“Lila!” Tripp calls, but I’m already gone.
Flapping my arms. Yelling. Charging the dugout and the ducks.
Why are they even here? There’s no pond here. Winter’s coming. They should be flying to the Caribbean for Mai Tais and sunshine.
And instead, they’re ruining the sanctity of my ballpark.
“Shoo!” I yell again.
I hit the stairs down to the long covered bench, and the boy duck suddenly seems to realize I’m coming at him.
He turns, pointing that thing at me, flaps his wings, and gets this evil glint in his eyes that means I really should’ve thought about what I was doing before I came in here.
“Woo her nicely,” I snap.
He squawks—no, quacks at me.
Crap.
I need to go back to kindergarten to learn my animal sounds again. I’m a city girl. We don’t do farm animals.
“And put that thing away!”
“Lila.” Tripp’s laughing so hard he’s wheezing. He grabs my elbow and tugs. “Let the ducks be.”
“I’d let it be if he wasn’t attacking her.”
“Maybe that’s how ducks have sex.”
“Then maybe ducks shouldn’t exist.”
“QQQUUUUAAAACCCCCKKKKK!” the boy duck yells.
It’s like a Braveheart yell, and I realize I’m asking the wrong question.
I shouldn’t be asking why is the duck assaulting the other duck in a dugout?
I should be asking what have humans previously done to this duck because he’s going to kill me?
It charges, wings flapping.
I scream and take off running. Tripp mutters a well-timed, oh, fuck and runs with me. “The other dugout,” he shouts, pointing to the dugout on the third base side.
Another light flashes up in the stands.
“Security!” I yell. “Arrest the duck! Arrest the duck!”
It’s gaining on us. Quacking louder. And it can fly. It can fly.
It’s going to swoop over us, poop on our heads, and whack us with that—that—that mutant penis and then scoop us up in its talons, and—“Aaah! It got me. It got me!”
It bit me on the butt.
“Don’t fuck with nature,” Tripp grunts.
And suddenly I’m in the air.
Tossed over his shoulder.
Bouncing while the man who made out with me while lying about his name saves me from a rabid horny duck.
He dashes down the stairs to the other dugout, through a door, and then slams it shut behind us.
A thud follows.
The kind of thud that suggests a bird—or a duck—just hit a wall.
“Ohmygod, we killed the duck!”
He sets me on the ground, hands to my hips as he steadies me, and after a beat of staring at me like I have the mental capacity of an amoeba, he bursts out laughing.
Again.
I straighten my jacket and frown at him. It’s a good frown too. It’s the same kind my mom used to use on me when I’d lie to her about doing my homework.
At least, I hope it is.
That frown was terrifying.
But it’s not fazing Tripp.
Nope, he’s still grinning at me, eyes dancing, chuckles still racking his body while he casually leans a shoulder against the door, clearly trying to get himself under control. “Now you’re worried about killing the duck?”
“I was worried about the one duck killing the other duck. I don’t want the ducks to die. I just want them to live in harmony.”
The humor slowly leaves his expression as he studies me. “You think we can live in harmony?”
Duck, indeed. That’s a loaded question. “Are we talking philosophy?”
“No, Lila. You and me. Working together. To make this team work.”
He doesn’t add or would you rather just sell it to me?, but I swear I can read it in his eyes.
His fascinating pale blue eyes.
I’d wondered what color they were behind those glasses the night we met, and now they’re all mine to study. To puzzle out. To understand.
Not that I have any business going there. Technically speaking, I’ll be his boss. Having the final say in how my uncle’s baseball team gets turned around.
The team that Uncle Al asked for help with.
The team that probably would’ve done a lot better this year if I hadn’t filed his email in the trash.
If my mom was still around, I know she would’ve wanted me to help. Family’s complicated, honey, but they’re still family. If we don’t help them, who will?
I’ve unconsciously drifted next to Tripp, my own shoulder leaning on the door inches from him while I study him right back. “We don’t have a choice, do we?”