Calum ran his hand through his hair, trying to tame it. “Couldn’t get a new one anyway. The contract isn’t in my name.”
“Whose name is it in?”
“My, uh, ex.”
Brix raised an eyebrow as comprehension coloured his features. “Is that what’s happened here? You’ve busted up and split?”
“Something like that.” Calum turned away from Brix’s searching gaze and focussed on the nearest thing, which happened to be a near-bald chicken. “What the hell is that?”
“That, my friend, is an ex-battery hen. I think I’m going to call her Ginger.”
“Ginger?”
“Yeah, she might be a red one when she gets her feathers back. Did your ex leave that bruise on your face?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it.” Calum glanced around again, noting that Ginger wasn’t the only bald chicken scratching around. “Are they all ex-battery?”
Brix’s frown deepened, but after a fleeting standoff, he returned his attention to the chickens. “Every one. Started rescuing them a few years back. Got nearly twenty now. Too many, I suppose, but, hey, that’s life.”
“Where do you get them?”
“Factory farms, mostly. They get sent to slaughter when their egg production slows down, but they’ve got years left in ’em really, if you take care of them right.”
“So you rescue them?”
Brix shrugged. “I buy them, actually, the morning their number is up, then sell them on to soft idiots like me who want a few eggs for their breakie and a taste of the good life.”
It was almost too romantic for Calum to bear. “What do you do with them when they stop laying?”
“Depends.” Brix winced. “If they’re healthy enough, I’ll keep them going, but if they’re not doing so well, I get my dad to, um, you know.”
Calum got the picture. “Your dad lives close?”
“Close enough.” Brix treated Calum to a roguish grin. “He lives with my aunt up at the house.”
The house. For some reason, that rang a bell, and then Calum recalled the rumours he’d heard about the underworld clan Brix had come from. He wondered how true they were—if Brix’s eldest brother really had killed a man with his bare hands—then he remembered this was real life, not Game of fucking Thrones and shit like that was never true . . . right?
Calum had never quite had the balls to ask, and though his life had imploded since he’d seen Brix last, that much hadn’t changed. He pointed at the baldest chicken crouching quietly in the corner by herself. “What’s that one called?”
“She hasn’t got a name yet. I was going to take her and a couple of others to my dad, but I cleared some space, so I reckon I’m going to keep all of this morning’s leftovers with me.”
“‘This morning’s’?”
“That’s where I’d been when I found you at the station. I was on my way home.”
“Oh.” Calum couldn’t think of anything else to say. Embarrassment warred with depression, and depression won out. While Brix had been doing his best for Cornwall’s poultry, Calum had been dribbling down his T-shirt on a rusty bench. What a tit. But a warm bundle of flesh being thrust at his chest distracted him before he could brood further. He stared at the bald hen Brix had dropped into his arms. “What the—”
“She’s friendly. Think she’s gonna be a cuddler.”
“A cuddling chicken?” The world had officially gone mad. “Is there such a thing?”
“Not often. My lot are a bit unruly. My old man’s got a couple he keeps in his pockets, though.”
Though he’d never seen Brix’s father, Calum couldn’t quite imagine him as the kind of bloke who got soft over pet chickens. He studied the hen in his arms. “She looks oven ready.”
“Oi, none of that. She’ll hear you.”
Brix’s horrified expression told Calum he was entirely serious. Calum tempered his amusement and stroked the chicken’s head. “You should call her Bongo.”