Page 1 of Hot Chicken (Sunday Brothers #6)

CHAPTER ONE

JACK

The Little Pippin Hookers Annual Craft and Rummage Sale was many things to many people.

For the civic-minded, like my fiancé, Hawk, it was a chance to support the community since all proceeds benefited local LGBTQ outreach programs.

For me, it was a chance to finally spend a day with my man—even if it meant we were toiling over donated kitchenware side by side at the Dishes and Doo-Dads table. We’d both been incredibly busy this summer, and couple time was at a premium.

For bargain hunters like Hawk’s uncle Drew, it was a chance to add to his wardrobe, even if it resulted in his boyfriend’s grumpy objections (“I don’t care how cheap it is, Drew!

We’re supposed to be downsizing so we can buy a smaller place, remember?

”) with a sunshiny rebuke (“But Marco, baby… it’s for charity ! ”).

For the town’s gossip hounds—okay, fine, all of us—it was a prime opportunity to dish and be dished about.

And for certain otherwise rational folks, it was an opportunity to be perfectly ir rational about kitchen décor .

Case in point… the cock.

“Oh my God!” Teagan Curran gasped. He stared into the half-disintegrated cardboard box of kitchen décor on the grass, which he’d been unpacking onto the Dishes and Doo-Dads table.

The sun shone down on the top of his head, turning his hair from its usual auburn to a bright, coppery shine. People at nearby tables chatted excitedly about the beautiful morning, even though the heat was already sweltering.

“This is epic!”

I glanced up from my own critically important task of affixing colored price labels to the table full of tchotchkes. “What is?”

“This!” Teagan lifted out a ceramic cookie jar and held it aloft, not unlike Simba on Pride Rock.

I wrinkled my nose. This appeared to be a rooster-shaped cookie jar. It was large and squat, with a white body, an orange beak, a chip on one wing, and somnolent eyes that suggested it had been napping. It also had a truly enormous set of red wattles.

Cute… if you liked that sort of thing. Epic, though? Not so much.

Hawk, who’d been cleaning a decade’s worth of dust off some donated teacups, glanced up. We exchanged a quick smirk, and when Hawk looked away, I caught him fighting a grin that made my whole dusty, sweaty morning worthwhile.

Teagan’s friend Fern set another donation box beside the table and peered at the rooster. “Looks like an ’80s dust catcher to me,” she said with an eye roll. “Oooh, unless there’s money inside?”

“Hush, Fernella,” Teagan chided, covering the rooster’s ears. “He’ll hear you.”

“He?” Fern repeated. “Oh, Teagan, honestly…”

“What? He might be a mere decorative object to you, but to me, he has a very distinct psychic presence.” Teagan lifted his chin stubbornly, which set his long, red ponytail swinging. “He’s yearning for something.”

“Aw.” Hawk’s kind brown eyes shone with sympathy. My man hated to hear of a creature in need, whether it was a fellow human, a pregnant cat… or apparently poultry-shaped crockery. “What do you think he’s yearning for? Chicken feed, maybe? Oh, or cookies since he’s a cookie jar?”

I snorted. “Maybe air-conditioning, to escape this heat wave?” I wiped the side of my face against the shoulder of my T-shirt, and Hawk, because he was Hawk, gave me a distinctly interested up-down look that made my heart beat faster.

“Maybe a best friend who’s not a drama llama?” Fern suggested, shooting Teagan a grin. “I know that’s what I yearn for.”

Teagan’s lips twitched. “Mmmkay, first of all, you love my drama, Fernalicious. You live for my drama. The universe created you as a vessel for my drama, as it does with all best friend pairings, just as it created me to be a vessel for yours?—”

“Oh, ew. Fucking gross.” Fern shuddered and retched. “You just made it so weird, Teagan. Why are you like this?”

Hawk covered his laughter with his hand.

“And second of all.” Teagan’s ponytail swished triumphantly. “This isn’t drama at all. It’s me accessing my latent talents.” He narrowed his eyes. “Which, as my best friend, you should be encouraging .”

“Your latent talents?” Hawk tilted his head, plainly confused. “What talents?”

“Well, since you asked…” Teagan began, giving Hawk a friendly smile.

“Oh, God, now you’ve done it,” Fern moaned.

She stepped between Teagan and Hawk. “There was a fortune-teller booth at the Averill Union end-of-school carnival a few weeks ago, Hawk. And of course, our Teagan here had to ask a billion questions about the lotions and potions and crystals the lady was selling?—”

Teagan squawked. “Because I’m a friendly person who seeks knowledge , Fern!”

“And then buy a billion lotions and potions?—”

“Because the scent of palo santo is relaxing!”

“And the woman told Teagan he was an empath who needed to work on ‘unlocking his skills,’” Fern concluded with an eye roll. “If he’d bought a couple more crystals, she might have convinced him he was the reincarnation of George Washington.”

“Excuse you.” Teagan folded his arms over his chest and stepped around her.

“Master Iris said I’m at least a Class Four empath and that I’m particularly attuned to feelings and vibrations many humans cannot sense.

” He gave an injured sniff. “My husband agreed. I bet he’d believe me if I told him I could sense this rooster’s feelings. ”

“Let’s be honest, babe,” Fern said mildly. “John would have agreed about the George Washington thing, too, if you gave him your big heart eyes when you told him.”

This was absolutely true, as anyone who’d been around the pair would know. Teagan’s burst of startled laughter said he knew it, too.

I pressed my lips together to hide my smile.

“The man looks forward to your road trip karaoke,” Fern said, holding up a finger as if counting off evidence, “though we both know your rendition of ‘All Too Well’ is a musical crime. He also once told me with absolute sincerity that you were sexier than Timothée Chalamet.” She held up a second finger.

“And he’s taking you on a three-week Sourdough Experience in Northern Europe next month as a belated honeymoon.

” A third finger. “I adore John, and I’d trust him with just about anything, but he’s not exactly a reliable reporter when it comes to your, ah… talents, boo.”

Teagan laughed again. As if called by the sound, his husband, John, glanced over from where he’d been chatting with Webb Sunday by the Sunday Orchard table, just out of earshot.

His questioning eyes met Teagan’s, and Teagan blew him a kiss.

The burly man blushed beet red beneath his beard but returned Teagan’s adoring look and stood just a little taller as he turned back to his conversation with Webb.

I chuckled to myself. Yeah, I could definitely see John agreeing that Teagan was an empath. And much like the stupid ceramic rooster itself, this sort of blind loyalty was kinda cute… but also not really my thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I adored Hawk. Utterly, completely adored him.

His happiness was my happiness, as evidenced by the five (yes, five ) cats I was now co-parenting, the enormous library (complete with lube cubbies) I’d built for my novel-loving fiancé, and the fact that more and more of Hawk’s clothes ended up in my closet since his own had become a yarn cache, and I never dreamed of complaining.

Still, there were limits. Believing that one’s beloved could sense the thoughts and feelings of a ceramic rooster was a bridge too far. A line between a partnership founded on true love and… well, unrestrained, over-the-top devotion.

“Wait, back up, Teagan,” Hawk said eagerly. “Tell me more about what the rooster’s thinking!”

I snorted.

“Well.” Teagan set the bird in the center of the table. “I can’t really read its thoughts. I can only sense its energy. And it wants something. Misses something. Needs… something.”

“Huhhhhh.” Hawk tilted his head and stared at the rooster, transfixed.

Meanwhile, Fern gave Teagan’s arm a gentle pat.

“You have many actual gifts, babydoll. You’re an amazing friend.

A bread-making champion. An encyclopedia of random television shows.

A damn good teacher. Pretty much the only thing I don’t think you can do is read the psychic vibrations of kitchen crockery.

” She flipped her hand casually in the direction of the rooster, then stopped and gave the rooster a suspicious glare.

“Although I have to admit, if there were ever an inanimate object that did have a presence, it might be this one.”

“You know, my uncle Drew had an antique chicken just like this one when I was a kid. He once told me ceramic poultry decorations were the Live-Laugh-Love sign of the ’80s and ’90s.

He’s like a little piece of history,” Hawk said with perfect sincerity.

“I bet this little guy’s been sitting in someone else’s kitchen for decades. ”

I snorted. I found it highly amusing when Hawk referred to the 1990s—a decade I remembered quite well—as “antique” and “history.” His older brothers weren’t quite as amused.

“He probably has,” Teagan agreed. “And when you think about it, doesn’t it make sense that an object would soak up the energy of the place where it’s been staying?

And be sort of yearning to find that same energy?

” He gave Fern a challenging look. “I seem to recall you having a pair of stinky softball socks back in college that you wouldn’t put in the laundry so that the ‘luck wouldn’t wash off. ’”

“That’s different.” Fern hesitated. Frowned. “Though I’m not quite sure how.”

“Uh-huh,” Teagan said smugly. “It’s okay. I accept your apology for questioning my abilities.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Right. So, Master Teagan , you’re saying that this… cockadoodle cookie jar has soaked up ’90s kitchen energy, and now it’s hungry?”