Page 16 of Till The Cows Come Home
In order to accomplish this, we’d need all hands on deck, largely because most of the information I needed resided in the depths of Miles’ head.
“I need to feed quickly and then I’m yours until the evening milking.”
“How about I clean so you can just go straight to laying down fresh feed? That way things can move a little quicker.”
My suggestion was met with the scraping of his chair, and after releasing his legs from the confines of the table, he grabbed his discarded boots and began lacing one.
“Sounds perfect.” He smiled, grabbing his other boot and tugging it on.
As he finished his laces, I walked to the door, slipping on my own rubber boots before securing my egg apron around my waist. I’d brought it in when I decided I was staying this morning, but I’d forgotten to collect the eggs before I came in.
If I was here I was going to give Peaches a few minutes of love, and gathering their bounty was an easy way to secure the time.
“What is that ?” he asked, pointing to the apron.
I could tell he was stifling a laugh, but I didn’t care. I was past being anything but unapologetically myself.
“It holds eggs. Not all of us have giant man hands that can palm a full dozen.”
“Please, Sage. Please give me a twirl.”
I tipped my head back, letting a laugh free before obeying, and by the time I’d gone full circle, Miles was standing in front of me.
“I didn’t mean to tease. This is adorable.” He chuckled.
“I used to be self conscious of my hips, but the more I farmed, the more useful they became. My mom custom made this to hold thirty-six eggs.”
“It’d be a crime to be ashamed of a body like yours, Sage. I’m glad you love it, because it’s gorgeous. Just like the rest of you.”
I could feel my face redden and, after a few moments lost for words, I looked up into his big green eyes.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” he hummed, tugging me out the door by one of the many little pockets at my waist.
We entered the barn, immediately parting ways to step into the familiarity that seemed to surface whenever we worked together.
Miles loaded the mixer on the tractor while I began scraping away any leftover feed and debris that had accumulated throughout the night.
By the time he pulled up behind me, I was dripping in sweat, but as I tore off my sweatshirt, I realized it may be a tall task to find a place to set it that wasn’t covered in a questionable substance.
“Here,” I heard from behind me, muffled by the sound of the approaching tractor, and as I spun, Miles was smirking with an outstretched hand. “I’ll put it in the tractor with me.”
I handed it off, but before I could deliver my thanks, he continued driving forward, slowly depositing feed in front of each hungry cow.
I couldn’t help but smile at the gesture.
Relationships had been few and far between for me, routinely failing because I had already fully committed myself to the farm.
And when that sold, I busied myself to the point of burnout, sabotaging myself into solidarity.
The one thing that I always missed when they undoubtedly fizzled, leaving me alone to contemplate, was the domestication of it all.
The small gestures to make your day run more smoothly, drinking coffee in the morning, cooking dinner.
I missed the company. Spending time with Miles almost made me forget the reason I denied myself that comfort, luring me to dip my toes into companionship.
“You okay?” he called, rounding to deliver food to the stretch that I’d been too busy daydreaming to scrape.
I shot him a thumbs up, moving quickly to clear the way for him and in what seemed like record time, we wrapped up the feeding.
“That was probably the fastest I’ve ever done that,” he said, following me back to the house.
“It helps when you have help or in my parent’s case, child labor.” I chuckled, and as we walked out the front door, I excused myself to collect the eggs. The coop was off the side of the barn and as I rounded the edge, I saw Peaches’ head pop up.
“Hi, cutie,” I cooed.
I opened the nest boxes, mumbling along to Peaches as I went, and when my apron was full of the day’s yield, I crouched to say goodbye.
The hen waddled over to me, the years of her life beginning to weigh heavy, and I couldn’t help the gratitude weighing on my chest. Although her mobility had decreased, her feathers glimmered and her beak was still bright.
“He treats you well, huh, old girl?”
She nudged my hand with her head, and I took that as a yes, rewarding her honesty with a few scratches before heading to the house.
After unloading the eggs onto the counter, I paused to wash my hands, and as soon as I entered the kitchen, an audible groan escaped me as the smell of coffee permeated the house.
When I settled back at my spot at the dining room table, I was pleasantly surprised to see a mug already waiting, topped with whipped cream.
And while I waited for Miles to join me, I took a sip, closing my eyes to appreciate the indulgence skating across my tongue.
“Good?” I heard from behind my closed lids.
“You mixed hot chocolate into my coffee.”
“I did.”
Although I hadn’t opened my eyes, I could hear the smile trailing across his lips at his success.
“It’s my favorite,” I hummed, opening them to confirm that Miles did, in fact, wear a smirk.
“I’m assuming you often eat while you work? Half of these documents have this red stuff on them, and I’m praying it’s not blood.”
He touched the corner of one of the inflicted papers. “That would be tomato sauce. Pasta is easy, so it frequents the weekly meal rotation more than I’d like to admit.”
“You are a sorry excuse of a bachelor, Mr. Carver.”
“So I’ve been told.” He chuckled. “Shall we get started?”
“We shall. You wrote down just the name of the calf on about twenty of these registrations. If I give you the name, could you tell me the parents? Then I can go back through and look up their numbers to fill out the missing information.”
“I can. I use a different bull every quarter, so that should make that part easy, just have to match the birthday to the bull.”
After about two hours we finished filling out all the registrations, and although there was some doubt throughout the process, we did it. As I struggled to seal the overfilled envelope, bursting at the seams with our day's work, Miles rummaged through drawers to round up stamps.
“Got ‘em,” he said, slinking back into the chair next to me, and as I turned to receive them, my face almost smacked into his. Our eyes met, and after a moment he whispered softly, “I really owe you.”
“About that.” I smiled slyly. “What do you think about coming to Wednesday dinner with me?”