“Hey, Caledon. I didn’t see your name on today’s roster.”

  Michelle raised her head from the blender when her coworker, Alicia, spoke the name of her new boyfriend. There he stood before the counter, dressed in casual wear and grinning at Alicia.

  “I’m not working today,” he said. “I’m just here to pick Michelle up.”

  Michelle’s eyes darted to the small wall clock above her to see that her shift was ending in a few minutes. They had been busy enough today with the incoming orders that she had lost track of the time.

  “Ooh, you are?” Alicia turned around to face Michelle, raising her eyebrows.

  Caledon walked towards the section of the counter she was close to.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi!” Michelle gave him a quick wave of her hand. “Let me just finish this up, and then I can clock off.”

  “Take your time,” he said, pointing to the café doors. “I’ll be waiting outside.”

  After Alicia sent out the finished drinks, she shuffled over to Michelle.

  “He’s here to pick you up, huh? Are you two going out?” Alicia asked slyly.

  “Yeah,” she said, turning off the blender. “We’re having dinner together.”

  It was really something that her friends had suggested. According to Hailey, couples needed to go on dates alone and not merely go out together with other couples all the time. They’d insisted that she ask Caledon out on one, ciming that they were all going to be with their own boyfriends this Saturday.

  She hadn’t really expected him to say yes when she’d texted him, so his immediate agreement had startled her. Apparently, his friends also all had their own pns, and he wanted to experience what a one-on-one date was like.

  “Wait, so are you going out?” Alicia sounded baffled.

  Michelle poured out the ice-blended mocha into the to-go cup and covered it. “Yeah. Didn’t I just say that?”

  “No, well, you said it so casually I just got confused… Hold on. So Caledon’s your boyfriend now?”

  Alicia took the cup from her.

  “We just started dating st week,” Michelle expined. “Now I won’t be alone when I go out with my friends. Isn’t it great?”

  Over the previous month, Michelle had been grumbling on and off to anyone who would listen at work about her friends who had been turning her into an involuntary third wheel on their outings.

  Alicia, who was a sophomore in her school, loaned her a listening ear whenever their shifts overpped. As a result, she knew enough about Michelle’s social woes to comprehend what she meant.

  Once the waiting customer had received his drink, Alicia returned to Michelle and shot her a big smile.

  “Congrats on no longer being single! I am kind of surprised you started dating someone, though.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “I remember you didn’t get why everyone was getting into a retionship,” she said. “Has your opinion changed? Did Caledon help in that?”

  “Oh,” Michelle said. “Nah, I still don’t get it, but it’s fine. Caledon doesn’t either.”

  Alicia seemed to do a double take. Although she opened her mouth, nothing came out.

  Another gnce at the wall clock told Michelle that her shift was over. “I better go. See you around, okay?”

  “Have … have fun?” Alicia said, her mouth still agape.

  “Thanks!”

  She stepped out of the warmth of the café and was greeted by the cool autumn air. The setting sun cast an orange glow over everything. Caledon, who had been staring at his surroundings with crossed arms, immediately noticed her appearance and waved.

  “Thanks for waiting for me,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  They held hands and strolled to the same diner they went to st week. After pcing their orders, they chatted about school and work gossip while waiting for their food.

  Over the course of the past week, Michelle had been rapidly growing accustomed with Caledon’s increased presence in her life. Instead of merely being someone she interacted with once in a while, he was now someone who walked her home or to her club after school, who was obligated to send her good morning and good night texts, whose face she had to see at lunch every single day regardless of the table she chose to sit at.

  “I honestly feel like I see your face more often than I see Hailey’s,” she said, sipping from her iced soda, “and Hailey and I have a lot of csses together.”

  Caledon lifted up his spoon to his eye level and examined it.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “It’s … an alright thing. I don’t mind it. What about you? Doesn’t it feel like you see me a lot?”

  “Sure,” he said, lowering the spoon into his mug of hot chocote. “But isn’t that the point? By design, people seem to just see each other a lot when they’re in a retionship. At least now we have someone to hang out with on weekends.”

  Michelle sighed. “That’s true.”

  She and her friends used to go out all the time on weekends until they got into retionships. Then they started going on dates more frequently, and suddenly, their Saturday outings stopped being a given. She’d thought that she would have a good time with them at the amusement park the previous week, but it had turned out to be a triple date in disguise.

  That was the reason she was working today and also why she’d started giving more shifts on Saturdays in general.

  Their food arrived, and Michelle perked up at the sight of her piping hot pasta. Caledon immediately began devouring his colesw.

  “What did you do today, anyway?” she asked.

  He had accepted her dinner invitation because his friends were all off on their own dates today.

  “Nothing interesting. I went fishing with my dad in the morning.”

  “Nice. That’s so cool. I wish I could learn how to fish.”

  Caledon spoke as he ate. “Want to come with me next time? I can teach you.”

  She beamed at him. “Really? You will?”

  “Yeah, why not?” he said. “My friends tag along sometimes. My dad’s cool with it.”

  “Thanks, I’d love to.”

  Their obligatory dinner date was comfortable but unremarkable. Michelle found it comparable to having dinner with one of her best friends, except a lot less fun. Politely, she kept that observation to herself. Some things didn’t need to be said. In fact, she was certain that Caledon likely shared the same sentiments.

  After eating, they left the diner hand-in-hand with the intention of going home. It was already getting dark.

  “I’m way too full,” she said, trying to make light conversation.

  “Yeah, you ordered that banana split after—”

  A ft, strange sound that came from behind them interrupted whatever he was about to say. Michelle’s eyes darted to Caledon’s face, only to discover that he was already looking at her. They blinked at each other before turning around in unison.

  A plump rooster with a beautifully vibrant plumage stood on the ground, staring back at them both.

  “What,” Caledon said, “is that?”

  “Pretty sure that’s a rooster.” She eyed it warily. “What do you want?”

  He shifted his perplexed gaze from the rooster to her. “Are you talking to it?”

  Upon realizing it had caught their attention, it made another noise again and trotted steadily towards Michelle.

  Within seconds, it had covered the short distance between them and was now right in front of her shoes.

  She stumbled several steps backwards, inadvertently tugging Caledon along with their linked hands.

  “Hey, no,” she said, waving at it with her free hand. “Go away. Shoo.”

  Instead of carefully backing off with her like Sylvie or Autumn—because Hailey was beyond terrified of birds and would be clinging on to her for dear life—would have, Caledon let go of her hand and bent down to take a better look at it.

  Michelle took the opportunity to put more distance between herself and the rooster.

  Something about it seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite put a finger on it.

  While still studying it, he asked, “Are you afraid of roosters?”

  “No, I just don’t want it near me. Birds have a tendency of pooping when they’re near me.”

  Her reply must have caught him off-guard because he coughed, sounding like he was choking on his own saliva.

  “Wait, really? How many times has that happened to you?”

  “Too many,” she said grimly.

  She really didn’t want to go into detail about the many times a pigeon decided that the crown of her head, or the tongue of her sneaker, looked like the perfect pce to take a dump.

  “Then should we go?”

  “Yeah. I’m going even if you aren’t.”

  “Alright.” Straightening up, he grabbed her hand again.

  They turned away from the rooster and hurried down the sidewalk. To Michelle’s horror, the sound of continuous pattering on the cement came from behind them.

  She peeked over her shoulder.

  Sure enough, there the rooster was, trailing after them like they were its personal navigational guide.

  “What is it doing?” Michelle said, taking rger strides in an attempt to out-walk it.

  “It’s following us.” Confusion tinged Caledon’s tone.

  “Keep walking. Maybe we’ll lose it at the next corner.”

  They kept going, but they failed to shake it off. The rooster was hot on their heels.

  “There’s no way I’m allowing a rooster to stalk me into my house,” she said in horror. “Why is it following us?”

  “Will it understand us if we tell it to go away?”

  Caledon stopped walking, forcing her to come a stop as well due to their linked hands.

  “I already tried that earlier,” Michelle informed him. “That was literally the first thing I said to it.”

  She didn’t think it would understand them, and if it did, it certainly didn’t care. They stared down at it.

  The admittedly bold rooster trotted up to her, causing Michelle to recoil. It seemed particurly drawn to her, but she couldn’t understand why. She was about to turn and jog off when it got close enough for her to notice a detail she’d been missing.

  It was wearing a blue diaper on its behind.

  “It’s someone’s pet.” As she spoke, realization hit her. “It’s Barnaby’s rooster. His name is Landon.”

  “Someone you know?”

  “He’s a guy in my drama club. He has this pet rooster that goes on the loose every now and then. Maybe he recognizes me.”

  “How come you didn’t realize that earlier?”

  “I mean, I don’t exactly interact with him every day. I think the st time I saw him was maybe two months ago? He could’ve been some other rooster for all I knew.”

  Landon stood in front of her, as though waiting for something. She couldn’t really tell what he wanted from her. Then again, Barnaby had said multiple times that Landon had poor navigational skills. Maybe he was lost and couldn’t find his way back.

  “I can’t take you home, dude,” she said to him. “I don’t know where Barnaby lives.”

  Landon bawked.

  “Doesn’t this Barnaby guy keep it properly? Does he really run away from home that often?” Caledon crouched down to look at Landon more closely.

  As she grimaced, Michelle got her phone out.

  “I wouldn’t call it ‘running away’… Landon loves Barnaby, like, kind of a lot.” She searched up Barnaby’s name in her contacts. “Like, whenever he’s not home, Landon goes on a search for him. It usually ends up with him leaving the house. Every now and then, he actually manages to make his way to our school, although he usually winds up getting lost in the neighborhood somewhere.”

  “Wait, he’s been to our school before? How come I’ve never seen him?”

  “Yeah, most people wouldn’t have.” She pressed the ‘call’ button. “Pets aren’t allowed in school, right? Usually, if someone spots him, they’ll let Barnaby know right away and hide him in the club room or something.”

  Barnaby was really popur in their grade for being easygoing and fun to be around. She was honestly kind of surprised he couldn’t find a girlfriend despite his clear desire for one.

  It took a few rings for Barnaby to answer the call.

  “Hello? Michelle?” He sounded tentative, as if uncertain about her identity.

  To be fair, she had never called him before. The only reason she had his number was to discuss drama club logistics over text.

  “Barnaby,” she began. “Landon’s escaped again. Can you come and get him?”