Chicken by Chase Night

slinging them backward into my shins. I’m struggling not to clip his ankles, but if I ran ahead I wouldn’t get to see the burnt-orange points of his shoulder blades shining through his wet, white tee like the twin suns of Tatooine. I’m also struggling not to jump on his back, wrap my legs around his waist, and ride him up the road with my hands over his eyes like one of those corny old couples discreetly selling erection medication in a western-wear magazine—not that I need any help in that department.
    Halfway up the hill, the beagles begin to howl. They stream down the road, swarming around our legs with their funny, O-shaped mouths pointed at the sky like little kids tasting the rain. Tri-colors, lemon piebalds, blue ticks with black saddles, red ticks with mahogany capes. Fat beagles with legs like sausages. Skinny beagles with ribs you could break off and barbecue. All of ’em hunting dogs, none of them pets. Brant hates them because their prey drive’s too strong for him to have a cat, not even down in the barn to catch mice. Someday, whenever we’ve left Arkansas to live in Austin, Atlanta, or Asheville—I can’t decide which—I’m going to surprise him with a black kitten we’ll name Garth Vader Mitchell-Quinn.
    We slog through a bottleneck of beagles between two old farm trucks propped up on cinder blocks and finally reach the shelter of the garage. It’s a cavern of redneck treasures, lit by a cluster of bare bulbs—one regular, one painted yellow, and one jittery fluorescent spiral that makes me feel a little bit sick and a little bit sad every time I walk by. We squeeze between his dad’s workbench and a red-and-white pickup squatting on flat tires, it’s bed heaped with assorted farm junk poorly hidden under a ratty blue tarp. Smells like gasoline and wet beagles in here.
    Brant looks over his shoulder. “Call your mom and tell her not to worry about picking you up. You can ride to Catch the Fire with us.”
    I lift my arms, let them fall back to my sides with a loud, wet smack. “I can’t go to church like this.”
    Brant hops over a red metal box overflowing with obscure tools I can’t name. “You can borrow something. C’mon. Mom’ll make me do Bible study if you go home.”
    I step over the toolbox. “I’m soaked clear through. You gonna let me borrow your panties too?”
    He shrugs. “Washing machine’s gotta earn its keep.”
    “But my boots—”
    He turns around, grabs me by the shoulders. “Listen. You have to stay because I told Lauren that’s why she couldn’t. If I show up without you, she’s gonna do that thing.”
    “What thing?”
    “You know. That thing girls do. Hannah’s always doing it to you.”
    “Ah, yes. That thing.”
    He thumps me on the chest. “Yeah. You know what I mean.”
    He turns away, and I feel my forehead crumpling. “So wait. Is she like your girlfriend now?”
    He throws up his arms. “We’re negotiating.”
    I don’t know if he means Lauren, who seems ready to sign a lifelong contract, or his parents, who say no solo dating until he’s eighteen. But I have a hard time believing—or maybe I just want to have a hard time believing—they’d let him go on group dates with Lauren, even if she is his co-worship-leader. Before this past May, she didn’t even go to Harvest Mission. Brother Mackey discovered her at the Hickory Ditch Little Theatre, killing it in the spring production of High School Musical as the whitest Gabriella Montez the world has ever seen. Brant was the director’s first choice for Troy without even auditioning, but Sister Cindy saw the word Disney and said, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” 
    Brant kicks off his boots and drops his hat on the hood of the truck. The wavy hair on top is golden and dry, but the back is damp and brown, plastered to his scars. He starts peeling off his soaked shirt, shoulder blades kicking under the translucent cotton like a newborn calf struggling out of its sac. He yanks it over