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He nods as he stares into the white abyss of his backyard. Can you really call it a backyard if it’s several acres large? Well, whatever you would call it, grounds or property, it’s going to need a lot of work after this storm. I can’t see all of it with the snow falling but I can make out at least two other downed trees.
“Want a drink?” he asks.
My eyebrow rise. “It’s like ten in the morning,” I state.
He shrugs. “Well, I can’t work. I can’t even make contact with the outside world. So…” He trails off as he glances over at me. He looks lost as if without work, he doesn’t know how to live. Strange.
I let out a long breath. “Fuck it. OK,” I agree to this truce of sorts, or at least that’s what it feels like he’s offering me.
He walks over to a small cabinet that I hadn’t yet noticed. It’s built into the alcove in the same dark wood as the shelves. He pulls two tumblers from inside the glass cabinet and grabs a bottle of Scottish whiskey from a row of bottles against the back of the counter space. He pours us both a glass and holds one out to me. I accept it with a whispered, “Thank you.”
He doesn’t wait for me to offer a toast, nor does he offer one. He merely gulps the two fingers of liquid in a single swallow and goes back to pour himself another. Clearly, having no contact with the outside world is bothering this man, which I find ironic since he seems to be some sort of recluse out here.
“How long do you think the cell service will be down?” I ask.
He shrugs. “No idea. Why? Do you need to call someone?”
I lean against one of the chairs. “Not really. I just wanted to let my parents know that I’m alright. Hopefully, my text messages went through last night.”
He pauses when I say “parents.”
“Are you close to your…parents?” he asks. This time he slowly sips the amber drink in his tumbler.
“I am. They live close by. They’re my biggest supporters,” I explain.
“What do they do?” he asks, and I’m surprised he’s asking, as if I just unlocked a secret caring part of this otherwise cold, billionaire asshole…well, aside from his obvious love of dogs.
“My dad owns his own company. He invented a specialized temperature gauge for indoor heating. My mom paints, but mostly she helps my dad with business stuff. They recently sold his company to a larger one. They are starting to wind down and retire. They both love cruises and want to go on more,” I babble on and then promptly stop, realizing that I’m oversharing. I tend to do that.
“That’s nice. I take it his company has done well?” Adam inquires, but it sounds more like he’s mulling over a business proposition.
“It has,” I reply. I decide to leave out how much Dad has made. I could have access to the trust fund he set up, hell, he could help the library, if I let him. My parents may not know how bad things are there. I just want to do this one thing on my own, without their help. It’s silly, and I guess if borrowing Adam’s book collection doesn’t work out, then I’ll change my tune, but for now, my pride has gotten the better of me. I glance over at his family portrait. I know his parents were killed in a car accident. He was the sole survivor that day. I look back at him, his gaze had followed mine and he’s still looking at his parents. A small part of me begins to feel a little sorry for him. He was quite young when they died, only just out of college. I was a teenager, but even I had heard the news of the famous local family.
“They were very good-looking,” I say, my voice barely above a whisper.
“Do you play chess?” Adam asks, completely changing the topic.
My eyes widen and I stare up at him. “Sorry, what?” I ask as I process that he won’t or can’t talk about his parents. I search his eyes and watch as he shuts down any emotion he might be feeling. I can’t imagine losing my parents, and from his reaction, I can’t help but wonder if he was very close to them. He had to have been. Why else would he shut down a discussion about them? Something about this makes me want to hug him, but I refrain.
“Chess?” he asks as he motions behind me. I swivel to see a chessboard pattern on the small side table in between the two chairs in the alcove.
“Oh, uh, sort of,” I stammer.
His lips twitch a little in that now familiar fight to not smile. I wonder what a true smile would look like on him if we cleared away some of that beard and trimmed his hair a bit. He’s hiding under all of it, but even with that mask, I know he’s good-looking. His portrait made that quite obvious.
The lights choose this moment to flicker once and then go dark.
“Shit,” Adam mutters.
The only light now streams in from the large windows but the “L” shape of the room and the windowless alcove make it dark where we are.
“Stay still. Let me light the fire for us,” he says. I nod in his direction as I watch his shadowed figure head to the stone fireplace.
A moment later, it’s on. It’s a gaslit fireplace and turns on with a flip of a switch.
“Good thing the tree didn’t uproot a gas line,” I mumble to myself.
Adam glares at me. “Not funny,” he hisses.
