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She pushed all of those thoughts away. They weren’t useful and they certainly weren’t making her a better person. Quite the opposite really. When did she get so bitter and resentful? Both her parents would be rolling over in their graves.
“Ow.”
They’d made it to the kitchen, and Nicole turned around to find Brendan’s phone light swinging around again as he rubbed his shin after walking directly into a chair.
“You’re not very graceful, are you?” she teased, but there was no bite in it.
“Not really, no,” he agreed, coming up beside her and shining the light at the cabinet under the sink that she was now digging through. “I can run pretty fast, but don’t expect me to dodge anything.”
“I’ll have to throw a bucket at you sometime, put you to the test.”
He huffed a laugh as Nicole found what she was looking for and piled it all on the counter. Candles, stacks of them, the plain white pillar ones a few inches thick that would last hours once lit. Plenty of smaller ones too, burned up halfway from past blackouts, and three boxes of matches.
Brendan followed along, happy for her to take the lead, which got Nicole thinking again... God, she was doing way too much of that lately. She wished she could just turn all of her thoughts off. Here he was, happily following along, doing as she told him all week, taking her sour mood graciously. Weren’t billionaires supposed to be, like, domineering? Isn’t that how they got to be so successful? But Brendan was this gentle, easygoing man who didn’t talk down to her; he certainly didn’t talkoverher like most of the other men in the area who thought they knew better. She’d been convinced he was going to come barreling in, raze the whole place to the ground and build a bunch of condos. But instead he was following her to the living room with their pile of candles and matches, apologetic and quiet most of the time. He’d named the cows, for heaven’s sake. Her perception of him was starting to fragment, and it was an uncomfortable feeling. Nicole had never really liked being wrong.
Stop thinking, she scolded herself, setting about lighting the fire in the grate while Brendan wandered around placing candles in strategic corners, well away from any curtains, and lighting the antique oil lanterns on the shelves that, yes, still did work and were kept around for this very reason. It wasn’t long before the living room was glowing a cozy orange color, warmed by the fire in front of them as Nicole poured water boiled over the flames into pots of instant ramen she’d scavenged from the kitchen, both of them sitting on the rug instead of the sofas.
“I can’t remember the last time I ate noodles like this,” said Brendan, poking at his little plastic pot with a fork as it cooked.
“It must be quite the adventure, eating peasant food on the floor.”
His mouth tilted up into a smile as he shrugged. “Nothing wrong with peasant food. Michelin Star restaurants try to recreate it all the time.”
“And to think you could just go to the dollar store and get the real deal.” Nicole blew on her ramen impatiently. She was starving after the long day and was debating how hot wastoohot to safely inhale her dinner.
“You’re being nicer to me today,” said Brendan.
Nicole jerked like she’d been given an electric shock and looked up to meet his eyes. Brendan was looking at her placidly, not poking for a fight, more like he was just starting a conversation. Nicole still felt the guilt prickle up her spine, though.
“Yeah, well,” she said, faking indifference. “Maybe you’re not so terrible at this after all.”
“And maybe you’re not as hostile as you pretend to be?” he added with a sly grin.
She nodded. “Touché. Or maybe you’re too generous and I reallyamjust a terrible person.”
Brendan paused his stirring and looked at her funny. “Why would you think that?”
“I’m a loud-mouthed, angry little farmer from the middle of nowhere who gets along with cows better than I get along with people. I’m hardly Miss Universe.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person, either. You’re just small and angry and loud, like you said.”
Nicole watched him brave a bite of his ramen, blowing the steam off of it first and escaping without a burned mouth.
“You’re like a monk,” she said, the comparison occurring to her for the first time.
Brendan frowned across the coffee table. “What?”
“You’re always saying all this Zen stuff. Nothing seems to bother you, not even angry little farmers.”
He just shrugged again, Zen as ever, apparently having nothing to say to that. Nicole’s curiosity finally got the better of her, unable to take any more silence.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This…” she gestured around her, to the house, to the farm. “Did you have a midlife crisis or something?”
Brendan’s whole body went very still as he looked at Nicole, and it took all of her self-control not to fidget under his gaze. That Zen, chilled-out atmosphere he always gave off was suddenly very, very cold, and she was wracking her brains trying to think of what could have made his mood switch so sharply.
