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Nicole’s face was perfectly blank, with all of the emotion of a touch screen.
“Maybe,” she said dryly.
God, if this was her pulling punches and being polite, Brendan shuddered at the thought of her letting loose. He imagined her in a boardroom or a courtroom. She’d be unstoppable. Law students would build shrines to her.
“Yeah…” he said, trying not to let her smell any fear on him. “So, are your plans from here on out set in stone?”
She frowned at him, confused. “Why?”
Well, here it goes…
“Would you consider sticking around and helping me find my feet?”
She watched him carefully, as if she were looking out for any potential traps.
“What?” She looked up at him and folded her arms, head tilted to the side, still trying to figure out what he was asking. It was such a bizarre request that Brendan didn’t blame her.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, forcing the words out of his mouth. “You do, obviously. So, would you consider staying on and being a hired hand of sorts, show me the ropes, teach me what needs to be done? Whatever job title you want, it’s yours. I don’t know what someone who’s in charge of running a farm is referred to, sorry. But that’s kind of just more proof that I need someone who can do just that.”
He held his hands out palms up in the universal symbol ofplease help me, I’m begging you.Brendan wasn’t above getting on his knees at this point, mud or no.
Nicole was staring at him very, very hard. She licked her lips before she spoke. “Is this a joke?”
“No,” he said without hesitation. “No, it’s not. It’s just me… asking for help.”
He’d never been very good at that before, but here he was, learning life lessons by the dozen, apparently.
“Look,” he said, starting to ramble despite himself. “I’m not a coward. I’m not going to jump ship now just because it’s hard. But I’m still out of my depth. So… will you stay on and teach me the ropes?”
There was a visible struggle going on in her mind right in front of him. She turned her head to look at the large house over her shoulder. “Kind of got all my stuff packed up…”
Brendan’s stomach sank a little. “Oh. So, you dohave something else lined up?” Of course she did. What had he been thinking…
“No,” she said, interrupting his train of thought. “No, not really.”
That somehow didn’t make him feel any better. Where was she planning to go when his introduction tour was over?
“It’s going to take a few weeks to get a hang of this,” Brendan continued, trying to not seemtoodesperate. But she was teetering on the edge, and if he could just nudge her over to the side of saying yes, then he might not be entirely screwed. “It might take a few months, even. I need help — and if you need more time to, uh, cement some plans, then it kind of works out perfectly. Don’t you think?”
He offered her his most winning smile, funneling every ounce of charisma in his body out through his face. But Nicole still had eyes on the house. The keys in Brendan’s pocket felt heavy all of a sudden. To him it was just a new house in his portfolio, a new start. To Nicole it was clearly something more. And speaking of living arrangements…
“If you don’t mind sharing a house for a while,” he added, when Nicole’s quiet spell had continued. “You just point me to whichever room is mine.”
Now, it definitely was crazy asking her to stay on after selling the place.Hey, please be my employee but also teach me how to do this whole farming thing — and by the way would you mind sharing the house you’ve not even moved out of yet?Brendan braced himself for the rejection that any sane person would give him.
When Nicole looked back at him, the afternoon light reflecting golden on her face and highlighting every freckle, Brendan felt like he was looking at her without a mask for the first time. She was solemn and serious, thinking his words over, her arms crossed tight across her chest.
She took a deep breath in through her nose and looked out over the fields, a fierce frown on her delicate features. Brendan said nothing more, letting her think. He’d been in this scenario countless times before, waiting to see if his business proposal would be accepted or refused. Somehow this felt like it took top place for most important though, like everything hinged on what Nicole replied.
Slowly, very slowly, she nodded. Brendan felt the feeling come back into his body.
“Okay,” she said, still nodding, as if she were convincing herself. “I guess I can stick around. It’s not like I had any big plans or anything.”
Brendan tried not to look too desperately relieved, even though he could have sunk to his knees and kissed the ground she was walking on. It would probably only earn him a kick up the back of the head, he was sure, and he didn’t want to push her patience with him.
“Amazing,” he said. “That’s great. Thank you so much. It’s a last-minute thing, I know.”Stop rambling. When did you get so jittery?
“Yeah, well,” said Nicole with a shrug. “The whole thing was kind of sprung on me without warning, so what’s another last-minute change of plan, you know?”
