“She was not impressed by your game,” she said.
“Oh, I’ve been out with her before,” Brandon said. “That’s why she’s salty.”
Lenore’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve been out with her before?”
“Just a few times,” Brandon said, reaching for his drink. “Well, I’ve been out with a lot of women, Lenore. In fact, I put myself on a female fast this summer and haven’t dated for a few months because of it.”
“Oh, a few months,” she said sarcastically.
Brandon’s gaze hooked into hers. “Dating is not a crime,” he said.
“No, I know,” she said.
“Neither is getting help when you need it.”
Lenore tilted her head and studied him. “That was a weird segue into a new topic.”
“Jean didn’t make me pay for the skid steer rental,” he blurted out. “Or the power-washer. And Duke said you can keep the chainsaws.”
“Forever?” Lenore asked.
Brandon nodded and reached for his drink, sucking mightily on the straw.
Lenore waited, because he clearly had more. Though she hadn’t explicitly said that she didn’t want other people’s charity, he’d somehow picked up on it.
“Conrad offered to come help put in the solar panels,” he said.
“Okay?” Lenore phrased it like a question.
“And well…I know you’re not going to like this, but everyone seems to know that you’re really struggling out here, and they all want to help.”
No, Lenore did not like that. How did they even know about her?
“Conrad texted me last night that he’d be happy to bring any of the supplies and equipment that we don’t have. I asked him at least ten times if he was sure. And well…you can just see what he said.”
He whipped his phone out, typed in his PIN, tapped a couple of times, and thrust the device at her.
Lenore barely had time to put her hands up to get it, and she fumbled it before righting it and looking down. She scrolled up a little bit, and sure enough, Conrad had started texting about the solar powered system and coming to help with it.
Brandon had told him that he’d been looking up ways to build the frame around the solar panels and a tilting system with the wheels so that she could move the panels and collect the most amount of sunlight no matter what time of year it was.
Conrad had said,That’s super smart. You should get one of those storage containers to house all the batteries and wiring.
Back and forth they’d gone, the conversation flowing around how much things cost—including a storage container, which Brandon said could be up to five thousand dollars even for a used one.
I can get it all,Conrad said.
Lenore sucked in a breath with just those five words.
I’ve been wanting to build a system like this on my own property, and this will be good practice. Maybe I can convince Glory Rose that we can live more off-grid if I show her I know what I’m doing by helping with the solar out there.
Are you sure?Brandon had asked. And then he asked it again. And again.
Conrad answered in different ways every time, until finally he said:Brandon, I’m a billionaire. Billion with a B. Paying a few thousand dollars for some solar batteries and equipment is nothing to me. Of course I’m sure. Will you please just talk to Lenore about it?
She looked up and across the device to Brandon, her eyes feeling like someone had opened them too wide and somehow glued them in that position.
“So I’m talking to you about it,” he said gruffly. “And I hate it, and I don’t want to talk to you about it.”
