Love Shack (Tiny Houses, Big Hearts) (7 page)

“Yeah…then I could be as happy as you are. You’re down to four minutes.”

Brandon turned and saw Felicity dancing around in the kitchen. Her curls were bouncing in and out of view of the high windows.

“I think I’m in over my head and it’s a new experience for me. Any advice on how to adapt?”

“Little brother, you don’t adapt. Ever. That’s why you’re so frustrating to be around.”

Why he thought his sister would help was beyond him. “Well this has been completely deflating. Thanks.”

“You interrupt worse than my five year old. Shut up for a second, I can hear stuff hitting the floor in the other room.”

Brandon kept his mouth shut, but ground his teeth in protest.

“You have never been the type of person to bend to rules you didn’t understand. You only follow rules you see a clear reason for. If you have to do something you don’t agree with, maybe try and find out why. And if you still don’t agree with it, you’ve always been the type to take the lead. Isn’t that why you got into management in the first place?”

Now he remembered why he called her. “So I should take control of the situation?”

“You’re bound to do it anyway, might as well start now.” The volume of the background noise increased. “Will you get the spaghetti off the wall?”

Brandon attempted to say goodbye, but his sister more or less just tried to control her children until he hung up.

When he turned around, there was smoke coming from the open kitchen windows. He rushed inside.

Chapter Thirteen

Felicity turned on the small fan in the kitchen. It was a miracle she didn’t have more damage in her house with how easily it filled with smoke when she cooked. She could have used vegetable oil instead of olive to reduce the smoking, but she didn’t like the taste. A fan and propping open the windows was a small price to pay for tasty food.

“Where’s your fire extinguisher?”

She turned to feel a hand grab her upper arm and yank. She had just enough time to put her wine glass down on the counter as Brandon pulled her in and looped an arm under her legs. Her hands grabbed his shoulders for some stability as he rushed her outside.

“What are you doing?” She would have pushed away, but she’d had a little too much wine and he was moving really fast.

“Where is your fire extinguisher, and what caught fire?”

Guess he didn’t smoke up his house when he cooked. “It’s just a little smoky from the oil in the pan. I opened the windows to ventilate.”

“So there’s no fire?”

“There will be if you don’t let me get back to the fish on the stove.”

He put her down a little fast, and Felicity kicked herself for wobbling on her feet.

“Are you okay?” He held her face in his palms and made her look into his eyes. “If you wear contacts that much smoke is going to irritate your cornea.”

She tried to look somewhere else, but he wouldn’t have it, and wouldn’t release her until she stared right at him. “I’m fine. Can I go inside and not burn dinner?”

He put a hand under her elbow and made sure she got up the step okay before complaining any more.

“You don’t have to burn the place down to cook. We can order in. I’ll pay.” He looked around. “If you had a vent hood like a real kitchen, this wouldn’t happen.”

Luckily, when she rushed back inside, the fish was done to perfection. While he told her everything else she needed to do to make her home a “real” house, Felicity hummed along with the music to try and tune him out. She pulled the fish out of the pan and set it aside. Using her tongs to grab the pasta from the colander, she tossed it in the buttery sauce with a bit of lemon juice and parmesan cheese.

Good lord, he was still yammering away.

Felicity took a fork, flaked off a piece of the gently browned perch, and swirled on just a bit of pasta to make the perfect bite. When he opened his mouth again she shoved the delicious morsel straight into his yap.

He sputtered around the fork for a second, but she arched a brow, and he took the food like a good boy and did something with his mouth other than complain for a change.

“Mmmm.” He chewed a bit more and swallowed. “That’s really good.”

“Not bad, considering it’s not a
real
kitchen,” she reminded him as she finished plating the food.

“Look, I’m not the most tactful person at times. I was on emergency mode. I thought the house was on fire.” He looked around. “And I’d offer to set the table, but you don’t have one.”

Felicity took a deep breath. She had to look at this as a challenge. It was even more so one now as she was a bit inebriated. She could show him how to live with what he needed, and he could show her how to talk to people with money and pretend like she didn’t have a chip on her shoulder about it. This was going to work out in both their favors—they just needed to get through the bumpy spots first.

She refilled her wine glass and topped off his to empty the bottle. Bumpy spots were easier with wine.

“The wine is already gone?” He eyed her a bit.

“I spilled some when you came barging in here.” Sure, she’d spilled it into her glass and down her throat, but he didn’t need to know those details.

“Sorry again about that.”

If he could be a bigger person, so could she. “Don’t worry about it. I have to realize this will be an adjustment for you too. Want me to show you how to work the table and chairs?”

“I’ll be the best behaved student you’ve ever had, ma’am.”

Felicity giggled at the idea of this man who was so much larger than she was promising to be a good boy. Her mind wandered into completely inappropriate parallels, and she shook herself for a second and cleared her throat before she showed him how the small table actually slid out from the staircase. She grabbed the support legs from the broom closet and pointed to the folding chairs hanging on the wall.

“If you pull those down for me, I’ll grab the food.”

He ran his hand along the solid wood slab of the table instead. It was beetle wood and had some amazing blue veining running through it. “This is beautiful.”

Felicity enjoyed the first real compliment he’d given her about her home that didn’t have a backhanded insult attached to it. “It was probably the most expensive piece I had made when the place was first built, but I loved the idea of having coffee at this little table every morning, and I went for it. Since it was so small, the cost was still cheaper than most breakfast tables you could buy free standing.”

He set up the chairs and grabbed their wine glasses as they both sat down to dinner. “I guess that’s one good thing about a smaller home. You don’t have to buy things as big, so the materials cost is lower.”

Felicity nearly vibrated in her seat. She put her fork down and used her napkin to wipe her mouth off before she leaned in. “Yes. The fine details are what this type of home can create. People who enjoy fine materials and fine accessories can have all of that in a small space. The materials need to cover far less surface, so instead of a change of countertop or tile costing hundreds or thousands of dollars, it can be just a couple bucks more to get into really top notch materials.” She gulped a bit more wine. “And because the amounts we need for our projects are usually so minor, we can also buy remnants of larger home remodels at an absolute steal. The contractors know that they don’t have enough to work into another home, or perhaps they had a cut error with their stone, and have a piece they would otherwise have to trash.”

Felicity hopped up and went to the quartz countertop she had around her sink. “This whole thing cost me fifty dollars including installation.”

“They installed it for you too?” He turned to look at her, but stayed where he was to gobble up more of the fish.

“I towed my home over to the home improvement store, and did a small talk with interested people about construction of tiny homes. I didn’t have any of the appliances in yet, so all of my plumbing and electrical was visible. Most of the contractors came for the novelty, but I made some contacts with people who have implemented some of the techniques. And Tom—I mentioned him in my business plan. He’s the one I plan to use for my construction projects here.”

Felicity realized one of her favorite fish dishes was getting cold so she slid back into her chair to eat it.

“I have to admit, you do have a complete business plan set up.”

She hurried through her bite. “Then why wouldn’t you give me the loan when I asked?”

Brandon savored every morsel and took his time responding. Something about him had changed, and instead of teaching him about her life, she felt like he was trying to teach her how to better live it. “It’s marketing.”

“I had marketing budget built into the plan.”

“No. You had flyers, and talks, and visits. You still would have to sell people on the idea that this…” He waved his arm around in a tight circle. “That this is a house.”

“This isn’t a house.”

He leaned back. “Well, I guess I’m glad you’re finally seeing the light, although I’m a bit surprised—”

“You didn’t let me finish.” She stood up again. “This isn’t
just
a house. This is a home. When people build their giant houses, and rent their big apartments, they have spaces that they decorate for everyone else. Hell, many people even hire decorators.”

Brandon frowned. Felicity flinched seeing she’d hit a nerve. She guessed he was one of those many.

“But every inch of this home is about me. It’s all designed so that I can live my life outside of this house and come home to all the little bits that make me proud to call it mine. No, it doesn’t have to work for everyone, but it works perfectly for me. I can take all this perfection with me, and just go.”

“I didn’t sign up for a road trip in this thing. That would be kidnapping.”

Felicity stuck out her tongue at him. “Joke all you want. I’ve got a whole month to get the beauty of tiny living pounded into your thick extravagance-minded skull. You aren’t the only one who has the ability to get people to see things your way.”

They ate the rest of their dinner in silence. Felicity realized they weren’t going to make any more progress dragging her guest into the tiny house lifestyle that night.

She explained that a dishwasher was not a necessary piece of home equipment, and hands and a sponge worked just as well. She’d had to sacrifice the dishwasher to have enough room to fit her full sized refrigerator and wine rack. Usually, she just cleaned up after herself, and since she always had wine in the house she figured she’d made the right choice.

As Brandon complained loudly about doing manual labor, she contemplated opening another bottle, but with how loud he was grumbling, she figured a headache would not mesh well with his voice in the morning. She moved the wine from the freezer into the cooler. That would be tomorrow’s treat.

“I almost forgot. There’s a game on tonight. Where’s your TV?” He dropped the wet dishtowel on the counter.

Felicity picked it up and hung it on the loop next to the sink to let the fabric air out. “I don’t have one.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I don’t watch much television, and what I am interested in, I find on Hulu or Netflix. I can pull up something on my computer or tablet if you want to watch a show.”

“I want to watch the game.”

This was just as bad as talking to a child.

“I don’t have cable, therefore I don’t have the game. It might be on the radio.” Felicity went to her tablet and pulled up the radio app to see what the sports channels were around here.

“No one listens to sports on the radio.”

“If that was true, they wouldn’t air the game.” Felicity stopped looking for a channel. If he was going to be a big jerk about the situation, she was done going out of her way.

A bit of a throb started behind her eye, and she was pretty sure his bad attitude was killing her wine buzz and sending her straight into a hangover. It was eight o’clock. She’d give up on the day and go to bed if her bed for the night wasn’t the couch he was sitting on.

“I can’t drive to take you back out. If you want to call a cab and hit a bar, that’s your prerogative. How about I just show you to the bedroom and let you get settled in.”

He ran his hands through his hair. “If you’ve got an outlet near the bed, I can plug my phone in and use my cable app to catch the game tonight, but there’s another one next week, and we’ll need to plan to head to a sports bar for that one.”

“We?”

He looked a little unsure of himself in that moment, and Felicity reveled in his insecurity. He was going to make this month long for her, so the least she could do is return the favor.

He cleared his throat. “Wasn’t part of the deal that we have to spend our time together?”

“That was part of the challenge the community laid out on the news station’s web page, yes. But if you can’t handle it, and have to be out of the house before the end of the month…well, I’ll just leave it up to you how you want to explain your lack of staying power to the public.” She motioned to the stairs. “I’ll show you to the bedroom.”

“Lady, I have a lot of shortcomings, but staying power is not one of them.” His bravado was cut off when they climbed up to the loft. He had to bend at the waist to get around in the tight space.