Is she paying you to maintain her grounds? would not be a very nice thing for him to ask for a myriad of reasons.

But he does think it, quiet for the beat the words ought to slot neatly into while he watches Ellis cook a meal for them. Irony fails to find him in this moment. His insides are hollow with hunger; it saps at the space between his ears.

“It will be useful knowledge for me to have once I’m happily retired and own a farm of my own,” he says.