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I didn’t want to dash her hopes completely, but I also didn’t want her to get built up and then disappointed later. Being honest with her now might not be easy for her to hear, but at least it prepared her for the possible outcome. I could only hope maybe the situation was about justice and accountability, and not just about the money.
Bryn looked over at me, her eyes scanning over my face for a few seconds, and then she nodded again. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, okay. I mean, I came to you because I had no idea what to do about the situation. This isn’t something I ever could have imagined would happen, and I just wanted to know what could be done about it. I don’t want Justin getting away with pulling something like that. Obviously, I want to get my money back. My inheritance was really important to me. Not just because of the money, but because of the fact that it came from my mother. Justin knew that and he still went behind my back and did this to me. That hurts even more than not having a nest egg anymore.”
“Your ex stole your inheritance?” Lindsey asked.
Bryn and I both looked over at her. She was leaned against the bar, her chin rested in her hand as she listened intently to the conversation unfold. When she realized we were staring at her, she straightened up, looking embarrassed.
“Yeah,” Bryn told her. “That’s exactly what he did. He took every cent my mother left for me, invested it with an apparently incompetent investor, and lost it all.”
“That son of a bitch,” Lindsey said.
“Thank you, Lindsey,” I said. “Can Bryn and I finish talking now?”
“Oh. Yes. Sorry, go ahead.”
She went off to talk with some other customers, and I turned back to Bryn. “The hazards of having your best friend be a bar owner. You get the bartender who wants to listen to everything, and the best friend who wants to be all in your business.”
“You two seem close,” Bryn said.
“We are. Have been for a long time. Now she’s with my older brother, and that’s its own whole thing. But anyway, about your situation. I will keep looking into it and figure out what exactly happened. It’s possible it was just really irresponsible investing. That happens sometimes. But with that much money, I doubt it. I have a feeling something else is going on here. And when I figure it out, we’ll decide what can be done next,” I said. “I’ll keep in touch.”
Bryn agreed and we spent a few minutes eating. When she was full, she gestured to Lindsey to get the bill, but Lindsey waved her off. Bryn smiled at me, said good night, and left. I was so focused on watching her leave, I didn’t notice Lindsey slide back into place in front of me. When I looked up, she was inches away.
“You better watch out for her,” she said as I recovered from being startled. “She’s hungry for something.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I have this under control. She just needs some help figuring this whole thing out. Don’t worry. I’ll stay on top just like always.”
I cringed but tried not to let Lindsey notice.7BrynTrish was an interesting figure in my life. Usually when I talked about her to other people, I would refer to her as an acquaintance. Sometimes a friendly acquaintance. Other times, a friend of a friend. But that was only because I couldn’t think of a more accurately descriptive term for her that wouldn’t get into the complicated way I saw this woman. If I really had to get right down to it and find a way to describe her, it would probably be that she was a sometimes friend if I could deal with her at that particular moment.
That sounded really awful. I was fully aware of that. It wasn’t that I meant it to sound that bad. I didn’t really dislike Trish. At least, not most of the time. Not as a general rule, at any rate. She just wasn’t someone I clicked with immediately. Not for lack of trying on her part, though. From the first moment we met, she was eager to befriend me. She tried to latch onto me and develop much more of a friendship than I really felt building up between us.
Not that there was anything particularly special about me. That wasn’t the point. Trish just liked people. She was one of those women who smiled all the time and wanted to be a part of everything. A lot of people really seemed to adore her. She was great for a gossip session at the coffee shop or to have somebody to commiserate with when you were having a bad day. But she was apparently also great for getting too flirty with other people’s boyfriends and forgetting to do the kinds of things she was supposed to be doing rather than gossiping. Things like work.
