“Charity?” I stood slowly, arching an eyebrow at him as I slid my hands into my pockets. I understood that he was upset about the situation in general, but I was surprised by this. “It’s not charity, man.”
“It’s not?” He scoffed. “It sure feels like it is.”
“It’s really not a big deal,” I said, still taken aback that he would be this opposed to accepting my help. “We see this kind of thing a lot more often than you’d think. Our people are pretty skilled at tracking money. It wouldn’t be a problem?—”
“That’s the fucking problem!” he snapped, a red flush climbing up the sides of his neck and his eyes flashing.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Fiftythousanddollars isn’t a big deal to you. It’d be no skin off your teeth to lose that amount of money. I get it, okay? To someone like you, that’s pocket change.”
I opened my mouth, but I didn’t really know what to say. While he wasn’t wrong that I probably wouldn’t even notice if I lost fifty grand, I hadn’t been trying to minimize the situation.
Avery definitely didn’t seem to see it that way, though. “To me? That’s everything. It’s payroll. It’s inventory. It’s my family’s future.” His voice cracked just slightly as he shook his head. “You don’t get it. You can’t get it, so don’t fucking stand there and pretend to care.”
“I’m not pretending.”
I did feel incredibly helpless all of a sudden, though. I hadn’t been trying to make him feel small.
All I’d wanted to do was help. Money could fix things. It sure could fixthis, and I had it. And connections to help them recover what they’d lost.
“Avery—”
“Fuck you, Westwood,” he snapped, then turned around and stormed right back out of the office, once again without stopping to look around.
Frieda got back just as he was racing off, gravel spraying behind his truck as he pulled away. She walked in on me literally scratching my head, desperately confused about what had just happened and honestly feeling a little guilty about it.
“What happened?” she asked, setting down the grocery bag she’d been carrying and frowning as we watched Avery’s truck disappear around the corner.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It sounds like Clyde got caught up in some investment scheme and I offered to help, but Avery flipped his lid and went off at me about it.”
Frieda sighed. “Oh, boy. You really stepped in it, didn’t you?”
I snorted. “No. I offered to help. I just told you that.”
“I know, but you shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?” I frowned. “Where I come from, when a friend is in trouble and you can help them get out of it, you do that.”
She looked at me like I was twelve and she was about to teach me something about life, even going over to the threadbare couch in the corner and patting the open spot next to her after she’d sat down. “Where you come from, there are millions of people. It’s unlikely they’d all find out what had happened.”
I shook my head. “That’s not technically true. They might notallfind out, but some of them sure would. Chicago might be big, but in a lot of ways, it’s also small.”
“Yeah, okay.” She sniffed, leaning back on the couch when I made no move to join her. “Maybe you’ve got a point, but around here, pride plays a big role.”
“So?”
“So Avery won’t accept your offer because he’s too proud, Theo. You insulted him.”
“I insulted him?” I shook my head. “No, I don’t think you understand. I didn’t insult him and I didn’t do anything to his pride. They lost money to a scam and I know people who could help them recover the money, and in the meantime, I could’ve helped them stay afloat. Why is everyone mad about that?”
Frieda rolled her eyes. “I’m not the one who doesn’t understand, it seems.”
“Look, I get that he’s proud,” I said. “I wasn’t going to take out an ad in the paper to advertise that I helped him, though.”
“Okay, sugar, but if Avery accepted money from a Chicago billionaire to save his daddy’s business, how long do you think it’d take before everybody knew? We don’t need newspaper ads in Quartz Pass for word to spread. I would’ve thought you’d learned that by now.”
I glanced toward the town.How long would it take, indeed?
