Chapter 27
THEO
Avery’s truck pulled into the motel parking lot while I was replacing a section of warped trim on the laundry-room door. I grinned and started setting down my tools to greet him, but it was like he didn’t even see me.
It took me all of five seconds to realize something was wrong. He emerged from the truck like a raging bull, not pausing to look around before he stalked to the front office. Avery always stopped to wave or to complain about the weather. He never stormed and he’d definitely never ignored me before.
Not even back before he’d first met me.
Quickly laying down my drill, I jogged after him, finding him alone in the reception area with both hands braced on the counter and his head hanging.
Frieda wasn’t there or on the porch, which meant she was probably either arguing with a guest or out in town somewhere, terrorizing a council member or negotiating with the clerk at the grocery store.
Avery looked up when I shut the door behind me, and the moment his gaze met mine, I knew it was bad. While I might not have known the guy for years, I knew him pretty well at this point and he was not having a good day.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. “Are you okay?”
“No,” he replied, his voice rough. He finally dropped his hands away from the counter and turned to face me. “Do you know where Frieda is?”
“I don’t, but what’s up? Maybe I can help.”
“You can’t.” He shook his head, but now that he was looking at me, I was shocked by what I saw. His features were drawn, his skin slightly gray, and his eyes weirdly wide and bright. “She might be able to, but not you.”
I lowered myself onto the arm of the chair beside the door and kicked my legs out ahead of me. “Yeah, you’re probably right. There’s not much she can’t do, especially in this town, but I can listen while you’re waiting for her.”
“Dad fucked up, Theo,” he said after blowing out a heavy breath and leaning back against the counter. “Badly.”
He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and shook his head. “He put all the money we had in the business into some scheme and now it’s gone. Fifty grand. Just… poof. Lost. Like black fucking magic.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, but it gets worse. If I can’t get it back, we’ll lose the shop.”
The more he talked, the colder I felt, and by the time he was done explaining their current situation, I’d already mentally moved onto solutions. This was bad, but it was fixable, and he’d been wrong. I actually could help.
“I’m sorry, bro,” I said once he finally fell silent. “That’s rough. Really.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head before squeezing the nape of his neck. “He’s never done anything like this before. I don’t even know how some scammer would’ve found him to talk to him about investing in something like this.”
“Those people are scum. They’ll sniff out the most vulnerable and pressure them into signing over everything they’ve got.
It’s a fucking game to them, easy cash, but if you want, I can put you in touch with a lawyer who could work with the bank to find out where the money went.
We’ve also got forensic accountants over at W&S who can help trace it and you can look at emergency financing to tide you over in the meantime. ”
It said something about the state of the world that all of this felt normal to me. The other me, obviously, but it was far from the first time I’d heard about something like this happening.
“What are you even saying?” Avery asked, both looking and sounding exhausted. “I can’t afford any of that.”
I waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. I know people. What’s the good of having connections if you can’t use them?”
His expression hardened immediately, the look in his eyes turning stone cold. “No.”
“No?” I squinted at him. “Why not? I mean it. I can make a few calls and?—”
“No.” He looked right at me. “I don’t want your charity, Theo.”
“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?”
“Fifty thousand dollars 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 fix this, 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 not all find 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?
“Maybe ten minutes?” I suggested meekly.
She chuckled. “Something this juicy? Try five. I’m resisting the urge to call my friend right now and tell her what you just told me.”
I sighed and raked a hand through my hair. “Okay, so I stepped on his pride.”
“You stomped all over it,” she said. “People will talk, Theo. Avery doesn’t need that right now on top of everything else.”
“Okay, sure, but isn’t having people talk better than losing everything?” I asked. “Sometimes, shit happens. Good people get blindsided and need help. That’s not weakness. It’s life.”
“That’s your opinion,” she said firmly. “You’re entitled to it, but I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in telling you to shove it.”
Frieda listened to me rant for at least a solid five more minutes before she finally stood up, came over, and patted my arm.
I sighed. “What?”
“Let it go.”
“That’s your advice? To just let it go when I know my friend is drowning?”
“Yes. He can handle it. Let him. It’s none of your business.”
“Maybe not, but what if he can’t handle it?” He was capable, sure, and stubborn as hell, but none of those things would make fifty thousand dollars in his bank account overnight. “What happens to Raquel if he can’t fix it?”
Frieda gave me an infuriatingly knowing smile. I was honestly starting to wonder if she’d been genetically engineered to produce that kind of thing, or if old women got together when they turned a certain age and were given a workshop on how to form that shape with their lips.
“Perhaps a whole new world of possibilities will open up to her.” She patted my arm again. “It’s funny how losing what we think is our whole world can show us we were only existing and not really living.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, but she just shot me another smile and walked around the desk, pretending to immerse herself in invoicing or something until I left.
As I walked out though, I decided against taking her advice. Raquel lived and breathed for that shop. Not only that, but it was part of her childhood.
So many of her memories were tied up in it. So much sweat, tears, and blood.
The idea of her losing it made my heart give a painful throb. I couldn’t just stand by and watch it happen when I could prevent all that heartache by writing one check.
I went back to fixing the trim, but when the time came to leave for Raquel’s place like we’d planned last night, I couldn’t get there fast enough. As soon as she opened the door, I could see that she was just as upset—if not more so—than Avery.
Her eyes were red and watery, her shoulders were tight, and her smile was weak. “Hey.”
“Hi.” I opened my arms and she walked right into them, holding on to me as I walked us both inside and kicked the door shut behind me. “I saw Avery earlier. What did the bank say?”
“Nothing useful so far,” she murmured against my chest. “He’s still trying, though.”
“What about the lawyers?” I asked, resting my chin on top of her head and just holding her. “Has he found one yet?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Last I spoke to him, he was still at the bank.”
I drew in a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for another harsh rebuke, but I had to offer. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t. “Raquel?”
“Yeah?”
“You know I can help.”
Immediately, her arms dropped away from my waist and she lifted her head to look up at me. “Thanks, but we’ll be okay.”
“No, just listen to me. Please.” I took her hands and tugged her over to a couch standing haphazardly in the middle of what would become her living room.
“I know that you and Avery will figure this out and I realize you’d rather do it yourselves, but you’re not alone.
You have me and I can write you a check for fifty thousand right now. ”
Her eyes widened, but before she could turn me down, I rushed out the rest. “I can also have attorneys here by the end of the week. People who specialize in this stuff who can make sure that nothing like it ever happens again.”
With it all finally out there, I waited for the immediate refusal, the stubbornness and pride that I was starting to think of as the Thompson Family Special, but Raquel just stared at me for a long beat. “You can?”
My heart leaped and I laced our fingers together, nodding as I held her gaze. “It wouldn’t even be hard to get them here. We have specialists who can help track down your money and you wouldn’t have to worry in the meantime.”
I saw the moment hope sparked to life in her eyes, her expression softening before the mask fully cracked. Her eyes filled with tears and her lips parted. Her brow rumpled as she bowed her head until it was resting against my chest again.
“Theo,” she whispered. “I don’t even know what to say. Thank you.”
“It’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around her again, pulling her into my lap and burying my nose in her hair. “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
“Thank you,” she repeated, trembling as she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck. “Thank you.”
I exhaled a sigh of relief and held her closer, knowing that I would give so much more than this to protect her and the life she’d built. This girl could have everything I had and I still wouldn’t feel like it was enough.
“I’m here for you, Raquel,” I murmured against her hair. “No matter what, I’m always going to be right here.”
Always. No matter what.
That was the promise I was making tonight, and right then, I fully intended to keep it.