“Will you lend it to her?”
“Sure. I’m sure she won’t want to know it’s coming from me, though, and she’s sure to find out within a few minutes and come in here and cause all hell. Charlene’s probably had enough of Winters for this week.”
“Ha. Ha,” Sam says without humor. “She won’t accept it. She already threatened me with a head and eyebrow shave if I came to you.”
“You were willing to risk it? That’s real love.”
Sam flicks a paperclip at my face, but I dodge it easily. He reloads. I’m glad I don’t have the box of elastic bands out on my desk because he could turn those into a serious weapon. I know this from experience.
“I want you to go directly to her dumbass ex and buy him out. If I go, I’ll probably punch the guy straight in the face by way of a handshake after the deal is done, and that’s probably not for the best. We never did get along, and he’d be thrilled to press charges.”
“Buy him out? That’s not an investment. Not the way I usually do it.”
“Yes, it is. Just because you’re not giving it to her so she can buy it out, what difference does it make? It’s still fifty grand in the hands of the guy who has to sign some papers so she can own her shit outright.”
“That would make me more like a business partner, not an investor.”
Sam’s smart, and he sees where I’m going with this. “Oh shit,” I protest. “No! No way! She’d probably bake me an explosive cake for my next birthday for that. I’d never sleep peacefully again. She’d make me pay for it for years. But if I don’t lend her the money, which she won’t accept, and I don’t buy Daryl out, then she’s going to have to sell. She loves that place. It’s a hole in the wall, but people like what she makes, and she’s an excellent baker. That’s all she’s ever wanted to be.”
“Actually, she wanted to be a famous chef,” Sam continued on. “But she settled for owning a bakery because mom got breast cancer, and she didn’t want to be so far away. Even in Seattle, she would have had to start at the bottom, and she didn’t have time to be working sixteen to twenty hour days when she was helping my mom out.”
“Shit.”
I know all about Brenda’s cancer. She’s been in remission now for over a year now, thank goodness, but she did get sick just as Stella was finishing culinary school. Instead of moving, as she’d planned, Stella stayed with her shitty boyfriend and got a loan big enough to open a small bakery. I knew she was living with her boyfriend at that time and also that he’d helped her financially, from what Sam told me.
“She does bake really, really good cakes, though. Man, I loved coming over. Everything she made was incredible, even when she was five.”
“She’s very talented. If she lost the bakery, it would crush her. She has three people who work there, and they’d all lose their jobs. That would be even worse for her because she cares. A lot.”
“Where’s she living now?” I’m carefully filing all this information away to process later when it’s safe.
“Some shitty little apartment. She’s too proud to move back home.”
“As long as she’s not sleeping at the bakery. On the prep table.”
“I think the health inspectors might get a call then, and she would never jeopardize her business.”
“Except she’d rather lose it than take money from me.”
“I think she truly would. She really doesn’t like you.”
“She likes you well enough,” I huff.
“That’s because blood is thicker than all the pranks we pulled on her, the times we bugged her, the potential boyfriends we beat up, the names we called her, the times we threw a spider into her face…”
“We were the worst kind of assholes. But you were worse. I just went along for the ride. And now we’re old, mature adults. She should forgive me. I’ve asked her to.”
“I don’t know, man.” Sam rifles both hands through his hair, and it looks even shaggier now. Like an unwashed, hairy, little ankle-biting dog is sitting on his head. “She really, really hates you, and she’s never going to change how she feels. Will you talk to Daryl? Today?”
I open my top drawer and curl my hand around the box of elastic bands. “Yeah, I will. If he doesn’t sell to me, I’ll offer him more and more until he does. Or I’ll go with two hired goons and threaten him with bodily harm if he refuses.”
Sam shakes his head. “You’re right. I can’t see why Stella doesn’t like you. You’re a funny guy, and she generally likes funny guys. Maybe it’s too fresh yet. All the shit torture we put her through.”