The offer still stands. Please consider.
I hit send. Now, all I could do was to wait. When there was no response by the end of the day I calculated my next move. I knew I was being just a little manipulative. Okay, it was a lot. But I was beyond desperate and this opportunity continued to fall in my lap.
The next day I got some answers from the research I’d requested. My next step was put into place and all I could do was wait.
It was three days after the transaction before I got the call I'd been waiting for.
"Hello?"
"What do you think you are doing?" She was as pissed as I had expected.
"What do you—?"
"Don’t play dumb with me, Iverson! I want you to take it back, all of it!" She shouted.
"I’m afraid I can’t do that." I sat back in my office chair hoping this played out in my favor.
~
Lilli
I had been gone for over a month tending to Donald. I cancelled my classes, knowing full well that I would not be able to go to school. Hell, I didn’t know if I would be able to return to New York at this point.
Once I got Donald out of the hospital, I had to work with him and the nurse to get them familiar. The live in nurse was expensive but, believe it or not, it was cheaper than the hospital stay. I had stacks of hospital bills in my old bedroom that I was adding to the other bills we had.
Going over the budget, I had to make a few calls to get the current balance owed on the house. What I didn’t expect was the balance being at zero. Thinking there was a mistake, I called the bank in an attempt to correct it. No one at the bank would listen when I told them it was a mistake. There was no way in hell our mortgage was paid off. Christ, we were lucky to pay the interest on the late months. When the phone call proved futile, I grabbed up the thick mortgage folder and left for what used to be a small town bank.
Arriving at the, newly renovated and acquired by a large chain, bank, I marched up to a teller. Trying not to unleash my frustration on the bank employee, I requested to speak with someone about my mortgage. Once seated with Mr. Barmire, we discussed the situation. I pulled out all of my prior statements, including the most recent one. Mr. Barmire pulled up the account on his computer and showed me the zero balance.
Still, I insisted there was a mistake. He did more research and discovered the total payoff amount had been wired to the account three days ago. Dumbfounded, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Dazed and confused, I climbed into my father’s old beaten up truck. Then, as I pulled out of the bank parking lot, I remembered the text message from him.
"That son of a bitch," I yelled. I immediately pulled over to the side of the road and called him.
"Hello?" The fucker had the nerve to sound smug.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"What do you—?"
Oh no he wasn’t!
"Don’t play dumb with me, Iverson! I want you to take it back, all of it!"
"I’m afraid I can’t do that." The self-satisfied sound to his voice grated my already raw nerves.
"Aidan, take the money back. You had no right!" My frustration had reached its boiling point.
"What’s done is done, Lilli." He was so calm and collected. My fist clenched, I wanted to punch him in the face.
"I can’t let you pay off the house. I’m assuming you expect something in return but I already answered you."
He sighed but said nothing.
"Why didn’t you just go find someone else?"
"Honestly, I did try. I almost had but that didn’t work out. It seems to me, fate keeps bringing me back to you."
"It’s not fate, Aidan!" Rubbing at my forehead, stress crept up my neck, tightening the muscles.
"Lilli just accept my help." He pleaded.
"You mean a favor. A favor you expect to be returned," I spat.
"Only, if you want to return the favor." His response sounded resigned.
"There is no way in hell I am going to let you just pay off my father’s house! I’ll pay you back the same way I was paying the bank." Proud of myself for standing firm, I straightened my spine and held my head higher.
"I’m afraid I won’t accept your money, Lilli."
My head fell a bit, as my heart sank. He was refusing repayment.
"The only thing I will accept is you saying yes."
I paused, waiting and, before I could argue with him, he spoke again.
"It’s the only payback I will accept. However, you can just accept my kindness and not worry about owing me—"
"You’re an insufferable asshole, you know that?" I seemed to suddenly develop Tourette Syndrome.
"And you, my dear, are a stubborn pain in the ass," he chuckled.
"Unbelievable," I groaned.
"Well, then, just accept my kindness and charity—"
His charity?!
"Whoa, now we're your charity case?"
"No, I apologize, that’s not how I meant it. I simply mean that you should just accept it as a gift of friendship because I don’t want your money," he rushed to explain.