I held up my hand and cut him off as fast as I could. “I got your four hundred bucks.”

Milton’s eyes got so big and bulgy, it looked like they was going to pop clean out of the sockets. “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for blessing me and Yvonne with a friend like Odell.” The way he was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, I thought he was going to rise up to the ceiling. “Where is it at?” He rubbed his palms together and then held one out. “Give it here.”

I pulled the wad out of my pocket and handed it to him. “You don’t need to count it.”

His eyes bulged out even more and his lips formed such a big smile, you would have thought I’d just handed him the keys to Heaven’s pearly gates. Even his tone of voice was blissful now. “Odell, you just made my day. I’ll give this to Willie Frank before he leaves, and he can take it to Lamar first thing in the morning. Or drop it off on his way home tonight.” Milton slid the money into his pocket and shook my hand. “My man, I just love doing business with you.”

I snatched my hand away as fast as I could and glared at him. “I ain’t your ‘man’ and this ain’t hardly ‘doing business,’” I blasted. “I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible so I can move on with my life and get my peace of mind back.”

He gave me a weary look and whined, “I need my peace of mind back, too. You don’t know how worried I was about us not paying Lamar back.” He suddenly smiled again. “You sure you don’t want a drink? Tonight you can have as many as you want on the house.”

“No, but thanks for offering. I can’t stay. Listen, I . . . uh . . . was wondering if you and Yvonne was going to be available tomorrow evening?”

He turned his head and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “For what?”

“Well, I know y’all like to fish. I was wondering if y’all wanted to go with me for a little while. We wouldn’t stay long so you’d be back in time to entertain your guests.”

“Taking off a couple of hours wouldn’t be no problem. Willie Frank always covers for us when we can’t be here.” He was still gazing at me from the corner of his eye. “What brung this on? We been friends almost six months and you ain’t never invited us to go fishing before.”

I shrugged. “I just wanted to do something to show y’all that I ain’t got no hard feelings toward y’all. I’ll bring some of that beer from the store y’all like.”