I hauled myself up into the driver’s seat and closed the door, suggesting, “You could say, ‘That’s awesome, Amy!’”

“That’s awesome, Amy,” he repeated after me, doing it by rote.

“Um…did you hear the part about the TV being sixty inches?” I asked, confused by his reaction.

“I did. And I hesitate to get into this with my heiress, but I gotta ask. The folks at Bertram’s donate that shit?”

I stared at my windshield.

“Amy?” he called.

“I didn’t buy it, Mickey,” I told him. “You asked me not to.”

“Just bein’ sure,” he told me.

“They donated it,” I confirmed, feeling deflated.

He heard the deflation and explained, “It just seems too easy, baby. You get a wild hair, go to a store and, just like that, they donate an expensive TV?”

“Well, not just like that,” I replied. “They did remember me from when I came in months ago and bought a bunch of stuff. Your firefighters on duty will also need to stand in front of the TV and shake hands with the delivery guys so they can take a photo to put up in the front of their store. I also got them to donate one to Dove House and Dela and some of the residents have to do the same thing.”

“I hope you get I had to ask,” he said.

“I’m not sure why,” I returned. “You told me you didn’t want me purchasing it, I didn’t purchase it. You told me it’s okay to get it donated, I got it donated.”

“Been played before, babe,” he said, his tone moving from careful to irritated.

“So you’ve dated another heiress who rained goodness on your firehouse?” I asked sarcastically. “Sorry, I didn’t see the evidence of that when I was there. Or did she purchase the rig?”

“In this conversation there’s no call for you to be a smartass, Amelia. You know real fuckin’ well I had a wife who descended into a bottle, and shit like that happens, games are played. She took cash outta our bank account so she could buy wine without me seein’ the credit card receipts when I did the reconciliations. She fed me bullshit about where she was and what she was doin’—”

I interrupted him to declare, “You’re not Conrad and I’m not Rhiannon.”

“Asked a simple question, Amelia.”

“A question that was offensive, Michael.”

“Right, that picture gets taken I know I can trust you and I won’t have to ask again.”

I gritted my teeth, which meant my next sounded forced.