Everyone in town knew Ariel was living at my house temporarily, so we didn’t need to pretend to meet. But still, we did need our bit of theater to be believable. We’d worked out the night before that we’d say we talked about the loan casually but that Ariel had asked me to come in so she could put together a formal proposal for me. She didn’t know that I’d actually decided to consider the proposal, but I figured that fact would just make things all the more believable.
Once I was in Ariel’s office, we had a bit of privacy, but the offices didn’t have doors, so we still had to be discreet about our query. I made a point of explaining to Ariel what I was considering for the shop and telling her how much I thought it would cost to have Woody increase our shelving in the store. Then, she gave
