“Well...” Avery chewed on his lower lip. He should have been going overthison the drive back, trying to figure out how to break the news to his uncle, instead of replaying how the T-shirt hugged the firefighter’s torso as he’d turned to find Avery there, gawking.
Uncle Theo crossed his arms. “Tell me.”
Avery slumped. “Pro-Count.”
“Oh, no.” Meredith put a hand to her mouth to cover her gasp, like he’d said the Auldersons had joined a cult—which they basically had.
Uncle Theo grumbled. “That’s it, then?”
“I tried,” Avery rushed on. “I said we could do more than just his bookkeeping. That there were lots of things we could do to help him grow the business.”
“That’s not what we do.” Uncle Theo shook his head.
“But we could!”
His uncle was already disappearing into his office, closing the door behind him. Avery wanted to go after him, but he’d tried and failed too many times already. Uncle Theo would never listen in his disappointment.
“It’s okay.” Meredith squeezed his elbow. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
Avery hung his head. “I know. But that’s the third client we’ve lost since Christmas.” And the fifth in the last six months. The cult of Pro-Count was spreading. Once one business owner realized how easily he could do his own books with the right software package, he couldn’t keep himself from bragging to his buddies, and then they told their friends, and they told theirs.
And soon Avery, Meredith, and Uncle Theo would be out of a job.
“I just wish he’d let me try new things.” It didn’t have to be major. The clients who had gone to paperless filings were still with them. And while Avery wasn’t officially licensed yet—he kept meaning to register for his ethics exam, but he also kept falling asleep trying to read the manual—he’d slipped in a little consulting for a few of them, and they seemed to appreciate it.
“He will. He’ll come around sooner or later.” Meredith went to the office’s small kitchen and started the kettle.
Sooner would be better. Aulderson, a heavy machinery repair company, was one of their bigger clients and had recently bought a smaller company in South Carolina. Converting them to a consulting client instead of only bookkeeping would have been great, but the office manager had shaken her head.“Cash is tight. The owner thought, with what we save in going to Pro-Count, we’d have more for advertising in the new region.”
Avery could have told them Uncle Theo hadn’t raised his fees in years, and what they’d save would be gone in the first quarter of next year if they spent it on advertising, but that would have been petty, and he was trying to save face.
“You have to trust him.” Meredith’s kind smile stopped below her eyes. She’d worked for Uncle Theo for nearly twelve years, but Avery was family. If they lost more accounts and had to find ways to save money, they both knew which would lose their job first.
Or it might be both of them. Avery’d been doing the firm’s own books for two years. He knew what was there and had a good guess about how much Uncle Theo had tucked away for retirement. He and Aunt Brenda didn’t need much. Their house was paid for, and they didn’t travel a lot. If things at the firm really took a nose dive, Avery was confident his aunt and uncle could live on what they had for a very long time.
Meredith was opening the mail. “I guess we won’t be donating to the Activator League’s fundraising drive this year.”
Avery took the paper she was holding. “We have superheroes in Seacroft?”
“No, silly. They raise funds and then give them to local charities. My sister volunteers with them.”
“Oh.” He scanned the page. They did seem to be asking for money, something he and Uncle Theo didn’t have a lot of right now. Then he brightened. “Maybe I could do their books? If they’re fundraising, they probably need an accountant, right?”
Meredith patted his cheek. She couldn’t be more than ten years older—although he would never ask, because Aunt Brenda, and even Avery’s mom before her, had always said you don’t ask a woman’s age—but she often felt more like another aunt than a friend or coworker. “That’s a sweet idea. I can ask if you want me to. Oh! How was your first weekend in your new apartment?”
“Awesome!” She hadn’t asked about yesterday, so he didn’t have to lie about the firefighters the way he had at his aunt and uncle’s the night before while sneaking the lasagna out of the freezer.
“Yeah, what did you do? Sleep in?” She sighed. “I would love to sleep in.”
Meredith’s kids were four and six. Their age was partly to blame for the lack of sleeping in, but Meredith and her husband had also enrolled them in everything imaginable. Basketball, soccer, Tae Kwon Do. Every day she was rushing off from work to drive them somewhere, and weekends had to be equally busy.
It sounded awesome. When Avery was growing up, his mother signed him up for an art class once, but, like Bible study, he hadn’t been able to sit still long enough to participate. Art classes stopped. Bible study had not.
If Meredith wasn’t working here anymore, how would her family pay for all those sports?
“Are you okay?” The hand moved from his cheek to his shoulder.
“Yeah.” He waved vaguely around his head. “The migraine yesterday must have been a bad one. Still feeling a bit off.”
