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Chapter 12: One Kiss. One Raincheck. One Problem.

Chapter 12: One Kiss. One Raincheck. One Problem.

The bell over the convenience store door didn’t even finish ringing before Rose was already three steps ahead of him toward the car.

Adrian unlocked it with the fob still in his pocket, thumb finding the button on reflex, and by the time he rounded the hood she’d already pulled the passenger door open and slid inside.

"Drive," she said.

Not annoyed. Just final. Like the word had used up whatever she had left to say.

He got in. Turned the key. Didn’t ask.

Rose sat straight. Spine off the seat, hands folded in her lap like she was waiting outside a principal’s office.

No teasing about the fake-boyfriend thing. No mention of Daniel. Nothing at all. He pulled out onto the street. The silence took the passenger seat instead of her voice.

She’s acting weird.

That was as far as he let himself go with it. He wasn’t going to sit here diagnosing her. He had his own problem, and it was currently replaying on a loop he hadn’t asked for.

Her hand on his jaw.

The way she’d looked at him for that half-second before she’d kissed him, like she was checking something off a list she hadn’t told him about.

That was weird. He couldn’t say he didn’t like it, though. He kept driving.

The turn for the apartment complex was two blocks out when Rose finally said something that wasn’t about a gas station sign.

"About the dinner...?"

He glanced over. She didn’t glance back. Still fixed on the window, jaw tight in a way that hadn’t been there an hour ago.

A beat passed. Long enough that he almost answered for her.

"Rain check," she said.

He understood immediately. Didn’t need it explained, didn’t want it either.

"Okay."

That was it. One word, eyes back on the road, hands steady on the wheel.

She turned toward him then, she turned away. He caught the motion in his periphery and didn’t take the bait.

He let it go. Whatever this was, it wasn’t his to pry open. If she wanted to say more, she would. If she didn’t, pushing would just make the ride home longer than it already felt.

Silence had never bothered him. He’d built a whole personality around not needing to fill it. But this seemed like new territory for him.

"Adrian..." Rose said. "Can you not think about what just happened right now?"

He glanced at her.

"I was thinking about anything."

"Hm." She muttered. Her eyes staring through the glass at nothing in particular. "Sure."

He didn’t exactly know what to make of this.

He turned into the complex. The apartment building came up on the right, familiar and unbothered, like it hadn’t just watched him drive in with someone he apparently didn’t know how to read anymore.

He parked. The engine ticked off into silence, and neither of them moved.

Rose’s hand found her seatbelt, thumb resting on the release without pressing it.

Adrian stared straight ahead at the stairwell as a means to cope with the silence. It didn’t help.

"We’re here," he said. Mostly to break the quiet before it calcified any harder.

Rose reached for the door handle. Stopped.

"Adrian."

He turned toward her.

She hesitated. Actually hesitated, which wasn’t a thing he’d seen from her before, not even during the ex-boyfriend routine an hour ago that should’ve rattled anyone.

"Sorry," she said.

He paused. "For what?"

Another beat, shorter this time, like she was deciding whether to commit.

"The kiss." Her eyes met his. "I had no right to force myself on you. For that, I’m truly sorry."

Forced herself. That was a funny term. To be honest he didn’t mind. If anything he liked it even so saying sorry was not anything for him.

"Okay."

That seemed to land worse than if he’d said literally anything else. Her eyes narrowed a fraction like she’d been braced for a reaction that never showed up and now had to recalibrate on the fly.

"Can we just..." She exhaled. "Pretend it didn’t happen?"

He thought about it. Actually thought about it, which was more consideration than the question probably needed.

"Sure." A beat. "I don’t mind."

A small nod. "Thanks."

She got out. Closed the door with a soft click instead of a slam, which somehow felt like its own kind of statement.

He watched her walk toward the building. She didn’t look back until she finally disappeared inside.

Only then did he let his shoulders drop.

He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, head falling back against the seat, staring up at the roof of the car like it owed him an explanation.

"What the fuck was that."

This evening was truly a lot. A fake boyfriend , a kiss that came out of nowhere, an apology for the kiss, a rain check on a dinner neither of them had actually canceled for a real reason.

He sat with it for a second. Didn’t find an answer. Didn’t expect to.

His phone buzzed against his thigh. He looked down, and the screen had already lit itself before he touched it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━

BEGINNER FOUNDATION MISSION

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━

☑ Assist in unloading all furniture ⓘ

☑ Arrange all furniture inside the apartment ⓘ

☑ Unpack all essential belongings ⓘ

☑ Dispose of empty boxes and packing waste ⓘ

☑ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity

ⓘ ☐ Eat one proper meal before the day ends. In the company of another person, preferably. ⓘ

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━

Time Remaining: 06:02:17

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━

He stared at the one unchecked box like it had personally engineered the last four hours of his life just to remain empty.

8:31 PM. according to the corner of his screen.

Six hours. That was apparently how long the universe was giving him to find a second person willing to eat dinner with him after the first one had just rain-checked.

He looked up at the apartment complex then back down at the phone.

You have got to be kidding me.

He looked at the mission log a second longer, then killed the screen.

Six hours was technically enough time to go find a stranger and rope them into dinner just to satisfy a checkbox. Probably.

He pocketed the phone. Got out. Locked the car out of habit more than concern.

The System could wait. He’d had enough for one day.

The apartment swallowed the sound of the door behind him.

He dropped his keys somewhere near the counter, didn’t check where, didn’t care.

The quiet hit him a second later, heavier than it had any right to be for a space this small.

He hadn’t clocked how tired he actually was until the door was shut and there was nothing left to do. No boxes. No movers. No Rose sitting rigid in the passenger seat two feet away from him, acting like everything was okay.

Just him, and a mattress somewhere down the hall that suddenly sounded like the best idea anyone had ever had.

~~~

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