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Chapter 30: Almost At The Love Interest Landmark!

Chapter 30: Almost At The Love Interest Landmark!

The system had just paid him five thousand dollars for registering Rose.

That was the part worth sitting with.

Adrian closed the notification window and stood there a moment, phone still in hand. Not because he was overwhelmed, he wasn’t, but because the logic needed organizing.

The bonus existed. He didn’t know whether the number was fixed, whether it scaled, or whether the 43% displayed beside her name had anything to do with determining it.

But five thousand dollars was a data point. Atleast enough that-

"Adrian."

He looked up. Rose was a few feet ahead, phone still in hand, watching him with a slight crease between her brows. He caught himself looking at it for a second longer than necessary. Then, he caught up.

He caught up, and they settled into pace without comment.

The afternoon was overcast, quiet enough that their footsteps were audible on the pavement, and Adrian was fine with the silence. Rose apparently was too.

After a while, she spoke.

"About the agreement."

Not a preamble. Just the topic, placed between them like she’d been sitting on it the whole walk.

"What about it?"

"You didn’t push back on any of my rules."

"Ohh. Well..." he said. "I guess I didn’t see a need to."

"Didn’t see a need?" She repeated.

He glanced at her. "Only negotiate when the terms are bad."

She looked at him then. "So they weren’t bad."

It wasn’t quite a question, which meant she already suspected the answer.

He considered it anyway, not because it was complicated, but because he’d rather mean what he said than create another fuck-up.

"No," he said.

She faced forward. He did too. A few seconds passed, the kind that didn’t require anything from either of them.

"Good," Rose added.

That was the end of it. He didn’t push to find out.

Rose moved with purpose from the moment they walked into the grocery store; no pause to orient herself, phone out and back in her pocket before they’d cleared the entrance. She was already heading for produce.

Adrian didn’t try to help her choose. She clearly knew what she needed. He clearly didn’t. Neither of them made it weird.

He followed at a reasonable distance and occasionally checked something on a shelf that had nothing to do with what they were making.

The silence held as they moved, not that he minded. Until...

"Can I ask you something?" Rose said.

"Sure."

She kept her eyes on the shelf. "Why did you come back?"

"After you left." A beat. "I figured you needed space. That part I understood." She took a box of pasta from the shelf. "What surprised me was that you came back at all."

He thought about it. "Because leaving without explaining was unfair."

She looked at him then. "So you came back because it was fair?"

"No." He replied. " I came back because when I know I did something wrong, I’d rather fix it than not."

Rose was quiet for a moment. She set the pasta in the basket. "I almost didn’t open the door."

"That would’ve been fair."

"I know." Something shifted at the corner of her mouth, not quite a smile, but close. "I’m glad I did, though."

She turned back to the shelf. He didn’t add anything to it.

The total came to $47.32.

Rose was already reaching into her bag when he tapped his card.

"Adrian."

"Chill out." He replied. "It’s just groceries."

"I can pay for my own groceries."

"You’re not paying for your groceries. You’re paying for ingredients you picked for a competition you initiated." He pocketed his phone. "If yours tastes better, I don’t want to hear about how I gave you inferior materials to work with."

She stared at him. "That’s the most convoluted reason to pay for someone’s food I’ve encountered."

"It’s also correct."

She let out a breath, picking up one of the bags with low ceremony. "So stubborn." The corner of her mouth gave her away."

He took the other two. Then his phone buzzed. He pulled it out on reflex, and stopped.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

INVESTMENT TRANSACTION DETECTED.

Target: Rose West

Purchase Amount: $47.32

Investment Classification: Active

Cashback Rate: 43%

Cashback Generated: $20.35

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Investment Return: $20.35

Current Balance: $6,721.35

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

He read it twice. One purchase. One result.

Spending money on Rose generated a return. That was the mechanism. And the $5,000 at the start, the registration bonus, wasn’t arbitrary. It was capital. The system hadn’t rewarded him for meeting her. It had given him something to work with.

He didn’t know the ceiling. He didn’t know the formula. But the structure was legible now, at least in outline... enough to work with.

"What are you looking at?" He looked up.

"Huh? Oh." He said nothing for a second as his eyes drifted back to the screen, still searching for a possible explanation to the cashback. "It’s just..."

"...it’s...Just my cashback..."

He stopped. He looked at Rose. She looked back.

"Cashback?" She looked at him with the kind of look that wasn’t accusatory so much as attentive. Waiting. "What’s that?"

"Cashback? Oh." he added. "I meant... I was just checking my balance."

Rose tilted her head slightly, genuinely confused.

"Bank balance?." she repeated. "Did it hurt? The forty-seven dollars."

"Don’t underestimate me, Rose." He replied. "It’s nothing, really."

She looked at him a moment longer. Then faced forward. "Right."

She didn’t believe him. She didn’t push. That was the tell. He didn’t elaborate.

Phew... that was close.

He moved to follow her, then. His phone buzzed. Adrian pulled it out.

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INVESTMENT ANALYSIS UPDATED.

Target: Rose West

Investment Potential: 47%

Investment Type: Romance

NEXT LANDMARK: Love interest (50%)

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He stared at the number.

Forty-seven.

It had been forty-three when he’d registered her.

His eyes lifted to Rose. She was already heading for the door, both hands occupied with the grocery bags that had just taken $47.32 out of his pocket.

47%

Three percent of whatever the love interest landmark was. Adrian didn’t know what happened at fifty. That alone was enough to make him hesitate.

But if the system had bothered to mark the number as a l landmark, reaching it had to mean something.

And he wasn’t about to ignore a reward he didn’t understand yet.

"Adrian."

He locked the screen and looked up.

Rose was standing by the door, watching him with the same faintly questioning expression she’d given him back at the apartment.

"Yeah?"

"You coming or not?"

His gaze flicked to his phone once more.

47%.

He still had no idea what would happen at fifty. There was only one way to find out.

"Coming."