Chapter 49: LOTS OF BEER

My pulse was still hammering. Star was right behind the bathroom door. One wrong sound and everything would collapse. Sarah would never look at me the same way again if she found out I’d just paid a sex worker.

She walked past me into the kitchen and started taking things out of the bag one by one, zucchini, tomatoes, onion, a couple of peppers, a small pack of something green.

"What are you making?" I asked, trying to sound normal.

"Just a simple vegetable stew. Nothing fancy." She glanced over her shoulder. "Have you eaten yet?"

"Ah... yeah. I did. What about you?"

"Not yet. I thought maybe we could eat together, but it’s fine if you’ve already had something."

"No, no. I can keep you company." I forced a small smile even though my stomach was suddenly twisting with leftover adrenaline and unexpected hunger. "Actually... I could probably eat again."

Sarah’s expression softened. She reached out and gave my arm a light, familiar tap. "Of course you could," she said with a quiet smile.

Behind the bathroom door, the apartment stayed dangerously silent.

"Um," Sarah said, breaking the quiet. "Where’s the salt?"

"Oh, let me get it."

I stepped over to the counter, reached up into the cupboard, and pulled down the small metal salt container. When I turned back, Sarah was standing closer than before. She took the container from my hand, but not before I caught her subtly sniffing the air.

The perfume. Star’s. It was a different scent from the last time, sharper, but still unmistakably feminine. My stomach tightened.

"Friends again?" Sarah asked, turning on the sink.

"Yep. They’re gone for good," I lied. "Moving to California."

She nodded like she accepted it and started washing the vegetables one by one. Relief hit me for half a second, until I glanced to the right.

The bathroom door was cracked open. Just enough for a pair of eyes to watch me from the darkness inside. Star.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

NEW QUEST

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] MISSION:

Like a Couple

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> OBJECTIVE:

Get behind Sarah while

she washes the vegetables.

Then put your hands on her waist.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> REWARD:

+150 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Of course the system would throw this at me now. With a hooker watching from the bathroom and a fresh lie still on my tongue. Risky as hell. If Sarah didn’t like it, the whole night could turn. But a hundred and fifty EXP was hard to ignore.

I stepped up behind her.

My hands settled lightly on her waist.

Sarah’s shoulders tensed for a second. Then she let out a small, awkward chuckle.

"Oh... y-yeah... um... hey."

The moment felt fragile. I kept my voice low. "Made you uncomfortable? Sorry. I just... never really had someone cook in here for me before. Can I just... watch?"

"Oh... s-sure."

"Thank you."

"Y-yeah... no problem..."

She sounded embarrassed. I rested my chin near her shoulder, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin, and watched her hands move under the water. We were pressed together more than the excuse required. I was still half-hard from earlier, and the outline of my cock brushed lightly against her ass through our clothes. She didn’t pull away.

Sarah finished the last vegetable and shut off the water. She turned her head. Our faces were suddenly very close. Neither of us moved for a second. Then we both leaned in at the same time.

The kiss was short, soft, and charged. Her lips were warm. For a moment everything else, Star, the lie, the risk, disappeared.

Sarah broke it first, clearing her throat as she stepped back a little. I did the same. "I, uh... I should wash my face. Cool off a bit," she said with a shaky smile.

My pulse spiked. "No, no, the bathroom sink isn’t working. Sorry."

"Oh... sorry to hear that."

"Yeah. Whole place is falling apart." I forced a quiet laugh.

She accepted it, but the air between us stayed thick.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 10 [365/557]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 25

> END: 11

> PER: 25

> LCK: 4

> IBE: 5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 180/180

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1370

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

The EXP landed. Even better, her Dependence had dropped again. I was one lucky guy, though.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> Loyalty: 0%

> Dependence: 55%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 0% [☑]

> Threat: None

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

x2 Sexual Encounter EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Fifty-five percent. Getting closer. If I could push it under fifty tonight, the whole dynamic might finally start to shift.

Behind the cracked bathroom door, Star was still watching. And Sarah was still in my kitchen, cheeks faintly flushed from the kiss. Man, this was awkward.

"I’ll, um... I should get the food ready," Sarah said, clearing her throat. "Do you have something to drink?"

"Orange juice, and beer." I nodded. "Lots of beer."

"Orange juice’ll do." She gave me a slightly awkward smile.

"Sweet."

She crumpled the empty vegetable bag and turned toward the trash. My stomach dropped. The used condom was still in there.

Uh-oh.

I took a quick step forward. "Let me help. I’m not just going to stand here while you do everything."

"Ah, thank you."

"No problem."

I took the bag from her and dropped it into the bin myself, making sure it landed on top and completely covered what was underneath. A thin line of sweat formed at the back of my neck. That had been way too close.

I glanced toward the bathroom. The door was still cracked open, but from this angle I couldn’t tell if Star was still watching.

Okay. Things were... manageable. Not great, not with a hooker hiding in my bathroom, but manageable. If I ignored that part, this almost felt like a quiet little dinner date. I still couldn’t believe I’d taken that quest earlier.

"Hubert’s really that bad?" I asked as she started organizing the vegetables. "I heard him coughing all night yesterday."

"The walls are that thin, huh?" She smiled faintly and nodded. "Yeah. I just hope I don’t catch it. I hate being sick... the dry throat, the headaches... everything."

"I had a cold a few weeks ago. No medicine, no soup. Just raw-dogged it." I gave a small chuckle.

"You’re anti-medicine? Never took you a guy like that."

"No. Just didn’t have anyone to go buy it for me. Or make soup." I shrugged. "Man, that sounded pathetic."

"It’s not. You should’ve told me." Her voice softened. "Why go through that alone?"

"Hubert’s not exactly a fan of mine. I didn’t want to put you in the middle of anything."

"That’s nonsense, Chance. Come on."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> Loyalty: 0%

> Dependence: 51%

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 0% [☑]

> Threat: None

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

x2 Sexual Encounter EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Four percent. Just from a lie about being sick. I almost never got sick, but the system didn’t care about the truth, only the effect. A little more and she’d be under fifty. So close.

"So when’s dinner going to be ready?" I asked. "I’m starving."

"I thought you said you already ate."

"Like I said... hunger came back all of a sudden."

"I sense a small lie." She chuckled. "But I’m going to put a big ’whatever’ stamp on it and move on."

"Good idea, please do that. Thank you."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

PERCEPTION CHECK: x

[Needed: 14] - [Result: 2]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

She referenced some anime

meme but you didn’t get it.

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Of course I rolled a two. Even without the Perception debuff I probably wouldn’t have caught the reference. Today was just not my lucky day, and after the disaster with Star, "a little unlucky" felt like an understatement.

Sarah started cooking.

She asked where the cutting board was, then the knife, then a pan. I pointed things out as she worked, chopping the onion and peppers first, then the zucchini and tomatoes. Oil went into the pan, followed by the onions until they softened. The rest of the vegetables followed, along with salt, a bit of pepper, and whatever else she’d brought. The small kitchen quickly filled with the smell of sautéing vegetables.

Once everything was in the pan and simmering, she turned the heat down and wiped her hands on a towel.

"Now we just wait," she said.

The apartment was quiet except for the soft sound of the food cooking. Somewhere behind the cracked bathroom door, Star was still there. And Sarah was standing in my kitchen like this was the most natural thing in the world.

Fifty-one percent. I only needed a little more.

Fifty-one percent could wait. Right now I needed Star out of the apartment without Sarah noticing. Maybe if I suggested getting some air...

"Hey," I said with a smile. "Want to step outside for a bit? Get some fresh air?"

Sarah smiled back but shook her head. "It’s freezing. I’d rather stay here, if that’s okay."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure. It is... really cold."

"I know. It’s awful."

Yeah, this was bad. I guess we were stuck inside now... with a hooker in the bathroom, hiding from Sarah.

Well, fuck me sideways.

❤︎‪‪❤︎‪‪❤︎