Chapter 66: The Future Is Now.
The doorbell pulled him out of sleep like a hook.
Liam surfaced slowly — one eye first, then the ceiling of Darren’s living room coming into focus, the unfamiliar angle of the couch cushions underneath him, the thin morning light coming through curtains that didn’t fully close.
He lay still for a moment taking inventory. His neck had an opinion about the armrest. His lower back had a separate but equally strong opinion about couch cushions as a sleeping surface.
He stretched.
The kind of stretch that starts in the shoulders and travels the full length of the body without asking permission — arms extended, legs locked straight, spine doing something that produced three separate sounds in sequence while his entire frame shuddered with the violence of it.
"Fuck," he exhaled, releasing it. "That was some good sleep."
He sat up and registered Darren.
Darren was dressed fully, properly dressed — dark trousers, a fitted jacket, shoes that had clearly been polished at some point in the recent past. He was at the kitchen counter applying cologne with the focused efficiency of a man on a schedule, the spray catching the morning light briefly before settling.
Liam blinked at him.
"You actually have nice clothes," he said.
Darren didn’t look up. "I’m broke. Not poor."
"There’s a difference?"
"Significant difference." He capped the bottle and checked himself in the small mirror mounted near the door. "Broke is temporary. Poor is a mindset."
Liam watched him from the couch. "Where are you going?"
"Out."
"Out where?"
"Just out." Darren straightened his collar once. Satisfied, he moved to the front door and opened it.
The woman on the other side was young — mid-twenties, bright eyes, natural hair pulled back, wearing a light jacket and the expression of someone who had been waiting a reasonable amount of time and was gracious about it. She was quite attractive but Liam expected nothing less from his best friend.
Her eyes found Darren immediately.
They didn’t find Liam at all.
"Hey." She smiled at Darren.
"Hey." Darren stepped slightly into the doorway, pulling the door with him in the casual geometry of a man creating a frame that didn’t include whoever was behind him on the couch.
Liam sat completely still.
Darren glanced back at him over his shoulder as he had just remembered Liam’s existence. He held eye contact for exactly one second — the silent communication of two people who had known each other long enough to have entire conversations without speaking.
"Don’t make this weird."
Liam gave the smallest possible nod.
"Wasn’t planning to."
"Liam." Darren said it conversationally, to the room. "Lock up when you leave. Key goes in the usual place."
"Got it."
"And eat whatever’s in the fridge before you go."
"I already planned on it."
Darren nodded once more and pulled the door shut behind him, and just like that Liam had the apartment to himself.
He sat on the couch for a moment in the quiet.
"Darren had a woman." He put that away with quiet amusement. The man had been lecturing Liam about Rachel a night ago with the authority of someone whose own situation was uncomplicated, and here he was — pressed jacket, polished shoes, cologne applied at eight in the morning.
"Good for him."
The fridge yielded leftover rice and some chicken that had been stored properly, which Liam reheated without ceremony and ate standing at the counter despite it not being the healthiest way to eat. He wasn’t leaving on an empty stomach, that was non-negotiable.
He also had no particular desire to walk out of the building and run directly into Rachel.
Not because of anything specific — last night had ended the way it ended, and he didn’t regret the part before the phone call. But there was a version of this morning where he came out of Darren’s door and found her at her mailbox or on the stairs and neither of them had the language ready for what that interaction was supposed to be. He wasn’t equipped for it before coffee and his own shower.
He waited until the building felt quiet before heading out.
-
His apartment received him with its usual cleanliness and silence. He showered, changed, made proper coffee, and sat at the kitchen counter feeling more like himself than he had since Tuesday morning.
His phone had been face down on the passenger seat all night. He picked it up properly for the first time now and worked through the notifications in order.
Three emails — two junk, one from his bank confirming a deposit that made him pause briefly and smile.
A missed call from an unknown number that he left alone.
And Sophia.
The message was timestamped 1:47 AM.
[Sophia: I can’t stop thinking about tonight. That’s all. Goodnight.]
Liam read it once. Read it again. Set the phone down and picked up his coffee.
He smiled at the window for a moment — not at the message exactly, but at the honesty of it. 1:47 AM, this was a few hours after he had left her alone.
He didn’t reply immediately.
Not because he wasn’t pleased — he was. But there was a particular value in letting that message sit for a few hours. Let her wonder briefly. This would allow him to linger on her mind all day and considering today was also his rest day, it meant he wouldn’t be going to the gym.
He put the phone down and opened his laptop.
The law firm wasn’t going to build itself.
He pulled up a fresh document and started a basic framework — the things he knew he needed before Mrs. Harriet’s terms could be put to use. Operational costs for the first six months. A realistic client projection based on the referrals she’d offered. Licensing requirements he already had memorised but wrote out anyway because seeing them on the page made them real.
He sat back and looked at the numbers.
He needed more capital. Not dramatically more — the rebate system had moved him further in two weeks than three months of salary would have — but enough to cover the gap between setup and first billing.
Which brought him back to Mrs. Harriet.
High-tier. 8.9. Married, emotionally isolated, hard to please, he was still processing how to go about this.
The meeting she’d requested — come alone — was either a professional pivot or something else entirely, and Liam was honest enough with himself to acknowledge he wasn’t certain which one he was hoping for.
He closed the laptop, picked up the phone and typed back to Sophia.
[Liam: Good morning Miss Runaway. I had a good time too. Get some rest.]
He sent it, set the phone face down again, and went back to laying the groundwork for his firm.