Chapter 79: Flowers
[The Next Morning]
Sean woke up Wednesday with one specific thought already waiting for him.
The 10x rebate hadn’t fired on Elena’s retainer. He’d known, intellectually, that the multiplier was supposed to require spending directly on Makima and in the process of him giving it to her as a gift or something she was present to benefit from, not on her behalf through a third party. But knowing it and watching it not happen were two different things, and some part of him had still expected the system to be generous about the distinction.
It hadn’t been. The system, apparently, cared about precision.
He thought about that while he showered, while he got dressed, while he made coffee and looked out at Walsh’s car sitting in its usual spot below. If he wanted to actually understand how this worked, properly, he needed to test the other side of the line. Not legal fees. Not security. Something for her. Personally. Directly.
Dinner was tonight. That gave him a window.
================
The Florist
He had James take him to a flower shop two blocks from campus before his first class, the kind of small, independent place that smelled like cut stems and cold water, run by a woman in her sixties who clearly took her work seriously.
"I need something for someone specific," said Sean. "Not generic. Something that actually fits her."
The florist looked at him over her glasses, the same kind of evaluating attention he kept getting from older women lately. "Tell me about her."
"She runs an apartment building," said Sean. "She’s strong. Practical. Doesn’t usually let people do things for her." He thought about it more. "She keeps plants in her own apartment. Real ones. Not the kind people buy and forget about."
The florist nodded slowly, already moving toward a section near the back. "Someone who takes care of things," she said. "You don’t want anything flashy for someone like that. You want something that looks like it belongs in her hands already." She pulled together a bundle of deep orange ranunculus, soft white snapdragons, and something green and trailing that Sean didn’t know the name of, all of it arranged with deliberate, unfussy care.
"That," said Sean.
He paid for the flowers. Two hundred dollars, more than he’d have guessed a bundle of flowers could cost, but the florist had clearly put real craft into it.
He held his breath slightly as he made the transfer.
[200 dollars spent]
[Balance: $1,978,480]
[2,000 dollars received]
His pulse spiked, then settled into something closer to satisfaction. There it was. Ten times, clean and immediate. Not the baseline doubling he’d gotten with Elena. The full multiplier, exactly where the system had said it would apply.
[New Balance: $2,180,480]
He stood there for a second with the flowers in his arms, doing quiet math. Two hundred dollars had become two thousand. If he’d spent the same logic at scale, the implications were obvious and slightly absurd. But more than the number, what struck him was the shape of the rule itself. The system didn’t reward defending her. It rewarded choosing her. Every single time, deliberately, in something small enough to actually mean something.
He thought about Gerald Pemberton’s voice in his head. Do it because it’s right. Not because it wins.
Maybe the system agreed with that more than he’d given it credit for.
—--------
Campus
He went through his classes with the flowers left carefully in the back of the Rolls Royce, James under strict instructions not to let anything happen to them.
Derek caught him outside the economics building at lunch, less hostile than the week before, something closer to professional curiosity settling into their dynamic now.
"The data infrastructure company," said Derek. "You opened a position there too. I checked the filings last night."
"I did," said Sean.
"How’d you find that one," said Derek. "It’s not the kind of name that shows up in any of the usual screeners."
"I look at what people are quietly building before anyone writes about it," said Sean. "Most of investing is just paying attention earlier than other people."
Derek studied him for a moment. "You ever consider that you might just be lucky? Not trying to be hostile. Genuinely asking."
Sean thought about Business Insight humming quietly in the background of his mind, about future memories of a world that hadn’t happened yet in this timeline, about a system that doubled or quintupled or multiplied by ten depending on who he spent money on and why.
"I’ve considered it," said Sean. "I don’t think it’s luck. But I understand why it looks that way from the outside."
Derek nodded slowly, filing that away the same careful way he filed everything. "Coffee. Actually this time. Not hypothetical."
"Friday," said Sean.
"Friday," Derek agreed.
His phone buzzed during his afternoon class. Olivia.
Day five. Kwon told us today that if the showcase goes well, there’s a chance, a CHANCE, of a small label showcase deal afterward. He said it so casually I almost missed it. I think I cried a little in the bathroom after.
Sean smiled at his phone under the desk.
That’s huge, he typed back. You should be proud.
I’m mostly terrified, she wrote. But also proud. Both at once apparently.
Seven more days, he replied.
Seven more days, she confirmed. Then you owe me a very large dinner to make up for all this suffering.
Already planned, said Sean.
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The Dinner
He knocked on Makima’s door at seven exactly, the flowers in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other, having stopped to pick it up on the way home without quite admitting to himself that he was deliberately testing the system twice in one day.
Makima opened the door wearing a simple dark green dress, her hair down, an apron still tied around her waist like she’d just stepped away from the stove. The apartment behind her smelled incredible, something rich and slow-cooked, the kind of smell that filled a whole space.
She looked at the flowers first. Then at him.
"You didn’t have to," she said.
"I know," said Sean. "I wanted to."
