"Oh. Hey, Chloe."
Adrian nearly jumped when he realized he was still holding his phone, the screen displaying a bank balance of five million dollars. He quickly locked it and slipped the phone into his pocket.
"Hi."
Chloe Heartwell lived directly across the hall. She was petite and quiet, with a habit of tucking her hair behind her ear whenever she got nervous, which seemed to be most of the time. For months, she’d been the neighbor who offered a soft good morning whenever they passed in the hallway. Michelle had been the one who actually stopped to chat with her by the mailboxes.
Adrian, buried beneath his own problems, had mostly been a closed door.
"I didn’t see you cook anything today," Chloe said, looking down at the container in her hands. "And I saw Michelle leave with her suitcase, so I thought..." She hesitated. "I mean, I wasn’t watching her or anything. I just happened to notice."
Adrian glanced at the container.
It was still warm, and condensation had fogged the inside of the lid. A second fork was tucked neatly into the plastic bag.
She’d probably been standing behind her own door for a while, waiting to hear him come home.
His old habits kicked in automatically. Years of reading people across gambling tables had taught him to notice small details, even when he wasn’t trying.
"That was really kind of you." He meant it, more than he expected. "Would you like to come in?"
The moment the words left his mouth, Adrian remembered what was waiting on the other side of the door, chip bags, dirty laundry, unpaid bills, an eviction notice.
Chloe’s eyes widened slightly. "Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to impose."
The disappointment was barely there, but Adrian noticed it anyway.
"Then let me thank you properly." He gave her a small smile. "Dinner tomorrow. My treat."
"I couldn’t." She waved both hands quickly. "What would Michelle think?"
"She left." The words came out quietly. "This afternoon. It’s not a secret."
Chloe’s expression immediately fell. "Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring her up."
"You didn’t." Adrian leaned against the doorframe. "So, dinner?"
He smiled. "It’s a date."
Chloe froze, the pink in her cheeks deepened almost instantly.
"I... um..." She looked like her thoughts had completely short-circuited. "If it’s no trouble, then... I’d like that." She lowered her head.
"G-goodnight, Adrian." She gave him a tiny, almost formal bow before hurrying across the hall and disappearing behind her own door.
Adrian stood there for a moment, amused. Then he looked down at the container in his hands.
"Well." He closed his door. "Guess I’m eating."
The meatloaf was simple, peppery, and probably nothing special by restaurant standards. Adrian thought it was the best thing he’d eaten in a year.
He ate slowly on the ruined sofa, savoring every bite. When the container was finally empty, he set the fork down and looked around the living room.
The apartment hadn’t changed, the trash was still there, the laundry was still scattered across the floor, the eviction notice was still sitting on the counter.
Five million dollars hadn’t magically cleaned up any of it, but for the first time in months, Adrian didn’t feel completely trapped by the mess.
He leaned back and stared at the cracked ceiling, then he asked the question that had been bothering him since the stairwell.
"System. Status."
A familiar series of notifications appeared.
[Host: Adrian Vale.]
[Beginner Protection: Active until the next midnight cycle.]
[Passive Ability: Fortune’s Edge. On genuine gambles of chance, the Host’s fortune is tilted toward victory. Skill-based gambles are never altered.]
[Further rules will be disclosed as the Host encounters them.]
Adrian read the information twice.
"So you’re tilting the dice."
[Fortune’s Edge does not guarantee victory.]
"But it helps." There was no response.
Adrian leaned farther into the sofa, he thought about everything that had happened that night, cashback on every genuine wager, additional rewards for victories.
And now this Fortune’s Edge ability, quietly tipping games of chance in his favor, it should have made him feel invincible.
Instead, the feeling was strangely similar to sitting at a high-stakes table and having a stranger offer to pay for his drinks. Something was helping him. He just didn’t know why.
’Why me?’
He waited... nothing.
"Why did you choose me?"
[Insufficient Authority.]
Adrian stared at the notification.
"Well, that’s not creepy at all."
He tried again. "Who built you?" Silence.
"What happens to the money if I stop gambling?" Nothing.
"Is there a price for using you?" Again, silence.
The system wasn’t refusing him outright. It simply wasn’t giving him anything he wasn’t meant to know.
Adrian leaned back and stared at the ceiling, it felt as though an enormous machine was humming somewhere behind a locked door, and someone had just handed him one key. He simply had no idea what the key opened.
By three in the morning, he’d stopped asking questions. Adrian finally crawled into bed and lay staring at the ceiling, his phone buzzed once on the nightstand.
He didn’t bother checking it.
Sleep still wouldn’t come, but for the first time in a very long while, lying awake in the dark didn’t feel like punishment.