The listing Sophia sent was a three-story brick off Holt Street with a leasing sign that had been sun-faded into a suggestion.
Ethan got there early on purpose. The front door stuck. The lobby smelled like old carpet and somebody’s lunch. A woman in her forties came out of the first-floor office with keys on a lanyard and a smile she had already used too many times that morning.
"You’re the one Miss Bennett sent," she said. "I was told to walk you through and not sell you the romance. That is going to be easy, because there isn’t any."
"That’s what I needed to hear."
She laughed once and held out a set of keys. Their fingers met around the ring.
Wanted Scent was already in the small office air, warmth and sleep where there should have only been coffee and dust. Wicked Fingers II took the handshake and did not stay in her hand. He felt the skill travel, a clean line up her wrist toward the inside of her elbow.
The property manager blinked. Looked at her own arm. Let go a second late.
"Drafty in here," she said, which was not what had happened.
"I noticed."
He let Echo Touch finish the job while he was already turning toward the stairs. She flexed her fingers behind him and pretended to check a clipboard.
[No Quest]
[Contact Flag: Marta Ruiz, 44]
[Interest: Unplanned]
[Do not chase this unless you want a mess on Sophia’s site.]
Ethan filed it. He was not here to collect the building manager. He was here to tell Sophia the truth.
The second floor had water stains in a pattern that meant the roof had been lying for years. The third-floor unit facing the street had good light and a window that did not close. The basement laundry shook the floor when Marta turned it on to prove the machines worked.
"They want student tenants because students don’t complain until they leave," Marta said, still standing closer than the tour required. "If your lady is looking for a clean investment, this is not it. If she is looking for a number she can beat someone with, that is different."
"I’ll write it that way."
Marta nodded, then hesitated in the stairwell like she might ask what he had done to her hand. She did not. She gave him the extra key copy Sophia had authorized and told him to lock the street door on his way out.
He sat in the stairwell when she was gone and wrote the notes on his phone the way Sophia had asked, like she did not have time to translate him.
Holt Street is tired. Roof is the real problem. Light on three is the only honest asset. Manager will not dress it up if you do not make her. Do not buy this to feel like you did something in Westhaven. Buy it if you want leverage on the price.
He sent it before he could sand it down.
Sophia called twelve minutes later. Airport noise sat behind her voice.
"You told me not to buy it," she said. "Most boys I hire walk a bad building and find a way to make it sound survivable so I keep them."
"You said if it was bad I should say it was bad."
"I did." A pause, the kind that meant she had read the note twice. "The window that does not close. Is that sloppy or is that the frame?"
"The frame. Somebody painted over the swollen wood and called it maintenance."
"All right." Another pause, smaller. "I am in a terminal and I can still smell that lobby on the way you write. Do not take that as poetry. I mean you did not clean it up."
Wanted Scent could not reach an airport. The line still sat in his mouth like it had.
"There’s a second address on File Street," Sophia said. "Better bones. Worse neighborhood story. I do not want notes from the sidewalk. I want you inside. My office can get you a code by tomorrow. If the place is good, say that too. I do not pay people to perform cynicism."
"I’ll go in."
"I know you will." Her voice dropped past the airport chatter. "And Ethan. Whatever you did with your hand in my lobby, do not do it to my property managers. I need them functional."
He could have denied it. She would have hated that more.
"I’ll keep it off her."
"See that you do." She was quiet long enough that he thought the call had died. "I fly back Thursday. If File Street is what I think it is, I will walk it with you Friday. That is not a date. That is me not trusting a photo."
"I didn’t think it was a date."
"Good. You would have been wrong."
She hung up.
[Work Path Advanced]
[Honest Report Confirmed]
[+350 CP]
[Sophia Bennett: Interested → Return Pending]
[Friday: File Street, together]
[Current CP: 3,500]
Ethan locked the street door and stepped back into Holt’s noise.
Campus was a short bus ride and a different weather. Madison was coming down the union steps with her bag on one shoulder and her mouth set like she had been waiting for him to appear so she could not look surprised.
She stopped because walking past him twice in one day would have looked like work.
"You look pleased with yourself," she said. "Please do not tell me why. I sat through a lecture this morning feeling Sunday in places I am not discussing on these steps."
"I wasn’t going to give you a recap."
"Good." Madison glanced past him, then back, voice lower. "Chloe knows we were in her room. She has not asked the ugly question yet. If you start answering it for her, I will make the charger story look kind."
"I’m not talking to Chloe."
Madison’s eyes dropped to his throat, then away, angry at the drop. Aftertaste was still doing what the System said it would. She hated him for it and she still had not moved.
"I have class," she said. "If you come by tonight I am not opening the door just because you learned how to stand closer than you used to."
"I wasn’t coming by tonight."
That bothered her more than if he had asked. He saw it. He kept it.
Madison left first.
[Madison Blake]
[Claimed, not obedient]
[Pushing tonight: waste]
[Leaving her hungry: working]
Ethan walked back toward the Cole house with File Street in his pocket and Friday already looking like the first time Sophia Bennett would be in a room with him that was not a lobby and not a terrace.
He did not touch Marta again.
He thought about Friday the whole way home, and he did not pretend the thought was only about square footage.