The club sat above the river, white stone and a drive that made every car look rented.
Ethan got there before nine. His shirt was the one he had bought himself. His hands were empty. Sophia was already in the side room with a coffee and a name tag she had not put on. She looked at him once and seemed to decide he had listened.
"You stand with me until I move. If David speaks to you, answer the question he actually asked and leave the one he meant on the table. Ryan is already in the hall. I saw him on the way in, and I do not want you giving him a scene before we have even sat down."
"I did not come here for Ryan. I came because you said this was the room that decides whether Mitchell’s story sticks."
"Then keep your face matched to that. If you look at him like the breakfast is a reply to last week, David will see it before I can do anything about it."
The breakfast room was half full. White cloth. Low talk. A few faces from the mixer and more that were not. The air smelled like coffee and flowers that had been arranged by someone who did not eat here.
David was at the far end. Silver at the temples. The same easy posture Ryan used when a room belonged to him. He looked settled, like the call had already done the work and breakfast was only the public version. The woman beside him had dark hair and a watch she did not need to check. Early forties. She was listening to a man on her other side and still tracking the door. Not nervous. Counting.
Caroline.
Ryan saw Ethan come in with Sophia and did not get up. He lifted his water a little, like a joke he was saving, and then went back to his plate. Amused. That would not last if the table stopped treating Ethan like staff.
Sophia took a seat with a clear view of David and left the chair beside her empty until Ethan sat. A man across the table asked who the new face was. Sophia answered before anyone else could name him.
"Ethan Sterling. He walks Westhaven for me. Yesterday he caught a soft floor on Mercer that the listing had covered with a rug, and he said it in the room instead of letting the buyers find it after they had already liked the light."
The man nodded, polite and already done. David did not nod.
"Veronica Cole’s boy," he said. Not loud. Loud enough for the near end of the table. "I called your office, Sophia. I was curious why a student out of that house was walking your buildings."
Forks kept moving. That was the polite version of a stall. Caroline turned her head. Ryan watched Ethan’s mouth and did not help him. He wanted to see if the name would land.
Ethan set his water down. His pulse was up. Clean Ask kept it out of the sentence.
"I walked Holt, File, Reeve, and Mercer. Holt was a bad buy, and I said so before anyone spent money on it. Mercer has water damage under the sink that the photos hid. Sophia paid me for that work. That is what I have been doing, and that is the part of the week I can put on a table."
David smiled the small smile of a man who had wanted an apology and gotten a report. The smile did not reach his eyes.
"And while you do that work, you are still living in Veronica’s house."
"I live there. The checks do not come out of her account, and the notes do not go through her office. If the question is where I sleep, that is the answer. If the question is the buildings, I already gave it."
Caroline’s eyes stayed on him. Not kind. Interested. Ryan’s glass had stopped halfway to his mouth. Sophia did not look at Ethan, which meant she was satisfied enough not to rescue him.
Sophia passed Ethan the listing sheet the way she would have passed it to anyone else on the job.
"If you want the Mercer notes, David, he can send them this afternoon. If you want a story about a tray at a campus party, I do not have one to give you. I hired him because he does not dress the buildings up, and I would rather hear a soft floor in the room than in a complaint after closing."
David sat back. The smile he gave the rest of the table was the one men used when they had been corrected in public and intended to remember the person who had done it.
"Then we will see how the notes read when they are not being performed over eggs."
Breakfast went on. Eggs. A man talking about a wing the college wanted. Ryan said almost nothing, which was louder than a joke. Caroline waited until the wing had been praised and then looked at Ethan over her cup.
"Sophia said File Street has a back bedroom worth keeping. I want to know if that is true, or if that is the line she uses when she wants a buyer to feel clever."
"It is true if the price moves. The wall on that side is thin, and after ten you will hear the neighbor like they are in the room with you. That is the complaint. The light is fine, and the light is not why anyone should buy it."
"Most people your age would have stopped at the light and hoped I liked them for saying it."
"The light does not change the number. If you buy it for the light and ignore the wall, you will be annoyed by November, and you will blame the person who did not tell you."
She held his look a second longer than the eggs required. David saw it. Ryan saw it. Sophia did not look at Ethan at all. Caroline was not being polite. She was testing whether the sentence would hold. David had gone careful. Ryan looked like a boy watching his mother talk to someone he had already decided was beneath the table.
"Send the notes," Caroline said, to Sophia, not to him. "I would like to see whether he writes the way he talks, or whether the room got the polished version."
After, on the steps, Ryan caught him while Sophia was still inside with a donor. The river wind cut across the stone. Ryan had his hands in his pockets and none of the pool-night grin.
"You can stand there looking calm if you want. That did not fix anything. He asked a question in front of people, and you gave him a report like that settles a man who already called two offices about you."
"I answered what he asked. I was not going to stand in that room and apologize for having a job in front of people who hire for a living."
"He does not like being answered by someone who still sleeps in Veronica Cole’s house. You can separate those things in your head. He will not, and neither will half the table once they repeat it." Ryan glanced at the door, and his voice dropped. "My mother does not usually ask the person walking the listing about walls. Do not get confused about which part of that breakfast is going to follow you home."
Angry. Not scared. Ethan let it sit. There was nothing useful in handing Ryan a second sentence he could carry back inside. Sophia came out with her folder, and Ryan stepped aside like he had only been saying hello.
In the car she was quiet until the club was behind them.
"You did not pick the fight in there. That is the reason you are still in this car and not on the steps with Ryan." She kept her eyes on the road. "Caroline asked about the wall because she asks about everything that might cost her money. Do not turn that into a story you tell yourself on the way home. David will tell it for you, and I do not need you helping him."
"I was not going to make it a story. She asked about the bedroom. I told her about the wall. That is the job you brought me to do."
"Monday we talk about the retainer. If you show up looking pleased with yourself, I will make it a short meeting and we will both pretend Saturday was enough." She pulled over at the corner of the Cole street and did not come in. "If Veronica asks, it was a breakfast. It was not a victory. I need you to be able to say that without adding a Chapter she did not request."
The windows opened on the walk up the drive. Shade. Cut grass. The house still itself.
[Level up: 2 → 3]
[Reward: 1,200 CP]
[Reward: $750]
[Skill: Second Wave]
[Effect: a second finish follows the first.]
[Convert: 4 CP = $1]
[Daily cap: $2,000]
[CP: 5,650]
[Cash: $3,550]
[Caroline Mitchell, 43.]
[Lydia Mitchell: unknown.]
Ethan stood under the trees and read Second Wave twice.
Another gift that had not been on the list. A sex skill, for a morning where he had not touched anyone.
He could use it later. Not in Veronica’s kitchen.
He went inside with the rank in his head and the club still on his clothes, and he did not tell the house what the table had decided.