Chapter 101: Get Ready! [FIXED][28/07!]
The night dissolved somewhere around 3 AM before Liam knew it.
Liam didn’t mark the exact moment — one round became another, the chat window kept producing material, and the accumulated weight of the day eventually caught up with him somewhere between a match he’d lost comprehensively and a message from Mateo that read
[MaTe0_Reyes99: bro are you actually asleep right now] followed shortly by another message.
[MaTe0_Reyes99: you died while standing still AGAIN.]
He had no memory of putting the controller down because fatigue had finally won the battle of attrition.
Liam surfaced slowly
The bedroom was bright due to sunrays sneaking through the blinds but it was way too much which was an indication of time gone by.
He lay still for a moment taking stock of the ceiling, then registered the absence beside him before he was fully conscious — the duvet undisturbed on Sophia’s side, the pillow bearing the impression of where she’d been without the person still being there.
He reached over to see if she had slept in as late as he did. However, his hands met nothing, she was nowhere to be seen or rather, felt nothing.
She’d been gone for a while and Liam hadn’t even noticed whatsoever.
He looked at the time. 10:47 AM. It was still early but it was a much later than time than he was used to.
However, Liam had the advantage because he had no official job or source of income but it came with boredom.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept past nine until recently, it was slowly becoming a habit as well. His body had apparently identified the accumulated deficit of the past week and collected it without asking permission. He sat up slowly, pushed the duvet back, and spent a moment just existing in the quiet of the apartment before reaching for his phone.
The screen lit up before he touched it.
He looked at it and the person who had messaged was none other than…
“Mrs. Harriet.” Liam muttered under his breath.
The timing of it landed strangely — the phone activating at the precise moment his hand moved toward it, as if the message had been waiting for him to be conscious enough to receive it properly. He picked it up and read it.
She was available tonight, that was the summary of it.
She had also chosen a location — an address he didn’t immediately recognize, which prompted him to open the maps application while still reading.
The pin sat deeper into the city than their previous meetings, pushing toward the outer edge of the upscale district, the kind of neighborhood where restaurants didn’t appear on mainstream listings and the clientele valued anonymity over visibility.
But it was quite far out, it would take a couple of hours at least to get there.
Mrs. Harriet clearly put some serious thought behind this, it was chosen with intentionality.
The anxious part of his brain offered the word trap and he considered it briefly and dismissed it. She had signed documents, she had agreed to term, she had nothing to gain from an elaborate setup at this stage that she couldn’t achieve more cleanly through the leverage she already possessed.
But he needed to hear her voice before he committed to the address.
Afterall, there were certain things the voice couldn’t hide that a text could, and now wasn’t the time to make mistakes.
He called her and it rang twice.
[“Liam.”] Her voice carried the composed efficiency of someone already several hours into their day.
“The address you sent,” he said. “Walk me through the thinking.”
A brief pause followed shortly after.
[“We’ve met at the firm and at restaurants near it twice now. Arthur is watching movement. Anything within a two mile radius of the building gets back to him within twenty-four hours.”]
She was matter of fact about it, clinical.
[“The location tonight is outside that radius. Nobody who knows either of us professionally has reason to be there.”]
“How far out are we talking?” Liam asked to confirm the distance despite already checking it on the map.
“Forty minutes from the city centre. Possibly fifty in evening traffic.”
This already meant Liam would need to drive an extra hour to reach the city centre to begin with.
Liam looked at the map pin again just to recalculate what he needed to adjust for the day to make it possible.
Forty to fifty minutes out meant the return journey put him at midnight minimum, accounting for the dinner running its natural course. Midnight on a Monday with the beginner bonus running and Mrs. Harriet across a table from him in a location she had chosen specifically for its privacy.
He was not going home tonight, this much was certain as he had no plans to drive home that late.
He didn’t say that out loud. It was irrelevant to her and he was capable of solving a hotel problem without making it her concern.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
[“Eight o’clock,”] she said.
[“Don’t be late.”]
The line ended right away, she didn’t even tell him goodbye but this was something Liam didn’t even notice himself.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the map for a moment longer. Then he put the phone down and went to make coffee.
–
Sophia had left a note on the kitchen counter — three lines, her handwriting neat and slightly hurried, telling him she had an early client, that there was fruit in the fridge, and a small drawing of what appeared to be a cat in the bottom corner that had no clear explanation but made him smile before he could decide whether to let it.
He ate standing at the counter and ran through the day’s logistics.
The Vanessa situation needed handling first.
He picked up his phone and opened Instagram. She had sent a reel overnight — a cat sitting at a piano, producing something that technically qualified as a melody, the expression on the animal’s face suggesting it was taking the performance seriously. He watched it twice. Then he reacted with a laughing emoji and put the phone down.
She was going to be disappointed about tonight.
He thought about texting and dismissed it. A text for something like this read as avoidance — the digital equivalent of leaving a note rather than having a conversation. He called.
She picked up on the third ring with the energy of someone who was in the middle of a hyper activity and was in a reasonable mood about it.
[“You saw the cat,”] she said.
“I saw the cat.” Liam said out loud.
[“The commitment on that animal,”] Vanessa said.
[“Full recital energy. No audience! I thought about you when I saw it as I remembered you posting something similar!”]
“Underrated dedication,” Liam agreed.
[“Right?”] A pause.
[“So. Tonight….”]
“About tonight.” He kept his voice easy. “I have to cancel.”
Silence. Brief — one second, maybe less — but present.
“My parents made a surprise stop in town,” Liam continued. “I found out this morning. I can’t get out of it.”
Another pause. Then Vanessa laughed — light, unbothered, the specific laugh of someone who had decided on a response before the sentence finished.
[“That’s fine.”] she said.
[“I had plans with the girls anyway. Was going to suggest we rearrange.”]
“Were you.”
[“The night would have been good either way.”] Smooth delivery. No cracks in it.
“I’m sure it will be,” Liam wasn’t trying to linger on the call longer than he had to because his interaction with her was certain especially if she was considering the switch.
[“It definitely will.”] A beat.
[“Your parents though. Surprise visit.”]
“Very sudden,” Liam wasn’t offering up much explanation as that would be suspicious.
[“Mm.”] She didn’t push it.
[“Another time then.”] Vanessa finally said.
“Another time,” Liam confirmed.
They talked for another ten minutes after that — easy, unhurried, the banter finding its rhythm the way it had at Groundwork Coffee. She made a comment about a case she was reviewing, he responded, she pushed back, he conceded one point and held the other, and the exchange had the quality of two people who had found a frequency and were enjoying being on it.
When the call ended he sat with the phone in his hand for a moment.
She had handled it well. Too well, probably — the “I had plans with the girls anyway” arriving a fraction too quickly to be entirely spontaneous. He didn’t hold it against her. Ego protection was a reasonable response to a cancelled date from someone you were attempting not to show you visibly liked.
He put the phone down and thought about Darren.
He hadn’t spoken to him since the money transfer, beyond the brief text exchange after the sparring session. “Won. Barely.” — “Barely counts.” Two lines that told him Darren was moving but nothing about the specifics of how or what he needed.
He needed to see him in person.
He checked the time. Just past eleven.
He had nine hours before Mrs. Harriet’s dinner, forty minutes of driving ahead of him tonight including the extra hour, and a hotel to find somewhere between now and eight o’clock. The day had a shape to it — Darren first, practical arrangements second, himself third.
He went to get dressed.