“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Takeuchi,” Raine said with a smile. “I’m Raine Williams.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Mister Raine,” Sora said, smiling back politely. “I’d prefer Sora, by the way.”

When Raine looked at her, he didn’t see a person. He saw walking, talking money. A designer handbag and a designer jacket, designer sunglasses and designer sneakers. Even her watch, humble by comparison, was worth over $1,000.

It stressed him out. It really did. He was supposed to protect a giant bag of money labeled “Lots of Money.”

Sora was sitting in the front seat, despite Louise’s objections, so she could get a clear view of L.A. as they drove to her hotel. She stared out the front window curiously as Raine drove out of LAX, through Westchester, and onto the 405.

“Miss Sora, do you have less...conspicuous clothes with you?” Louise asked. She must have wanted to ask that question from the moment she saw Sora.

“Oh, of course,” Sora said. Through the rearview mirror, Raine saw Louise’s shoulders relax a bit. But he had a feeling she and Sora had a different understanding of what “less conspicuous clothes” were.

“Miss Sora, do you have an interest in art?” Raine asked.

“To be honest, I don’t.” she said with a fleeting frown.

Well that was a big old miss. He’d planned on following up with a recommendation to visit a museum the next day.

She opened her handbag and pulled out a pair of earphones. The message was pretty clear; she wasn’t interested in talking. He could wait for another chance to strike up a conversation, but first impressions lasted. He quickly tried a different angle.

“How about art in written form?” He pulled his book out of the pocket of his door and passed it to her. Her eyes lit up.

Bingo. Raine’s lip briefly curled in a half-smile before he suppressed it.

“You read Aria Stephens?” she asked. Her earphones went back in her bag. She stared at the front cover of his book with a smile. “Will was my favorite.”

“I’m enjoying it more than Subconscious.” He paused to pick his words carefully. “I think the brighter tone of Will makes it a more fun read, even if it’s more science-heavy.”

“My main gripe with Subconscious is how it feels too much like I’m reading Minato Shimazu in some chapters. The science makes Will so much better.”

Oh boy, a Shimazu hater. Why can’t people take more moderate stances on his work? And isn’t Levin a Shimazu fan? Despite his thoughts, he smiled and nodded. He found the golden goose and had no plans on letting it waddle away, so he kept up the conversation on books. But soon enough, he didn’t have to. Sora become the one leading the conversation.

“What did you think about Isolation?” she asked. They had long since moved on from nonfiction. Now they talked about novels by authors who mainly wrote nonfiction. Isolation was Minato Shimazu’s only novel, and it included several of the ideas he would explore in later nonfiction works. It was also about 850 pages long.

Too fucking long for a hungover freshman. He sanitized his thoughts. “It was a little long for me. It came out in my first year of college, and I bought it the day it hit the bookstores, but I’ve never read it all.”

“Neither have I,” Sora laughed. “By the way, did you major in English? You obviously read a lot.”

“Economics. I just had a lot of time to read in college.”

“Ah, I see.”

“What are you majoring in?”

“Economics as well,” she said with a wry smile.

“You don’t look too happy about that.”

“I originally wanted to study philosophy and English.” She didn’t say anything else, but it was easy to guess that her family had made her study economics.

They reached the five-star hotel Sora was going to stay at in Beverly Hills. Raine dropped off Sora and Louise at the lobby and drove into the parking garage. That’s when he realized he hadn’t asked Levin for money for gas or parking.

Ah well. I’ll call him tomorrow morning about it, he thought as he reversed the Bolstridge into a parking spot. When he was done, he saw another car enter the parking garage. It was a grey coupe with two young men inside one with a baseball hat on, the other with a denim jacket. The guy with the hat stared at Raine as they passed by. His gaze seemed oddly cold. The guy in the jacket smacked his shoulder, and the hat guy stopped staring.

What a weirdo. Is he mad that I took the parking spot? Raine grabbed his briefcase from the trunk before he headed for the elevators. He pressed the button and waited. The entrance to the elevator lobby was made of glass, so he could see the two men in the coupe. They had already parked nearby but were still in their car, talking.

The elevator arrived. Raine glanced at the two men before hesitantly taking a step into the elevator. But he immediately turned around.

I’m being paranoid. He looked again at the two men. With their scowls and finger-pointing, they were obviously arguing now. I’m being paranoid…right?

A moment later, he strode out of the elevator lobby, got into the Bolstridge, and drove out of the garage. The men in the coupe didn’t seem to notice.

Raine got a call from Louise as he drove in a circle around the block.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I’m about to enter the garage now,” Raine said. “I’ll be at the lobby soon.”

“You sure took your time.”

“Yeah, I got a little lost.” He didn’t want to tell her about the two in the coupe. He already felt embarrassed about it. He was definitely just being paranoid.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

But if I’m going to be paranoid, I might as well be paranoid all the way. Instead of going to B1, he drove down to B3 and parked in a spot that was far from both the entrance and the elevator lobby. Then he pulled the car cover out of the trunk and put it over the car.

There, he thought. Mission Paranoia accomplished.

He took the elevator to the ground floor, where he apologized to Louise and Sora for taking so long. Sora didn’t seem bothered by it, but Louise gave him a “Really?” with a look of utter frustration. He apologized again.

“Just don’t do it again,” she said. He guaranteed her that he wouldn’t.

Then she went up the elevator on her own to the 21st to do a quick search of Sora’s suite, which she would have done earlier if not for his delay.

Raine and Sora sat and waited in the elevator lobby. The sofa they were on was soft and comfortable, but Raine too busy feeling bad about his delay to enjoy it. Meanwhile, slumped on an armrest, Sora had her earphones on and her eyes closed.

If only I could be so carefree. Raine leaned back on the sofa and sighed. He sat with his arms crossed, staring at the elevators’ displays and watching the numbers rise and fall.

Raine’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw he got a short message from Levin. He read it quickly and sent a short response.

As he did, he noticed Sora staring at his phone.

“Levin—I mean, Hall just wanted to know that everything’s fine,” he said.

“I see.” She pulled one earphone out of her ear. “A flip phone, though? I can’t remember the last time I saw one.”

“I find smartphones too distracting.” He of course wasn’t going to admit that he was too broke to get one. “Quite a few other people apparently do as well, since flip phone sales are increasing now.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” She got her phone and looked up something on Google. “You’re right. Wow. Over twenty million were sold last year.”

“There you go,” he said as if he’d expected that. 20 million? Damn. “I got mine in college. One time, while I was doing homework, my friends spammed me with messages about a party or something. I was stuck on a problem, and the notifications just kept bothering me until, in a fit of rage, I tossed my phone behind me. It missed my bed and hit the wall. The phone died.”

Sora let out a half-suppressed laugh before covering her mouth. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright. I learned my lesson.” He really hadn’t. “No more phone throwing.” He’d thrown his phone just the other day. “Anyway, after that, I got a flip phone. My productivity soared after that because I couldn’t play blackjack and chess every ten minutes.”

“Oh, chess? Do you still play?” she asked, her face suddenly more animated.

Unintentional home run? “Yes, but not often.” He hadn’t played in months.

She smiled. “Would you like to play a match upstairs? I have a chessboard in my suitcase.”

He said yes, and soon, he got a message from Louise that they could go to the suite now. He and Sora got into an elevator, and he waved his keycard over the sensor and hit the button for the 21st floor. Sora seemed eager to play chess all the while. She kept talking about it.

On the 21st floor, they exited the elevator, and Raine opened the first door down the hallway. He blinked when he saw the suite beyond it. What the hell?

A glass chandelier hung from the ceiling at the center of the living room, over three expensive-looking armchairs and a sofa arranged about a small round table. On the wall was a TV so large he wouldn’t be able to grab it lengthwise. Through the half-open sheer curtains at the other end of the room, he saw a balcony with enough space to fit a queen-sized bed. There was a beautiful view of the city beyond it.

Raine pulled Sora’s bag into the suite and, as he held the door open for her, he wondered, How much is a one-night stay here?

Louise came from the corridor to his left (the suite was so large that it had a corridor) and greeted them.

“It’s smaller than I expected?” Sora said, curling the end of expected to turn what should have been a statement into a question.

Raine wanted to shout “How is this not large enough for you?! What do you want to do, play tennis in the suite?” Though he wore a stiff, unnatural smile, he kept his mouth shut.

“The original suite is unavailable at the moment,” Louise said. “We’ll move there on Tuesday.”

“Ah. Okay.” She asked for her bag from Raine and went into one of the bedrooms after telling him she would be right back with the chessboard.

Louise glanced at her watch. “You can leave in fifteen minutes, you know.”

“That’s enough time for a quick game,” Raine said, taking a seat on one of the armchairs.

She shrugged and took a seat on the sofa.

Sora soon returned to the living room, carrying a box under one arm. Her jacket was gone, and her feet were in hotel slippers. She took a seat opposite Raine and pulled out a chess board from the box. He grabbed some pieces and helped her set up the board. Louise watched without much interest.

“White makes the first move,” Raine said.

Sora spun the board around. “And now you’re white.”

Raine smiled wryly. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” she said.

Raine obliged and made the first move. He planned on playing aggressively. He didn’t want to drag out the match. They started with an Open Game, in which two pawns stood right in front of each other. Raine moved a knight forward, a common move. Wearing a confident smile, Sora made a common response, moving a knight of her own. Raine moved his bishop, prompting Sora to move her other knight. In the next few moves, they captured a pawn each. Sora still looked confident. Raine captured another pawn with his knight and threatened her queen, but Sora used her king to capture his knight. Then, as he picked up his queen, Sora snapped her fingers.

“Ah! The Fegatello Attack,” she said.

He thought it was funny she didn’t use its more common (and obviously superior) name: the Fried Liver Attack. He had the advantage now, though it was nothing decisive. Defense was harder than offence here. Sora’s smile was gone, and she stared quietly at the board.

She’s the competitive type, Raine thought as he looked at her, then the board, then her again. She was attractive for sure, but the more interesting thing to Raine was her level of focus. She was staring at the board like nothing else mattered.

While she mulled over her next move, Raine asked Louise about their schedule the next day. He glanced at Sora as they spoke. Her focus was unbroken. She made her move while he was still talking, moving her king out of the path of his queen, an obvious move. Raine had used the Fried Liver Attack out of habit. He made his following moves casually with little thought.

Contrary to his expectations, Sora’s turns took longer and longer, dragging out the match like a fantasy novel series that should have ended at book three but didn’t seem anywhere near the end by book five. She wasn’t making much progress, either. Since she would be dissatisfied if he handed her victory on a silver platter, Raine instead made some semi-plausible mistakes. She took advantage of them but still failed to checkmate him.

Raine stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. I want beer and sleep.

Louise had long since gone into one of the suite’s empty bedrooms to sleep. He had to deal with the overly competitive rich girl on his own.

“Miss Sora, aren’t you tired?” Raine asked.

“Not at all.” Her eyes were still on the board, but she didn’t look as focused as before. She was leaning on an armrest, her hand supporting her head. She was definitely tired.

“Do you mind if I go get a drink?”

“Mm.”

He didn’t think she heard what he said. Still, he got up and went to the fridge, where there were a few complementary cans of soft drinks and two bottles of water. He grabbed a soft drink and pulled the tab. He chugged. The cold, sugary goodness was refreshing after the mind-numbing chess match.

He grabbed a bottle of water for Sora and headed back to the living room.

“Here’s some water for you, Miss… Ah.”

With her black hair draped over the armrest of her chair like a curtain, she sat slouched on one side with her eyes closed.

She was asleep.