Chapter 15: Pocket Change

The tinted passenger window of the candy-red Ferrari glided down and a young man about Stan’s age leaned across from the driver’s seat, mirrored sunglasses riding low on his nose, wearing the kind of sneer that took years of privileged boredom to perfect.

"You’re Stan Harrison?"

"Yeah."

The young man studied him for a long moment, the bicycle, the plain jacket, the modest gift bag swinging from the handlebars, and then broke into a genuinely amused laugh.

"Huh. I had you built up in my head as some kind of real rival. And it turns out you’re just an ordinary loser on a bike. I can’t believe I actually wasted brainpower worrying about this."

Kyle Jennings was another one. Second-generation rich, family in real estate, sitting on a trust fund deep enough to buy most of the street they were currently on. And, predictably, another one of Maya Zimmerman’s long line of unsuccessful pursuers.

Word had reached him yesterday that Maya had started spending time with someone named Stan Harrison. Kyle had taken the news seriously. He’d been nervous, even, convinced he was finally facing a real competitor.

And then he’d actually seen the competition.

A college kid. On a bicycle. Wearing sneakers that had seen better days.

All of Kyle’s anxiety drained out of him in a single second and was replaced by pure, chest-puffing contempt. How on earth was a creature like this supposed to compete with him for a woman like Maya Zimmerman? The idea was almost insulting.

"Listen up, small fry." Kyle’s voice sharpened. "From today on, you stay away from Maya Zimmerman. She’s mine. I’ve had my eye on her for a long time, and I don’t like sharing. If I catch you sniffing around her again, don’t come crying when things get unpleasant. You hear me?"

The window slid up before Stan could reply. The Ferrari’s engine roared one last time, and the car peeled away down the boulevard in a theatrical blur of red.

Stan watched the tail lights shrink into the distance with the expression of a man watching a pigeon fly into a window.

"D*mbass," he muttered, and kept pedaling silently...

As for the bullshit that Kyle guy just spouted, Stan wasn’t intimidated in the slightest, in Stan’s mind, from the moment he started spending time with Maya, Maya was his and his alone.

The location of the birthday party, a five-star hotel came into view a few minutes later.

The front entrance looked less like a hotel and more like a luxury car dealership that had mistakenly opened on the sidewalk. Row after row of gleaming imports lined the curved driveway, Porsches, Bentleys, Maseratis, a matte-black Rolls, the kind of lineup that turned heads for several blocks in every direction. Uniformed valets moved briskly between the cars like worker bees.

Kyle’s candy-red Ferrari was already parked near the front, positioned at a deliberate angle so the logo faced the lobby doors.

Stan quietly wheeled his bicycle over to a rack near the side of the building, chained it up, retrieved his modest gift bag, and walked up toward the main entrance.

Of course, because fate had a sense of humor, he stepped through the revolving doors at the exact moment Kyle Jennings was crossing the lobby from the other direction.

Kyle’s head turned. His eyes landed on Stan.

For a full second, his face did nothing. Then the veins at his temple started to rise.

He’d just warned this nobody, not even an hour ago, to stay the hell away from Maya Zimmerman.

And here was Stan Harrison, gift bag in hand, casually strolling into Maya’s birthday banquet like Kyle’s threat had been a weather report.

Was he taking Kyle’s words as a joke? Did he think Kyle had been kidding?

Kyle’s jaw clenched so hard the hinge audibly popped. At some point he just couldn’t hold himself anymore

"Hey. What do you think you’re doing here?"

Kyle’s voice cut across the lobby sharp enough to turn a few heads.

"I’m here for Maya’s birthday party," Stan said evenly.

"Did you forget what I told you that quickly?" Kyle took a step closer, voice dropping into something lower and meaner. "I told you to stay away from her. Was I speaking a different language?"

Stan’s brow furrowed slightly.

This guy really was something. The tone, the theatrical menace, the deadly-serious warnings, Kyle talked like the protagonist of a cheap action movie who’d taken himself far too seriously.

"I’ll go wherever I want," Stan said flatly. "I don’t need permission from you."

Kyle’s jaw actually twitched.

A college kid on a bicycle, daring to talk back to him? In public? At the entrance of the city’s most exclusive five-star hotel?

A cold, ugly glint passed through Kyle’s eyes. If they weren’t standing at the valet drop-off, with a dozen witnesses watching and hotel security within arm’s reach, he would have already taught Stan Harrison the kind of lesson that required a dentist afterward.

Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills, and tossed it carelessly onto the polished marble floor between them.

"Here. A thousand bucks. Pick it up and get lost."

Crisp red banknotes scattered across the stone like leaves.

"Take the money and leave. It’s more than you’d make in a week."

Stan looked down at the bills, then back up at Kyle, and let out a slow, incredulous laugh through his nose.

Half a month ago, a thousand dollars on the floor might’ve actually mattered to him. He might’ve felt the sting of it, the humiliation, the insult, the knowledge that he couldn’t afford to walk away. That version of Stan Harrison wasn’t around anymore.

The current version had over a hundred and fifty million dollars sitting in his bank account.

A thousand bucks? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? There wasn’t a number Kyle Jennings could peel off his wallet that would make Stan Harrison bend at the waist to pick it up off a hotel floor.

"What? Not enough for you?" Kyle sneered, misreading the silence. "Greedy little thing, aren’t you."

He pulled out his wallet, a sleek black leather thing with a designer logo, and emptied the entire cash compartment onto the floor for good measure. Another few thousand in bills fluttered down on top of the first pile.

"That’s everything I’m carrying. Take it and get out of my sight."

Stan looked at him for a long, flat second.

"You’re sick in the head."

Kyle’s smile curdled.

"Kid," he said, voice dropping into a near-growl, "don’t refuse a face-saving offer. You don’t know how lucky you are that I’m being this generous."

"What do you think you’re doing?"

The voice that cut in from behind them was cool, sharp, and unmistakably female.

Maya Zimmerman had arrived.