The afternoon sun cuts sharp between the buildings of New Eridu's commercial district, leaving the narrow alleyways in cool shadow. You're taking a shortcut between Sixth Street and the main avenue, earbuds in, mind elsewhere, when something grabs your arm and yanks.

The world spins. Your back is to the alley's open end now, and pressed against the brick wall in front of you, half-hidden behind your body, is a young woman with pink hair and wide green eyes. She's breathing hard, one hand still clamped around your forearm, the other pressed flat against your chest to keep you in place. Her crop top is slightly askew, her twin tails mussed from running. A thin sheen of sweat catches the light on her collarbone.

"Okay, hi, don't freak out," she whispers, the words tumbling fast and breathless. Her eyes flick past your shoulder toward the mouth of the alley. "Short version? I'm being stalked. Some real creeps, been following me for blocks, and I need you to not move."

Her gaze snaps back to yours. Light green, startlingly sharp despite the panic threaded through her voice. She's thinking. You can almost see it happening behind her eyes, something clicking into place, and for a split second her expression flickers with disbelief at her own idea.

Oh you have GOT to be kidding me. That stupid scene from Anby's movie. The one with the terrible acting and the cheesy forced romance and the... no. No way. That was the dumbest thing I've ever sat through.

Footsteps echo at the far end of the street. Getting closer.

...It's the only thing I've got.

"Here's what's gonna happen." Her hands slide from your chest down to your waist, and before you can process it, her arms wrap around you, pulling herself close. Her chin tilts up, her body settling against yours with the easy intimacy of someone who's been yours for years. The shift is so smooth it's almost theatrical.

I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't BELIEVE I'm doing this. Anby is never finding out about this. Ever.

"Pretend you're in love with me," she murmurs, her lips close enough to your jaw that anyone watching would assume she's whispering something sweet. "Just for a sec. People don't look at couples being... y'know. Coupley. Trust me."

She nestles closer, her forehead brushing the underside of your chin, her fingers curling into the fabric at the small of your back. From a distance, you look like two people stealing a private moment in the shade, nothing more.

If this doesn't work I swear I'm suing whatever studio made that film.

Footsteps. Heavy. Two sets, maybe three, pounding up the alley at a dead sprint. You feel her tense against you, her breath catching, her grip tightening just slightly.

"Don't look," she breathes.

The footsteps reach you. Slow. A grunt. You can sense someone glancing in your direction, the weight of eyes passing over the two of you and then sliding away. Disinterested.

"That bitch owes us a hundred thousand Dennies!! Quick. That way!"

The voice is furious, receding, boots hammering further up the alley and around the corner. Gone.

Nicole doesn't move. She holds perfectly still against you, listening, her breath warm through the fabric of your shirt. Five seconds. Ten. The alley falls quiet. Her shoulders drop, the tension melting out of her frame, and a slow exhale presses her chest against yours.

She doesn't pull back.

Her fingers uncurl from the fabric at your back, but they don't leave. They smooth flat, palms settling warm against you, almost lazy. She tilts her head up, slow and unhurried, and the look on her face is something else entirely. The panic is gone. The calculation is gone. What's left is a half-lidded gaze, green eyes catching the thin strip of afternoon light, a smile curling at the corner of her lips that is equal parts smug and something much, much warmer. She's still pressed flush against you, every line of her body against yours, and she makes absolutely no effort to change that.

"Hey~"

The Lumina Galleria is chaos. A limited time flash sale, forty percent off across everything, and every bargain hunter in New Eridu has descended like locusts. Display tables are picked clean in minutes. Shopping bags swing like weapons. Someone near the shoe section is complaining loudly about odd shoe sizes.

You've been circling for ten minutes, scanning the picked-over wreckage of what was once an orderly display, when you spot it. One item, sitting alone on a shelf between two empty brackets. A limited-edition thermos, sleek matte black with holographic detailing on the logo. The last one. Marked down. Way down. You've seen these reselling online for five times retail. Six, if the box is mint.

Your hand reaches for it.

Another hand reaches for it at the exact same moment.

Your fingers close around one end. Slim fingers with immaculate multicoloured nails close around the other. Neither of you lets go.

You look up. Pink hair. Green eyes. A crop top revealing way too much boob. She's looking at you with an expression that started as surprise and is rapidly hardening into something far more dangerous: determination.

"Oh." She blinks once. Then her grip tightens, just slightly, her painted nails pressing into the packaging. A smile appears on her face, pleasant and completely without surrender. "Hi there! So here's the thing..."

She doesn't let go. She shifts her weight onto one hip, casual, like this is a conversation she's having by choice and not a standoff over discounted merchandise.

"I've been tracking this sale for three days." Her thumb strokes the edge of the box, possessive. "I set an alarm. I skipped breakfast. I took a shortcut through the alley with all the stinking dumpsters." Her green eyes fix on yours, unblinking. "So y'know... respectfully? I think we both know whose this is"

Her other hand comes up, fingers splaying over her chest in mock sincerity.

"I'm not unreasonable! I'm a businesswoman. Nicole Demara, Cunning Hares." She says it like it should mean something. Like a title. "So how'bout we figure this out like adults, hm?"

She still hasn't let go. If anything, she's shifted her grip to get a better hold, her wrist turning just enough to angle the thermos box slightly toward her side of the shelf.

"C'mon, let's negotiate." Her smile widens, sweet and sharp in equal measure. "I'm very good at negotiating. Ask anyone." She tilts her head, twin tails swaying, and leans just slightly forward, the motion pressing her arms inward in a way that deepens the line of her cleavage above her crop top. "What's it gonna take? I'll make it worth your while~?"

Her eyes search your face for a moment. Then something clicks. A spark behind those green eyes and her free hand is already diving into her jacket pocket.

"Oh! Oh, wait. Hold on." She produces a coupon between two fingers like a magician revealing a card. Seventy percent off at 141 Convenience Store, printed in bold red lettering. She holds it up, angling it so the light catches the discount figure. "Seventy percent. Seventy. Do you know how rare these are? I've been sitting on this baby for a special occasion." She presses her lips together like it physically pains her to part with it. "But for you? Because you are good looking and seem like a smart shopper? Fair trade."

She waggles the coupon gently, her smile warm and generous and entirely too helpful.

"Think about it. That thermos is nice, sure, but seventy percent off anything at 141? That's bulk deals. That's snacks for weeks. Way better value proposition if you really break down the numbers"

The logic almost makes sense. The coupon looks legitimate. Her expression is so earnest, so open, that it feels almost rude to refuse.

You let go of the thermos. You take the coupon.

"Pleasure doing business!" Nicole chirps, already moving, the thermos tucked under her arm in one fluid motion. She gives you a two-fingered wave over her shoulder without looking back and weaves into the crowd at a pace that is just slightly too fast to be casual.

You look down at the coupon.

…Expired two months ago.

Your head snaps up. You catch one last flash of pink hair bobbing between shoppers, already halfway to the tills, moving with the practiced urgency of someone who has done this before and knows exactly how long they have before the mark checks the fine print.

Companion Hollow C41 has been on the HIA's suppression list for three years. What was left of the Midsummer Incorporated facility at its core - weapons R&D, storage bays, prototype inventory, was digested by the Hollow’s geometry since the moment it formed. Now the suppression has worked. C41 is collapsing. The HIA barriers came down at 0600 and by 0610 the first Hollow Raiders were already inside.

You were one of them.

You know what you're doing. You've run collapsing Hollows before, mapped your route in, identified two high-value storage bays from leaked Midsummer schematics, and kept one eye on your Corruption index the whole time. Your proxy next to you, feeding you real-time geometry updates.

Past tense.

The proxy went missing eleven minutes ago. A sharp cry, then nothing. C41 is collapsing faster than the HIA projected and without your proxy you're navigating blind. What was a clean in and out is now a maze that rewrites itself every thirty seconds. The route you mapped on the way in has folded into geometry that shouldn't exist. A corridor you walked through ten minutes ago is now a wall. A wall you noted as a landmark is now a door that opens onto a drop into nothing.

Your Corruption index is climbing. Not critical yet, but the needle is moving and it isn't moving slowly.

You round a corner into a dead end that wasn't there before. Behind you, somewhere in the distorted dark, the sound of something large dragging itself through the collapsing space. Whatever manner of Ethereal it is, it is navigating the maze with you.

It's getting closer.

Then the wall to your left explodes.

A perfectly circular black hole of ether swallows the wall punching a hole through the Hollow geometry like a battering ram. Dust and shimmering ether residue billow through the breach and through it steps a figure, broad shouldered, mechanical, one arm raised in a dramatic point aimed directly at you.

"FEAR NOT, CITIZEN! THE STARLIGHT KNIGHT HAS ARRIVED!"

Billy Kid stands in the breach like he's posing for a promotional still, one foot up on the rubble. Behind him, through the smoke, Anby Demara slides past, blade already drawn, silver hair catching the ambient ether glow. She's small and she moves like a weapon. Her eyes sweep the corridor behind you, lock onto whatever is dragging itself through the dark, and her stance drops immediately.

"Hostile. Thirty metres. Closing." Flat. Already moving.

"A-Anby!" Billy protests, spinning his revolvers with a flourish. "You interrupted my entrance!"

"Your entrance collapsed the support structure." Anby doesn't look back. "Ninety seconds."

"That makes it even MORE dramatic!"

Billy charges into the dark behind you, guns blazing. Anby follows, silent and precise, her blade moving in clean efficient arcs. The hostile meets them both and the sounds that follow are brief and conclusive.

A hand closes around your arm. Firm. Painted nails.

"Hey. You alive? Good, don't answer, we're moving."

Nicole Demara is right beside you, briefcase in hand. She is not here to fight. Her green eyes sweep over you once, fast and assessing, the look of someone calculating on the fly, and then she is already pulling you toward the breach.

"How long have you been wandering around waiting to get corrupted?"

She doesn't wait for an answer she can't use.

"Billy, Anby, twenty seconds!"

"But I haven't done my finishing—"

"Fifteen!"

Through the breach. Another corridor, another turn, these ones stable, as the four of you follow a Bangboo wearing an orange bandana. The Bangboo steers you through junctions almost as if on instinct, Nicole's grip on your arm shifting to guide rather than drag.

C41 groans around you. The geometry shudders. The Hollow is running out of time.

Light.

The exit fissure shimmers at the end of the corridor, real light bleeding through from the other side, and Nicole shoves you through it without ceremony. The world snaps back into place. Solid ground. Open air. The muted sounds of New Eridu beyond the HIA cordon. You're standing in a staging area, safety barriers and extraction equipment and the distant sound of other Raiders who got out cleaner than you did.

Behind you the fissure pulses. Billy emerges first, immediately striking a pose for an audience of nobody. Anby steps through a second later, sheathes her blade, and stands quietly, barely winded. The fissure flickers and shrinks out of existence. C41 is gone.

"And THAT," Billy announces to the empty staging area, "is episode forty seven energy.”

Nicole is already straightening her jacket, smoothing her hair back into place, checking her nails. Satisfied. She turns to you with a bright, professional smile, and produces a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket. Already filled out. She holds it between two fingers, and presents it to you with the practiced ease of someone who has done this before and intends to keep doing it.

"So! Great news. You're alive. Congratulations~"

It's an invoice. A thorough one

"Standard Hollow extraction, emergency rate. After-hours multiplier, hostile engagement surcharge, structural breach fee … My fault technically but it's your invoice so." She ticks them off without looking at the paper. "Proxy premium, Corruption index monitoring, administrative fee for the paperwork I'm completing right now, as we speak." A brief pause. "And lost revenue. We were in C41 on our own time, same as you. Every minute we spent getting you out was a minute we weren't recovering Midsummer inventory. That time has value."

The figure at the bottom has a lot of zeros.

Billy throws an arm around your shoulder like you've been friends for years. "Don't sweat it! The Starlight Knight doesn't charge for justice!" He does the signature Starlight Knight finger pose. "That said, a five star review on Inter-Knot would really help."

"Billy!" Nicole snaps.

Nicole turns back to you. The invoice is still extended.

"Look. Near-death experience, lost your proxy signal, very stressful. I get it." She tilts her head, twin tails swaying slightly. "Take a breath. I accept cash, transfer, or installments." Her eyes glint. "Interest applies to all installments~"

The knock at your door comes at 6:47 PM. Three sharp raps, a pause, then two more.

You open it and Nicole is standing in your doorway like she was placed there by the universe specifically for your benefit. She's leaning one shoulder against the frame, hip cocked, a coupon held up between two fingers like a golden ticket. Her green eyes are bright. Her smile is already in place.

"Hey! So don't make plans tonight." She glances past you into your apartment, then back. "Cancel them if you did. This is more important."

She doesn't wait to be invited in. She steps past you, the faint scent of her perfume trailing behind her, and turns on her heel in the middle of your living room. She holds the coupon up higher, angling it so the 40% off is clearly visible.

"Simmer Hot Pot. Forty percent off. Lumina Square." She taps the coupon with one painted nail. "Expires tonight. As in, hours from now. This is a crisis-level opportunity and I am not, repeat not, letting it go to waste."

She drops onto your couch, crosses one leg over the other, and examines her nails with studied casualness.

"I just happened to be in the neighbourhood and I thought, y'know, it'd be a shame not to share this. I'm generous like that. You're welcome~"

I walked twenty minutes out of my way for this. Twenty. She thinks

She stretches one arm across the back of your couch and looks up at you, all easy confidence.

"Oh, and apparently? Blaze rolled out a new broth. Something spicy, limited run, I dunno the details." The words come out carefully offhand, like she only just remembered. "My friends at Random Play mentioned it, they know good food. Sounded... fine. Interesting, maybe. Could be worth trying. While we're there. Since we'd already be there. For the coupon."

Belle said it's the best thing she's ever tasted and she said it with her whole chest. I have been thinking about it since Tuesday.

She flips the coupon between her fingers.

"So how'bout it? Forty percent off, new menu item, good company." She gestures at herself with a small flourish. "That's me, by the way. The good company. In case that wasn't clear."

Please say yes. Please say yes. I haven't hung out with anyone who isn't Billy or Anby in... actually, don't do that math, Nicole. Don't do that math.

Nicole notices you looking at her outfit - Hot. Nails - immaculate. Makeup - On point. She knows you know she dressed up for this.

"I always look like this." She holds her nails out toward you, fanning them in the light. "This is baseline Nicole. Anything less and you should be concerned."

Something behind her expression softens, just slightly, just for a moment. She's looking at you, and the performance is still there, the smile, the angle of her head, but underneath it there's something quieter. Something that made her walk twenty minutes in uncomfortable boots to knock on your door with a coupon she could have used anywhere.

She tucks a strand of pink hair behind her ear.

"Look, the coupon's only valid if you bring someone." Said quickly, like a minor footnote, a technicality. "Sooo really you'd be doing me a favour. Think of it as... a mutually beneficial arrangement." She stands up, smoothing down her shorts, and heads for the door like the decision has already been made. Because in her mind, it has.

Just say it's because you wanted to hang out. Just say it. It's not hard. Four words.

She doesn't say it. She opens your front door and holds it, looking back at you over her shoulder with an expectant smile.

...Next time.

"C'mon, we've got two hours before this thing expires and I am not paying full price!"

The corner of Sixth Street outside Bardic Needle is prime real estate for foot traffic, and Nicole knows it. She's set up shop, if you can call a folding table and a stack of unmarked cans a shop, right where the pedestrians flow up and down the street. A handwritten sign taped to the front reads: NITROUS FUEL - PREMIUM ENERGY - LIMITED STOCK - TODAY ONLY!!

Okay, so that blonde biker girl said they were called... Nitrous Fuel? Nitro Fuel? Something Fuel. Doesn't matter. What matters is: bought for 200 Dennies a case, selling for 80 a can, twelve cans per case. That's... Nicole's eyes glaze over for half a second as the math runs. ...seven hundred and sixty Dennies profit per case. Times four cases. That's three thousand! Beautiful. Gorgeous. I love the free market.

She does not think about what's in them. She did not ask the biker girl what's in them, but they all suspiciously look like they have been opened, and the original contents replaced with something else. The biker girl said something about them being 'strong' and 'her own mix'. Nicole was too busy calculating margins to hear whatever disclaimer may or may not have been mumbled afterward.

Right now she has two guys in front of her table. Mid-twenties, gym bags, the type who definitely buy supplements with names like "BEAST MODE" and "TITAN PUMP." They should be easy marks. They were easy to stop, at least. Nicole had leaned forward over the table, let the girls hang low, the neckline of her crop top doing exactly what she'd calculated it would do, and both of them had frozen mid stride like someone hit pause.

That was forty seconds ago. The spell is wearing off.

"...so what I'm saying is, if you're serious about performance, this is the real deal," Nicole is saying, holding a can up. "Outer Ring formula. You cannot get this in stores. Exclusive supply, limited run, once it's gone it's gone"

One of the guys is reading the side of the can. There is nothing to read on the side of the can. There is no ingredient list. There is no ingredient list because there is no label.

"Uh..." He turns the can over. "What's actually in it?"

"Electrolytes," Nicole says immediately, without blinking. "Premium ones."

"It doesn't say that anywhere on the—"

"It's Outer Ring. They don't do labels. It's an authenticity thing." She waves a hand dismissively. "You think the best stuff in life comes with a barcode? Have you seen how jacked some of those Outer Ring guys are?C'mon~"

The second guy is already taking a half-step backward. "I dunno, man, my heart's been doing this weird thing lately and—"

"This is great for hearts! Full of..." Nicole gestures vaguely. "...antioxidants."

She is losing them.

"Look, boys." She leans forward again, elbows on the table, chin resting on her interlaced fingers. "I'll do two for one twenty. That's a steal. That's below cost for me, I'm taking a loss here, but I like your energy—"

Then she sees it. Out of the corner of her eye. A figure moving through the Sixth Street crowd, half turned, just about to pass by.

Something fires in Nicole's brain. A flicker of recognition so sudden it cuts her sales pitch dead mid sentence. She knows that face. She knows it. But from where?

The orphanage.

It hits her all at once. Not a slow dawning but a sharp crack, like a lock snapping open. She's twelve years old again, sitting cross legged on the floor of the common room, watching someone older and infinitely cooler flip through discount flyers with a focus she'd never seen applied to anything before. Learning how to spot a markdown before the tag was even changed. How to read someone's face and know what they wanted before they knew. How to make someone feel like they were getting a deal even when they weren't.

That's... no way. No WAY.

"Okay we're actually gonna go—" one of the guys starts.

"YeahYeah, great, lovely chatting!" Nicole doesn't look at them. She's already stepping out from behind the table, her eyes fixed on the figure getting further away. "Take a flyer!"

"What flyer??"

"Doesn't matter. Bye!"

She's moving. Quick steps in her combat boots, weaving through pedestrians, one hand holding her twin tails back from whipping into someone's face.

"Hey! HEY!"

The crowd is thick. You're getting further away.

"Oh c'mon, seriously" She picks up the pace, one arm raised, waving. "STOP! Hey, stop! I'm talking to you!"

She catches up, slightly breathless, and grabs your sleeve. You turn. Green eyes lock onto yours, wide and bright and searching your face like she's checking her own memory against reality.

"It is you." Half a laugh escapes her. "Oh my god. It is. Do you... d'you remember me?" She releases your sleeve but doesn't step back, one hand pressing to her own chest. "Nicole. From the orphanage. I was... small. Annoying. Followed you around asking about coupon stacking? You taught me everything"

Her smile is different from the one she was selling energy drinks with thirty seconds ago. That one was a tool. This one is real, cracking open across her face, unguarded and warm and just a little bit desperate.

Please remember. Please remember. Please

Nicole arrives fifteen minutes early. She has never been fifteen minutes early for anything in her life.

She's standing outside the restaurant, a quiet place close to Reverb Arena with warm lighting and tables that are spaced far enough apart to feel private. She picked it herself. Spent two hours reading reviews. Changed her mind four times. But ultimately came back to it.

It's not a date. It's a thank you dinner. You said thank you dinner first, that's what it is. The word 'date' just... slipped out. People misspeak. It happens. It's a professional courtesy dinner between two people

She catches her reflection in the restaurant window.

She barely recognises herself. Not in a bad way. In a way that makes her stomach do something inconvenient.

She chose a soft cream blouse, slightly oversized, tucked loosely into a fitted dark skirt that hits just above the knee. Ballet flats instead of combat boots. Hair down, no twin tails, just the black ribbon bows replaced with a single delicate clip holding one side back. The necklace is simpler, a thin gold chain. Her nails are freshly done, all the same colour for once, a warm muted rose.

She looks... soft. Pretty.

This was a mistake. I look like I'm trying. I AM trying. Why am I trying? Go home. Change. Put the crop top back on. Be normal.

She doesn't move.

Her hand goes to her chest. Her heart is hammering beneath her palm, steady and insistent and completely out of her control. Nicole Demara, who has stared down Hollow corruptions and negotiated with people twice her size and bluffed her way out of debts that would make a banker cry, is standing on a sidewalk with sweating palms because someone is about to round a corner.

Okay. Breathe. You've closed deals worth ten times more than this. This is nothing. This is dinner.

She thinks about three days ago.

The knock at the Cunning Hares office door. The two men in the hallway, arms folded, faces like concrete. She knew them. Creditors. Bad ones. The kind who stop sending letters and start showing up.

She'd been ready for it. Had a whole routine planned. Excuses, deflections, a payment plan she'd already calculated that would leave her eating instant noodles for two months. She opened her mouth to begin.

Then you stepped forward. You didn't look at her. You looked at them. You asked how much. They told you. And you paid it. All of it. Right there. Like it was a phone bill. Like it was nothing.

The creditors left. You turned to her. She was staring at you. Her mouth was open and nothing was coming out, which had never happened before in twenty years of being Nicole Demara.

"Why did you do that?"

"Because we're friends."

Three words. Simple. Said without weight, without expectation, without a single string attached. And something in her chest that had been simmering quietly for longer than she wanted to admit caught fire so fast she couldn't breathe.

She'd asked you to dinner before she'd even processed the feeling. Thank you dinner. That's what she meant to say. What came out was: "Let me take you on a date. To say thank you. A thank you dinner. A dinner. Date. Thing."

You said yes. And Nicole went home and lay face down on her bed for forty minutes while Billy asked her if she was dying and Anby silently placed a glass of water on her night stand.

That was MY debt. Mine. I had a plan. I always have a plan. And you just... paid it. Like it was nothing. Like I was worth...

She shuts that thought down before it finishes.

Her phone buzzes. She pulls it out, checks her reflection in the black screen, adjusts a strand of hair, puts it away. Checks it again. Puts it away again.

Stop fidgeting. You look fine. You look good. You look ... You look like you care. That's the problem.

Her hand drifts to her nails. She examines them, turning her fingers slowly in the warm light from the restaurant window. The ritual steadies her. One breath. Two.

Okay. Game plan. Be cool. Be charming. Be Nicole. You've done this a thousand times. You walk into rooms and own them.

You round the corner and Nicole's carefully constructed game plan disintegrates on contact.

Her eyes go wide. Her lips part, just slightly, the beginning of a greeting that doesn't quite make it out. She takes you in, all of you, and whatever she was going to say, whatever smooth, casual, perfectly Nicole opening line she had rehearsed in the mirror, is gone. Completely gone. Replaced by a look she has never worn in front of another human being. Open. Unguarded. A little bit stunned.

Her heart doesn't pound. It stutters. And settles into something rapid and unsteady that she feels all the way to her fingertips.

"Hi." It comes out breathy. Soft. Almost a whisper. She blinks, seems to catch herself, and a small embarrassed laugh escapes before she can stop it. Her hand goes to her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear that didn't need tucking. "Sorry, I... hi."

The last piece of furniture hits the wall with a heavy thud and Nicole lets out a breath she's been holding for the entire three flights of stairs.

The wardrobe is in. Massive, dark wood, way too heavy for two people to carry up a narrow stairwell, but Nicole had insisted on this one specifically. It had the mirror on the inside of the door. It had the extra shelf space. It was on sale. Non-negotiable.

"Okay. Okay! That's... that's everything." She plants her hands on her hips, slightly out of breath, and turns in a slow circle.

The bedroom is chaos. Boxes stacked against every wall, clothes spilling out of half-opened bags, a lamp sitting on the floor because neither of you has figured out where it goes yet. The bed frame is assembled, but the sheets are still in a package somewhere. The mattress is bare. The curtains aren't up.

It's a mess. Together. It's your mess.

Nicole's gaze moves from the wardrobe to the window, to the boxes, to the mattress, to the light falling across the hardwood floor. Something settles across her face that isn't her usual sharp confidence or her practised smile. It's quieter than that. Deeper.

This is mine. Part of it. A real part.

She thinks about the number. Her contribution. Twenty percent of the deposit. Not much in the grand scheme. But she'd scraped it together Denny by Denny, skimming commissions and cutting her own spending for months, turning down sales and new outfits and her usual coupon-fuelled shopping sprees because this mattered more. When she'd transferred her share she had stared at the confirmation screen for a full minute, alone in the Cunning Hares office, sitting on the couch that had doubled as her bed for years.

I own something. I actually own something.

She'd cried. Just a little. She will never admit this.

No more sleeping on the office couch. No more keeping my clothes next to Billy's gun rack. No more waking up at 3 AM because Anby is watching movies in the next room with the volume 'low'.

She looks at the wardrobe, the empty walls waiting to be filled.

Our place. Ours.

"Y'know what, it's not bad." She says it casually, like she's appraising a property for a client, but the smile pulling at the corners of her mouth gives her away completely. "Square footage is decent. Natural light. The kitchen's small but I can negotiate with a small kitchen." She runs her hand along the top of a box. "Needs work, obviously. But the bones are good. Eight out of ten. Solid investment~"

Ten out of ten. Eleven. Eleven out of ten.

She turns to look at you and her breath catches. Just slightly. Just enough.

You're leaning against the wardrobe you both just wrestled into place, catching your breath. Your shirt is damp with sweat, clinging in places, hair mussed, chest rising and falling. There's a streak of dust on your forearm and your skin has that warm flush from exertion.

Nicole's train of thought derails completely.

Oh.

Her eyes travel from your face down your neck to where the fabric sticks to your body, slow and unhurried and completely without subtlety. Something behind her expression shifts. The proud new homeowner look melts into something older, something she knows much better.

Fuck. You look like... that night after our fourth date. When we didn't sleep until 4 AM. When I couldn't walk straight the next morning and lied to Anby about pulling a muscle.

She crosses the room. Three hurried steps, and her arms are around your neck, fingers lacing together behind your head. A small happy sound hums from her throat, warm and satisfied, and she presses herself into you. Close. Chest to chest. Her tits push soft and heavy against you through the thin fabric of her top, deliberate and shameless, and she doesn't pull back. She settles in, letting you feel all of her.

"Hi, roommate," she murmurs, her nose brushing your jaw. "Housemate? Home... owner." A grin spreads against your skin. "God, that sounds good. Say it back to me later, I wanna hear it~"

She breathes you in. Sweat and dust and warmth. Her fingers curl into the hair at the nape of your neck and her hips roll forward against yours, slow and grinding and deliberate.

You smell like every night I rode you until my thighs gave out.

"You're all sweaty," she says softly, her lips dragging along your jaw, each word a warm brush of breath against your skin. "That's not fair. You know what that does to me. You know how wet that makes me."

The last part is barely a whisper. Said against your ear like a secret. Her teeth catch your earlobe, bite down gently, then her tongue traces the edge. Her chest rises against yours with a shaking breath and when she pulls back just enough to look at you her eyes are half-lidded and dark, pupils blown wide, the green almost swallowed. It's the look. The one that means her brain has stopped running numbers and started running something else entirely.

"So..." Her voice is lower now. Rougher at the edges. Her tongue drags slow across her bottom lip. "That mattress is brand new" Her hips grind into yours again, firmer, needier. A sharp breath hisses through her teeth and her eyes flutter. "Mm. Fuck. Wonder if its up to snuff…"

One hand slides down from your neck, nails dragging down your chest, your stomach, and palms you through your pants. She cups you, squeezes with a confidence that comes from knowing exactly what you like and exactly what it does to you.

"It’s wrong, but, I've been thinking about this all day," she breathes against your throat. Her hand rubs you again, slow and firm.

This isn't wrong. You're in your own home with the person you love, and you're soaking through your underwear. That's called being happy, Nicole.

She pulls back just enough for you to see her face. Flushed. Lips parted. Pink hair falling messy across her forehead. She looks desperate, and you haven't even touched her yet.

"I want you to fuck me on that mattress." No preamble. No negotiation. Just Nicole, stripped of every trick and tactic, saying exactly what she wants. "Hard. I want it hard. I want to hear the bed frame hit the wall and I want the neighbours to know someone just moved in." Her green eyes hold yours, burning. "And then I want you to do it again. Slower."

She hooks her fingers through your belt loops with both hands and pulls, walking backward toward the bare mattress, taking you with her. Her smile is back now, curling at the edges, smug and wanting.

"C'mon. Consider it a housewarming~"