Chapter 46: What’s the menu?
Xavier sat in a plastic chair near the door and watched for ninety minutes.
Sarah with children was a different thing entirely from Sarah on a stage. Less controlled. More patient. She made mistakes calling a child by the wrong name once, fumbled an explanation of breath support and had to restart it and didn’t perform her way through the mistakes. Just corrected and kept going.
The children responded to her differently from how crowds responded to her. Not with admiration. With the particular comfort of people who trusted someone because they’d earned it over time not because they were impressive.
This is the version she keeps, Xavier thought. Hidden from everyone.
And she brought me here.
He checked the gauge.
Sarah Torres — 89%
Still 89, he noted. Presence doesn’t move it. I need action.
He looked around the room. At the instruments. At the noticeboard near the entrance covered in handwritten schedules.
He pulled out his phone quietly and opened his browser.
The centre had a website. Basic, slightly outdated. A donations page at the bottom with a running total that hadn’t moved in a while.
He read through the about section. Community funded. Running on volunteer hours and a small annual grant that barely covered utilities. Equipment that was. He looked at the drum kit in the corner, the keyboards with several broken keys clearly aging.
Solvable problems, he thought.
He made two calls from the corridor while Sarah was mid session. Quiet and quick.
The first was to a music equipment supplier in Kenvale. Full instrument refresh for a twenty person youth programme. Delivery Tuesday.
The second was to the centre’s listed admin contact. Anonymous donation. Operational costs for the next two years. Transfer going through today.
He was back in his plastic chair before Sarah finished the session.
[ REBATE SYSTEM ]
Transaction Detected: $12,000 — Music Equipment + Centre Donation
Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x
Binding Reward Multiplier: 3x
Total Return: $36,000
Cap Used: $12,000 of $500,000
[ Net Balance: $488,000.00 → $524,000.00 ]
[ HIDDEN TASK COMPLETE ]
Investment in Target’s Hidden World
Reward: +1,200 EXP
[ EXP: 23,450/50,000 ]
The session ended at 12:30.
The children scattered toward the exit in the noisy cheerful way children end things. Sarah exchanged a few words with the woman at the front then walked back to where Xavier was sitting.
She looked at him.
"Well," she said.
"You’re better with them than you are on stage," he said.
She blinked. "That’s...."
"Not an insult," he said. "On stage you’re performing. In there you were just present. It’s a different thing and the second one is harder."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"Nobody has ever said that to me, not that anyone has seen me being here," she said.
"I know," Xavier chuckled.
Sarah sat down in the plastic chair beside him. The room was emptying around them. The woman at the front was tidying up, not paying them any attention.
"Why did you really come today," Sarah said.
"You asked me to," he replied, giving an obvious answer .
"Xavier."
"What’s the real reason?," she asked.
He looked at her. "Because it matters to you that I see it," he said. "You said so on the phone. That was enough reason."
She held his gaze.
"You listen to everything I say," she said slowly. "And you remember all of it."
"Yes," he said.
"Why," she said. The question underneath all her questions again.
"Because you say things worth listening to," he said. "When you’re not performing."
She looked at him for a long moment in the quiet of the emptying room.
Then she leaned over and kissed him.
Not dramatically. Not performing it. Just decided and did it. The same way she’d called on Friday with a purpose and executed it without the usual back and forth.
Xavier let it happen.
When she pulled back she looked at him with the expression of someone who had done something and was now sitting with what it meant.
"Okay," she said quietly.
"Okay," he said quietly.
He looked at her across the room — the children responding to her, the broken keyboard she worked around without commenting on it, the mistake with the name she corrected without performing her way through it.
I never knew this version existed, he thought. In my previous life Sarah Torres was one thing — the woman who walked into my apartment with purpose and left without looking back. He watched her crouch down to help one of the younger ones with finger placement. I never saw this. Never even suspected it.
The pretending version I knew completely, he thought. Every angle of it. Every calculation underneath the warmth.
But this.
This is something she kept from everyone. Including the man she was engaged to.
He sat with that for a moment.
What else don’t I know about her, he thought. What else sits underneath everything I thought I understood.
He filed that away carefully.
Doesn’t change anything, he told himself. The main quest is the main quest.
But the thought stayed longer than he expected it to.
She almost smiled. Looked away. Looked back.
"You’re not surprised," she said.
"No...," he replied.
"Of course you’re not," she said. Half frustrated. Half something warmer.
She stood up and picked up her bag.
"Come on," she said. "I’ll buy you lunch."
Xavier stood.
"You don’t have to buy me lunch," he said.
"I know I don’t have to," she said. Already heading for the door. "I want to."
He followed her out into the Sunday afternoon.
He checked the gauge as they stepped into the light.
Sarah Torres — 89% → 92%
Three percent, he thought. From one morning.
92%.
Eight points from the binding threshold. But close enough that the next right move crosses it.
She kissed me, he thought. Without being pushed. Without a performance attached to it.
He looked at her walking slightly ahead of him down the path toward the street.
Soon, he thought.
Very soon.
[ REBATE SYSTEM ]
Transaction Detected: $28 — Premium Uber
Base Multiplier (Tier 2): 2x
Total Return: $56
[ Net Balance: $524,028.00 → $524,056.00 ]
At the restaurant she ordered first and looked at the menu with the relaxed ease of someone who had made a decision and wasn’t second guessing any part of it.
Xavier watched her across the table.
This is the version underneath everything, he thought. The one she brought to the centre. The one that showed up without the performance attached. He looked at her. And she kissed me with that version. Not the stage one.
That’s new.
That matters.
She looked up from the menu and caught him watching.
"What," she said.
"Nothing," he said.
She narrowed her eyes slightly. "You’re doing the thing where you think about something specific and look like you’re thinking about nothing."
"Amira said the same thing," he said.
Sarah looked at him. "Amira."
"My classmate," he said. "She says I have a different stillness when it’s specific versus general."
Sarah held his gaze for a moment. Something moved in her expression. Small, quickly filed away.
"She sounds observant," Sarah said carefully.
"She is," Xavier said.
A pause.
"Are you and her..." Sarah started.
"Eat your food Sarah," Xavier said.
She looked at him for one more second.
Then looked back at her menu.
Smart enough not to push it, he thought. For now.
He checked the gauge one more time under the table.
Sarah Torres — 93%
He looked at the number.
Three points, he thought. One right move.
One.
He picked up his menu and decided what he wanted.