Chapter 3: New Home. New Rules. The Foundation Begins.
The truck was already backed up against the curb by the time Adrian made it downstairs, rear doors thrown open, ramps down, morning light catching the dust drifting off the cargo bed.
Two men stood near the back. The older one had the build of someone who’d spent thirty years lifting things heavier than they should’ve been. Thick forearms, sun-worn face, a cap pushed back off his forehead. The younger one was already dragging a moving blanket off a stack against the wall.
"Adrian Hayes?" The older man wiped his palm on his jeans before offering it.
"Yeah." Adrian replied casually. "That’s me."
"Name’s Marcus. This is Tim." A thumb jerked toward the younger guy, who nodded without breaking stride. "We’ll get you sorted, boss. Mattress goes in first. Makes everything else easier."
Adrian nodded and stepped back to give them room.
Good. Let them handle it. That’s what he was paying for.
He found a spot near the entrance, arms folded, and watched Marcus climb into the truck and Tim plant himself below to catch the mattress. They worked it toward the edge with the kind of unbothered rhythm that came from doing this a thousand times before.
Standing there should’ve felt fine. He was paying them. That was the entire point of hiring movers instead of borrowing a pickup and doing it himself.
It didn’t feel fine.
This is stupid. Just watching.
Felt less like the guy who owned the apartment and more like some clipboard idiot supervising a job he had no business supervising. He’d never been good at standing around while other people worked anyway, and this was evident.
Bzzzt.
The phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t pull it out right away.
Objective
Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity: 0/90
Of course. Of course it’d remind him right now.
He stared at the screen a second too long. No. Absolutely not letting a phone app guilt-trip him into hauling furniture he was already paying two grown men to haul.
He held that position for four more seconds before the itch in his shoulders won.
Fine. Fine, he’d do it. Not because of the system. He just hated standing here, doing nothing, looking like the guy who paid for things instead of the guy who did them. That was the lie he told himself, at least. Better than saying it out loud to two men he’d known for ninety seconds.
He stepped forward just as the mattress cleared the truck’s edge, catching the near end before either of them could tell him not to.
Marcus blinked down at him.
"Ah, boss, no need. We got this."
"Already paying for the move." Adrian adjusted his grip, settling it against his shoulder. "Least I can do is not stand there watching."
"Most people don’t complain about that part."
"I know." A dry breath. "Feels wrong."
That wasn’t entirely true. But it’d do.
They carried it up together after that. Three sets of hands on one mattress, moving at the pace of the slowest guy, because that was the only pace three people carrying one unwieldy thing could move at without somebody ending up with a hospital chart labeled avoidable.
"Watch the corner," Marcus warned at the first landing.
The stairwell was narrower than it looked from the street. The mattress bent around the turn easy enough, forgiving in a way rigid furniture never was, and Adrian matched their rhythm without trying to get ahead of it.
Fuck. Helping was alright, but this was honestly a bit too much.
I know I brought this on myself... but doesn’t it ever end?
The phone answered that thought for him.
Bzzzt.
Bzzzt.
He hissed through his teeth. Shut the fuck up.
He shouldered the apartment door open, led them down the short hallway, pointed at the far wall of the empty bedroom.
"Just lean it there. Leaves room to work while we bring the rest in."
They set it down. One down. The phone wasted no time.
Objective updated
☐ Assist unloading furniture: 10% progress
It really is tracking me. He stared at the screen a beat longer than it deserved. Creep.
After that the trips blurred together.
Sofa wedged at the stairwell corner, Marcus’s confidence dropping half an octave as it caught on the turn. Adrian took the low end without announcing it, mostly because the phone kept buzzing in his pocket like it had somewhere to be.
Okay. Okay, Jesus.
Fridge next. Compact and stubborn, wobbling on the kitchen tile until he crouched down and cranked the leveling leg until it sat flush. Standing fan. Folding desk. Microwave wrapped in enough bubble wrap to look smuggled across a border. A suitcase that had no business weighing what it weighed.
Objective updated
☐ Assist unloading furniture: 30% progress
By the fourth trip he’d stopped counting and just moved. Down, grab, up, set down, repeat, until his shoulders started a quiet complaint he’d stopped bothering to argue with.
Marcus kept up a running commentary the whole time, mostly for his own entertainment, and Adrian gave back just enough to keep it a conversation instead of a monologue Marcus was having with himself.
Objective updated
☐ Assist unloading furniture: 80% progress
Objective updated
☑ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity: 90/90
Every load changed the place a little. The echo in the empty rooms thinned out, replaced by the low, solid weight of things that belonged to somebody now.
They set the last box down near the living room wall.
Marcus straightened, looked around the way a guy did a final check he wasn’t getting paid extra for.
"Not bad." He raised a brow at Adrian. "You already had all this planned out, huh."
Not really a question.
"Had the time," Adrian said, which was true, in the way that left out he’d planned it as the place he and Maya were supposed to move into together, back when there was still a together.
Stop. He shut it down before it could go anywhere. She already made her choice. Doesn’t matter what it was planned for. Matters what it is now.
"Shows." Marcus said, dragging him back. "Don’t get used to it, though. You’re still a nepo baby who carried furniture for fun today."
A laugh, almost. Funny how a guy busting his ass just to satisfy a phone app could still get called that with a straight face.
The truck doors shut a few minutes later. No tip request, no lingering — just Marcus’s hand up in a half-wave as they pulled off, the stairwell finally quiet behind him.
He stood alone in the living room. Sofa facing the window the way he’d wanted. Fridge humming quietly in its corner. It didn’t match the version he’d drawn up months ago, not exactly. It looked better somehow. Less like a diagram. More like something real that had nothing to do with anyone but him.
Bzzzt.
He pulled the phone out, something close to curious this time.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BEGINNER FOUNDATION MISSION
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☑ Assist in unloading all furniture ⓘ
☐ Arrange all furniture inside the apartment ⓘ
☐ Unpack all essential belongings ⓘ
☐ Dispose of empty boxes and packing waste ⓘ
☑ Accumulate 90 minutes of physical activity ⓘ
☐ Eat one proper meal before the day ends ⓘ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Mission Rewards
✨ +20 Wealth Points
🎁 Starter Reward
🔓 Skill: Investment Insight (Lv.1)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Time Remaining: 10:14:37
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He stared at the countdown a second longer than he needed to.
Guess that counts as progress.
~~~
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