Chapter 110: Budgeting

"I could manage the budget," Adrian said, and heard how it sounded.

"Nobody tunes in to a budget." Jenna propped her chin on her fist. "You’ve got a camera-friendly face, Hayes. Use it."

Beside him, Rose’s shoulder had gone still. Her hand had come off his knee some time ago and folded itself in her lap. He noticed the absence more than he’d noticed the touch.

"He sings," Rose said.

He turned. She was studying the screen with the calm of someone who had just betrayed him for entertainment. "In the shower. Very early. I hear it through my ceiling."

"Through your—" Jenna covered her mouth. "That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard."

"It’s not singing," Adrian said. "It’s noise with a rhythm."

"I assumed it was the pipes," Rose said. "A very sad pipe."

"Wait." Jenna sat up. "Wasn’t that you at the school thing? Cardboard stage, borrowed mic? Drew cried."

"Drew was crying about tuition."

"He was crying at you." She pointed at the screen. "You were good. I was annoyed for a week. I’ve had lessons since I was twelve."

Her competitive streak had surfaced. Apparently it had been waiting behind the practical conversation.

"Why did you never do anything with it?"

"Because it’s not a talent." He said it like he was explaining a GPA. "It’s a habit. I never built anything on it."

"People pay for habits constantly. It’s called a podcast." Jenna leaned toward the camera. "If you’re going on my stream, I need to know what I’m putting on it. Sing something."

It was annoyingly practical. Adrian could argue with feelings. A reasonable request with a budget implication was harder.

"No."

"One verse."

"I’m not singing to a lamp."

"It’s a very good lamp," Rose said. "I’d like to hear it properly. Not through a ceiling."

He looked at the ceiling, which had done nothing wrong. Two women, one practical argument. If he could dismantle a corporation, he could manage one verse. The logic was thin. He took it anyway.

"One."

"What song?"

He hadn’t planned that far. The only song he knew all the way through had come from his mother’s car radio when he was nine, saxophone-heavy and absurdly sad.

"Careless Whisper."

"The saxophone one?" Jenna pressed both hands to her cheeks. "Please. Do the saxophone."

"I’m not doing the saxophone."

He sat up. Slouching felt disrespectful to the song. He fixed his eyes on the lamp. It was the only thing in the room that wasn’t going to react.

This was the song about a man ruining everything in front of his girlfriend. The thought arrived with the first note. Too late to choose another one.

He kept it low, following the shape his mother’s radio had taught him. The first bars felt like crossing a dark apartment by memory. By the second line, his throat stopped negotiating. By the third, he’d forgotten the call and the part of his brain keeping score. Something under his sternum opened, small and unpracticed, like a window in a house he’d stopped using.

At the chorus, he stopped. One verse meant one verse.

The room didn’t move. He glanced at the phone. Jenna sat frozen, mouth slightly open.

Did the call freeze? He tapped the screen. It hadn’t.

"Okay," Jenna said slowly. "That’s irritating."

"I told you it was a habit."

"That’s not a habit. That’s a voice." She narrowed her eyes. "I’ve had lessons since I was twelve. You do it in a hoodie. To a lamp."

"It’s a very nice lamp," Rose said.

She hadn’t moved. Her hands were still folded in her lap, knuckles pale, and she was looking at him the way she looked at a canvas she’d underestimated.

"I was wrong about the pipes," she said quietly.

"So it isn’t just money," Jenna said, her voice shifting into the one she used for lists. "I’m not building a channel around me. I’m building one around what we can do."

"What can we do?" Adrian asked.

"I sing. You sing. Better than me in places, which I’ll be processing later." She waved that away. "Rose?"

Rose kept her eyes on the screen. "I’d rather not be on camera."

"I wasn’t asking that. What would you do instead?"

"Art." Rose looked at the blue smear beneath her nail. "Backgrounds. Thumbnails. A look. People remember a look."

"VJ spends a fortune on that," Jenna said. "Which means they think it matters."

Three people. Three useful jobs. Twenty minutes ago the problem had been getting Jenna onto someone else’s platform. Now they had a reason to build one together.

"Who’s the host?" he asked.

"You," both women said.

"Requirements." Someone had to. "Camera, microphone, lights, backdrop, software. Somewhere to stream from."

"Not my place," Jenna said. "Roommate. Fire hazard."

Rose’s eyes went to the bare wall behind the couch. "Here. I could paint it."

"You’d paint my wall."

"A board. The wall’s yours to ruin."

He looked at the wall. A month ago this apartment had been arranged around someone else’s life. Now he was considering turning one wall into a studio backdrop. He found he didn’t mind.

"Clothes," Jenna added. "On camera, everything’s a decision."

He ran the numbers the old way, the way he’d once priced eggs: camera, mic, three lights, board, software. $1,900, give or take. A month ago, $1,900 would have been his whole future. Now it was an afternoon. His stomach still gave the familiar little flinch. He let it. That part of him had survived the money.

"We can start buying tonight."

"Tonight?" Jenna blinked.

"Camera first. There’s a store that stays open late. Everything else tomorrow."

Jenna looked from him to Rose. "I’m going to practice before I tell anyone about the singing." She paused. "No. I’m telling Drew. Don’t die before tomorrow. Rose, look after him."

The screen went dark.

Rose turned to him slowly. "So. Porn shoot."

"It’s not."

"Mm-hm." She tucked her legs under herself. "Long version. I have time."

"A girl I know was about to sign a contract. Her brother said ’shoot’ in the same sentence as ’contract.’ Jenna filled in the rest."

"A girl you know."

"From the café."

Something crossed her face and disappeared. "So it was a photo shoot."

"Probably."

"Probably?"

"Nobody let me read the contract."

She stared at him. Then her shoulders began to shake. She pressed her forehead against his arm, laughing silently.

He sat very still. A hand, a corporation, a song, and this was the conversation that had survived the evening.

"Okay." She sat up, composed again. "Change."

He looked down. Gray T-shirt, jeans. Both clean. Both soft. Both doing exactly what clothes were supposed to do. "What’s wrong with these?"

"You’re the host." She stood, smoothing her dress. "Hosts don’t dress like laundry day."

"It is laundry day."

"I know. That’s the problem."

She leaned in and kissed him once, quick and warm. "Ten minutes."

The door clicked shut behind her.

He stayed on the couch with a verdict and no explanation. His clothes had passed every test he knew. Apparently, there was another test nobody had bothered to teach him.

The apartment quieted. He thought about the last hour: Rose’s hand, her thumb, the way she’d looked at him after the song. She’d been bolder lately. Since eighty.

He opened the System.

[Investment Analysis Updated.]

[Rose West — Investment Potential: 81% → 82%]

[Jenna — Investment Potential: 49% → 53%]

He checked the timestamps. Both updates had landed during the song.

Apparently, his voice was a financial instrument. His mother’s old radio had become an investment strategy.

Fifty-three was past the line. Everything he spent on the stream would come back in full. That was the practical read, and he made himself take it first.

It didn’t hold.

When Jenna had planned the stream with her chin on her fist, she’d looked the way she had under the audition lights: focused, but tired of holding herself together. He’d caught himself checking the corner of the screen for her face, not for the plan.

He cared how the next month went for her.

That wasn’t the return.

Then there was Rose.

He looked at the question he’d been circling and finally typed it.

Is the System changing her?

[Devoted Lover does not alter personality. It increases attraction and devotion, and lowers the threshold for acting on feelings the subject is already capable of expressing.]

He read it twice.

So the System hadn’t built a different Rose. It had only removed some brakes. The rest had already been there.

That was either reassuring or worse. He still couldn’t decide.

The sensible thing was to ask her. Eventually. In words.

"Adrian."

Her voice came from behind him. He hadn’t heard the door.

He turned.

Rose stood in the doorway in a pale green jacket, cuffs rolled once. The zipper passed inspection. She had one hand on the collar like she wasn’t sure she was allowed to wear it.

He looked at her twice before trusting the first answer.

"How do I look?"