"I heard her office is planning to treat the whole graduating class to a big dinner the moment her flight lands back in America. Professor Evans is already confirmed to be there too. What, did you not get the alumni notification?"

Luca Hale shook his head. He genuinely had no idea about any dinner.

Honestly, he and Janice Snyder had been decent enough classmates back at university, polite, cordial, nothing more.

Anyone who tried to paint their dynamic as something deeper would be stretching the truth pretty thin. As for those old campus rumors about Janice carrying a secret torch for him... Luca figured that was probably just a passing attraction. He had been, after all, objectively the best-looking guy in their year.

That was a long time ago now. Those kinds of trivial college dynamics had a way of fading into nothing. If Julian hadn’t dropped Janice’s name across the table tonight, Luca wouldn’t have spared her a single thought.

"Hey, let the past stay buried. I couldn’t care less about any of those people." Julian waved it off. "But you, Fourth... you better be sitting at my wedding table."

"Obviously, Big Bro. Now let’s drink." Luca smiled and raised his glass.

The two old roommates kept the night alive for hours, laughing, bickering, swapping stories... until the dashboard clock ticked past 2:00 AM. By then, Julian was well past the point of driving himself anywhere. Luca had loaded Julian into his car, then fired off a quick text to Evelyn Hayes letting her know Julian was gonna spend the night at his place.

The next morning, the San Fierro summer sun was already blazing high and white in a cloudless sky.

Luca had brewed himself a pot of tea and was stretched out across the leather sofa in the living room, watching SpongeBob on the big screen with the kind of peaceful, unapologetic laziness that only a completely free morning could justify. When Squidward deadpanned, "I knew I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed today," Luca nearly choked, catching his tea just before it launched across the glass coffee table.

A heavy door clicked open somewhere above him. He glanced up.

Julian came shuffling along the upstairs corridor looking like a man who had recently lost a fight with several bottles of liquor. His eyes were red, his expression pained, and he gripped the railing like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

"Hey, sleeping giant. Get down here."

"Ugh..." Julian groaned, pressing a hand to his stomach as he descended the stairs. "I’m making a solemn promise to myself right now, never drinking that late again. My stomach still feels like it’s about to explode. I’ve already made two trips to the bathroom." He reached the bottom of the staircase and stopped, looking slowly around the room with fresh, sober eyes.

"But damn, Luca... you are absolutely full of surprises. The networks used to say you’d done well for yourself, but I never imagined this."

Daniel Mercer had mentioned something in an old group chat about Luca picking up a place in Golden Water Bay, but that penthouse now felt like student housing compared to what Julian was standing in. This villa was easily worth five million dollars, maybe more. The carved wood railings along the mezzanine. The proportions of the rooms. The light coming through the windows. It didn’t look like someone’s home so much as an architectural statement.

’Even my CEO can’t pull something like this off. Where on earth did this guy get this kind of money?’

Julian ran his fingers slowly along the railing, genuinely at a loss. Was Luca secretly from money all along? Had he spent four years in a cramped dorm room... gaming till sunrise, eating instant noodles... while quietly sitting on some vast family fortune, waiting for the right moment to step back into it?

No. That can’t be right... can it?

"What’s the plan, Julian? Thinking about buying the place next door?" Luca called over with a grin, feet propped up on the ottoman.

Julian snorted, stepping off the final stair. "Do you genuinely think everyone walks around as loaded as you? My life goal right now is a decent three-bedroom apartment somewhere in the outer metro. That alone would feel like winning."

And that was the honest truth. He had just over ten thousand dollars saved... years of grinding, carefully set aside. With a few more years of discipline, he might be able to swing a down payment on something modest outside the city center. Downtown wasn’t even worth thinking about. He’d put together the deposit and then spend the next decade suffocating under mortgage payments.

"There’s a cup of cappuccino and some fresh buns on the counter, by the way. Help yourself. What are you doing this afternoon?" Luca asked.

Julian carried the hot cup of cappuccino over to the sofa and dropped down beside him, immediately cramming half a bun into his mouth until his cheeks bulged. "Gotta swing back to my place first... change into something decent. I’ve got a coaching session at the training center this afternoon."

"Got it. I’ll drive you back once you’re done eating. I just need to step out for a bit first, I’ve got something to handle."

Luca stood, headed upstairs, and came back down a few minutes later carrying a leather duffel bag. He walked straight out the front door, leaving Julian sitting there on the sofa, chewing slowly, watching the space where Luca had been standing with a slightly puzzled expression.

About thirty minutes later, the front door opened again.

"Ready to go, Big Bro?"

"Let’s do it!"

Julian gathered his things and followed Luca out through the back of the house and down into the underground garage... and immediately stopped walking.

"Holy—" He turned in a slow circle. "You’re actually driving a G-Class AMG? A custom one?"

The night before, Julian had been so thoroughly gone that he hadn’t registered a single detail about the car he’d been poured into.

Now, standing under clean morning light, looking at the unmistakable boxy silhouette of the Mercedes G-Wagon, matte black, immaculate... something inside him shifted. He had loved this truck since he was old enough to know what a truck was. His current bank account couldn’t buy a basic Mercedes sedan, let alone something like this.

"Don’t fixate on that one just yet, Big Bro. There’s something else behind it."

"Something else?"

It wasn’t until Luca pointed past the G-Class that Julian’s eyes found it... low, dark, and crouched in the shadow of a concrete pillar like it was waiting.

A Koenigsegg One:1.

Julian’s mouth went dry. His lips moved but nothing came out for a moment. He had already mentally recalibrated what Luca Hale was worth... The estate alone had done that, but the G-Class felt like a reasonable luxury, the kind of thing a very successful man might own.

This hypercar didn’t belong in that category. This was a machine that multi-millionaires couldn’t just walk in and buy. There were a handful of these in the world.

’This guy used to fall asleep next to me at 4 AM during gaming sessions in a room that smelled like instant noodles.’

And now he was here.

"Want to take one out?" Luca asked, rattling both key fobs loosely in his palm.

Julian rubbed his hands together. "You already know the answer to that."

"...The G-Class. I’ll drive the G-Class. Absolutely not the Koenigsegg. Do not hand me those keys." His hands were already trembling slightly at the thought of piloting a ten-million-dollar car through city traffic. That was a level of bravery... or recklessness... he simply did not possess.

"Take whichever one you want, Big Bro."

Julian shook his head firmly and held out his hand for the G-Class key. Luca dropped it into his palm without ceremony.

Julian climbed up into the driver’s seat, settled back into the leather, and closed his eyes for just a second. The seat was built for someone his size. Wide, solid, commanding. He exhaled slowly.

"Let’s go." Luca pulled the passenger door shut with a heavy, pressurized thunk.

Julian gripped the wheel, pressed the accelerator, and the twin-turbo V8 answered with a low, rolling thunder that echoed off the garage walls as they swept up and out into the morning.

Thirty minutes later, they rolled to a smooth stop in front of a mid-rise apartment complex on the west side of the city.