Richest Man: It All Started With My Rebate System-Chapter 62: A Chance Encounter

"Steven?"

Steven turned instinctively toward the voice and he saw a woman standing a short distance away, watching him with an expression caught between certainty and surprise. She was roughly his age, dressed in workout clothes with a gym bag over one shoulder, her hair pulled back.

His brain worked immediately, running the face against whatever it could retrieve. The features were familiar but his memories were blurry.

And he came up empty.

She was already walking toward him, and the closer she got, the more the fog surrounding his memories of her began to thin.

After watching her movements and actions for a moment, it finally clicked in his head.

"Hannah?" he said.

Her face broke into a full smile.

"For a second I thought you’d completely forgotten me," she said, stopping in front of him.

"It actually took me a while to remember. It’s quite a pleasant surprise," Steven smiled, closing the car door, then turning to face her properly.

"I could say the same for you. It also took me a while to put a name to the face when I saw you walk out of the gym. You turning back when I called your name confirmed it," Hannah said.

"Well, we can’t blame ourselves. It’s been a long while since when we saw each other last and to make it worse, my special talent is forgetting," Steven said.

"Relatable," Hannah laughed.

"How long has it been?" She said. "Since we graduated. Three years? Four?"

Steven thought about it. "About four. Give or take."

"Four years," she repeated, as if testing the number. "It doesn’t feel that long when you say it. But then you actually try to remember what you were doing four years ago and it might as well be another lifetime."

"Feels like yesterday and forever at the same time," Steven said.

"Exactly." She shifted her bag on her shoulder. "And you’re looking good."

"You know you can’t get to me with your flattery, right? I can see how much you have grown too," Steven said, smiling at her mischievously.

"You mischievous bastard. You’re still the same as ever," Hannah frowned playfully.

"Some things never change," Steven chuckled.

"So how are you, actually?" Hannah asked, with a solemn look on her face.

Steven considered the question. A week ago, the honest answer would have been complicated in a way that would have required far more than a parking lot conversation to explain. Today, the honest answer was considerably simpler.

"I’m doing well," he said. "Better than I have been in a long time."

Hannah studied him for a moment, as though checking the answer against what she was seeing. Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her.

"Good," she said. "And I know it’s years too late, but I’m really sorry about what happened. Please accept my condolences," She said simply. "I wish I’d been around more when it happened. I’ve thought about that."

"You don’t need to carry that," Steven said. "It was a long time ago and I came through it."

"Still," she said. "You shouldn’t have had to go through it alone."

There was a brief comfortable silence between them.

"What about you?" Steven asked. "What are you doing in this part of the city?"

"I’m at UH," she said. "Going into my third year. I come to this side of town a couple of times a week. There’s a study group I’m part of at a library near here." She paused. "Honestly, between the coursework and the commute, I’m exhausted most of the time. I’m starting to wonder if I made the right decision."

"What are you studying?"

"Business administration," she said. "Which sounds impressive until you’re in the middle of a financial accounting module at eleven at night and questioning every choice that led you there."

Steven smiled. "It sounds like it’s working then. That’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel."

She gave him a look. "That’s either very encouraging or deeply alarming."

"Probably both," he said.

Hannah laughed — and there it was, exactly the laugh his memory had been reaching for. He hadn’t heard it in four years and it had arrived completely unchanged.

"I spoke to James and Callum a few days ago," she said, her tone shifting slightly. "They mentioned they hadn’t been able to get hold of you in a couple of years. They thought maybe you’d moved away or cut people off intentionally."

"No, nothing like that," Steven said. "I lost my phone and couldn’t recover the data. Everything went with it." He paused. "I’ve thought about them more than once. I just had no way of reaching anyone."

Hannah nodded slowly. "I thought it was something like that. James said the same thing — that it didn’t sound like you. But when someone disappears for two years without explanation, people fill in the gaps with whatever makes sense to them."

"I know," Steven said. "I’ll explain when I see them."

"About that," Hannah said, and her expression shifted into something more purposeful. "We’re actually putting together a get together. Two days from now. Everyone from our class. And I mean everyone — James, Callum, Priya, Marcus, Sasha, the whole group. It came together about three days ago and it’s been moving fast."

Steven looked at her. "Seriously?"

"Seriously. We’ve been overdue for years and it took someone finally saying let’s actually do it for it to happen." She tilted her head. "You should come."

Steven thought about it. The motorcycle course was Saturday. The due diligence report was expected sometime next week. The immediate days were genuinely open.

"Where is it being held?" he asked.

"Still being decided," she said. "We only agreed on the idea a few days ago. The details are getting sorted in the group chat."

"There’s a group chat?"

Hannah looked at him with mild amusement. "Yes, Steven. There is a group chat. It’s not that unusual."

"No, I know. I’m just —" he paused. "I didn’t expect there to be a group chat."

"Well there is. And I can add you right now if you give me your number." She pulled out her phone, ready.

He gave it to her. She saved it, opened a messaging app and sent him a text, and he felt the buzz in his pocket. He confirmed receipt and she forwarded the group link without ceremony.

"Join whenever you’re ready," she said. "Fair warning though — when you do, there will be questions. A lot of them. You’ve been off the grid for two years and showing up in a group chat is going to cause a reaction."

"I can imagine," Steven said.

"So pace yourself." She smiled. "It’s good that you’re doing well. I mean that. Whatever it is that changed, it suits you."

"Thank you," Steven said, and he meant it more than the two words conveyed.

She looked down the street and then back at him. "I should get going. The study group waits for no one, apparently."

"Can I give you a lift?" Steven asked. "I’m heading toward Kirby Drive."

"I wish," she said. "I’m going toward Sugar Land. Wrong direction entirely."

"Another time then," he said.

"Definitely." She shifted her bag again and stepped back slightly, the universal signal of a departure that was actually about to happen. "Talk soon, Steven. Don’t be a stranger this time."

"I won’t," he said.

She waved once and turned, walking back down the street with the same unhurried pace she had approached with. He watched her for a moment, then got into the Aston Martin.

He started the engine but didn’t pull out immediately.

He sat with it for a moment. The chance nature of the encounter — the timing of it, the exact convergence of the gym visit and her study group and the particular morning — was the kind of thing that, a few weeks ago, would have slid past him entirely. He would have been too tired, too preoccupied with survival, too deep in the noise of a life that left no room for anything that wasn’t immediately necessary.

Instead he had been standing in a parking lot at the right time on the right morning and someone he had lost years ago had walked back into his line of sight.

He thought about James and Callum and the others. He had not allowed himself to think about them often because missing people you couldn’t reach was an exercise in frustration that he hadn’t been able to afford. He had filed them away under the category of things that might return to him someday if the circumstances allowed.

The circumstances were allowing.

He pulled up the group chat link Hannah had sent, looked at it for a moment, then set the phone on the passenger seat. He would join later, when he was back in the apartment. Hannah had been right — it would cause a reaction, and he wanted to be somewhere comfortable when it did.

He pulled out of the parking space and headed back toward Kirby Drive, his mind already moving ahead to what the get together might look like, what two years would feel like when collapsed into a single afternoon, what version of himself he was going to show up as.

He drove through the city with the window down slightly, the morning air moving through the car.