The crowd kept going.

"Even with her contact, what’s the point? You think Sophie Youngs is going to date him because he bought real estate? She’s not a vending machine."

"This is the most pathetic simp behavior I’ve ever seen in my life."

"He liquidated his life savings for a Snapchat add. Let that sink in."

The verdict from the peanut gallery was swift and merciless. In their eyes, Stan Harrison had just committed the most spectacular act of self-destructive simping in the history of Peak University.

A million-dollar house, probably his entire net worth, probably everything he had, probably borrowed from three different relatives, thrown away on the infinitesimally slim chance that Sophie Youngs might look his way twice. If they had any idea what Stan had actually bought, an entire exclusive building, not just a unit, they’d be completely stunned.

Anyways they pitied him. Some mocked him. A few of them almost respected the sheer, deranged commitment of it.

None of them had any idea what they were actually looking at.

Stan heard every word. He let them wash over him like traffic noise.

’Let them talk.’

From the outside, yes, he understood how it looked. A broke college kid burning his savings to impress a girl who was out of his league. The optics were terrible. The narrative wrote itself. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Every person in this square was going to walk away with the same conclusion: Stan Harrison was a lovesick fool who’d bankrupted himself for a Snapchat ID.

He almost smiled. ’None of them understand the stakes. None of them ever will.’

What they didn’t know, what they couldn’t possibly know, was that the "house" was actually an entire building. That the purchase had already triggered a rebate worth six hundred and fifty million dollars.

That Stan’s net worth had increased by buying the property, not decreased. And that every dollar spent on Sophie Youngs from this point forward was going to come back to him multiplied by a factor that would make most investment bankers quietly resign.

He wasn’t simping. He was investing. And the returns were already in his account.

Sophie, meanwhile, was looking down at her phone, the faintest trace of color in her cheeks as she opened her QR code for him to scan. She held the screen toward him without quite meeting his eyes.

A shadow cut across the space between them before the QR code could finish scanning.

A man in dark sunglasses stepped forward with the deliberate, unhurried stride of someone who had never once been asked to explain his presence anywhere. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Mid-twenties. His expression carried the permanent, low-grade irritation of a man who had been dealing with this exact situation far too many times to find it interesting anymore.

Arnold Cain. Sophie’s older cousin.

He positioned himself neatly between Stan and Sophie, arms folded, chin slightly raised, the universal body language of a gatekeeper who had no intention of stepping aside.

Arnold had seen the viral video. Of course he had. Everyone on campus had seen it, the clip of some sharply dressed junior walking up to Sophie in front of a crowd and asking for her Snapchat with the kind of calm confidence that was either impressive or delusional, depending on your perspective. Sophie had shut him down with the Four Seasons Garden line, and Arnold had mentally filed the incident under another one handled.

He’d assumed that would be the end of it. They always gave up after Sophie named an impossible price. That was the whole point.

Except this one hadn’t given up. This one had apparently gone out and bought the house.

Arnold’s eyes moved over Stan with the practiced assessment of a man who’d evaluated at least fifty would-be suitors a month for the past two years. Maybe a hundred. They came in all varieties, rich kids, athletes, campus celebrities, the occasional genuinely deranged stalker, and they all had one thing in common: they believed that some combination of money, persistence, and grand gestures could purchase access to his sister.

This one looked different. Arnold could see it, a steadiness in the kid’s bearing that most of the others lacked. And he could see something else too, something he hadn’t expected: the way Sophie’s eyes had softened the moment Stan had walked up. The slight color in her cheeks. The way she’d said okay before Stan had even mentioned the house.

She liked this one. That much was obvious.

But that only made it worse.

"Who do you think you are?"

Arnold’s voice was low and even, but it carried the full weight of his displeasure.

"You think you can trade a house for my sister’s contact information? You think that’s how this works?" He stepped forward slightly, close enough to make the boundary clear. "My sister is not a commodity. She’s not something you buy access to."

He reached over and gently but firmly pushed Sophie’s phone hand down before the QR code could be scanned.

Stan met his eyes steadily.

"Sophie promised me herself," he said, keeping his voice calm. "She set the terms. I met them. I’m here to follow through."

"She agreed." Arnold nodded once, acknowledging the point. "But I don’t. So don’t put the blame on her for not keeping her word, she tried. I’m the one stopping her."

He let that sit for a beat, then continued, irritation sharpening the edges of his voice.

"I just said it, she’s not a commodity. It doesn’t matter how many people are chasing her, or what they own, or what they can or can’t buy. None of that entitles anyone to a single second of her time."

A brief pause.

"And it definitely doesn’t mean she’s obligated to entertain you."

The words were blunt. Deliberately unpleasant. The kind of speech designed to make a man turn around and leave without looking back.

Stan’s jaw tightened slightly. He understood Arnold’s position, he did. If he had a sister as beautiful as Sophie, he’d probably be standing in the same spot, saying the same things, radiating the same protective hostility toward every stranger who showed up with a receipt and an expectation.

But understanding the position didn’t make the obstruction any less annoying.

Behind Arnold, Sophie was sending her cousin small, urgent signals, a slight shake of her head, a pointed look, the kind of silent sibling shorthand that screamed stop, you’re ruining this, but Arnold either didn’t see them or didn’t care. His attention was locked on Stan, and he wasn’t moving.