Steam curls past the hovering panel; the burner hums; Jace keeps his chopsticks steady.
His phone kicks twice.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback: ×3.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Disbursement today: +$402.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Total cashback disbursed today: +$639.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $99,361.00.
Max's grin detonates. "Ha! You just made dinner pay for dinner."
"Dinner plus cab fare," Jace says. He doesn't whoop; he adjusts the pot two centimeters center, wipes a splash off the lip with the folded napkin the server left for exactly that job, then slides a plate of beef toward Max. "Again."
"Again… how?" Max chews, eyes bright.
"Separate charge," Jace says, catching the server's eye. "Can I add a $50 tip now on a second transaction?"
"Of course," she says, already thumbing the reader awake. "Tap here."
Jace pays.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend detected: $50.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Evaluating Talent…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback: ×2.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Disbursement today: +$100.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Total cashback disbursed today: +$739.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $99,261.00.
Max points with his chopsticks. "You tipped and made more than you tipped."
"House edge flipped," Jace says. "For now."
Three varsity jackets at the next table are arguing spice levels like it's religion. One guy—wide shoulders, shallow hinge control—stands too fast and hip-checks Jace's table. The pot skates half an inch; a sheet of red broth races toward Max's wrists.
Jace moves in a straight line: left hand clamps the pot handle, right hand braces the table edge, body weight low. The steel scrapes; heat licks his knuckles; the red sheet collapses back into itself instead of onto skin. Two droplets make it over and sting. He doesn't flinch.
"Watch it!" Max barks, pushing his chair back. The sound scrapes the tile like a threat.
"You slammed into us," the varsity kid says, chin out, grateful to find a target for his embarrassment.
"You stood into the pot," Jace says, voice even. He keeps his hands where they are for one extra second so the table feels anchored and everyone's nervous system believes him.
The manager appears, black shirt, steady face. "Everything okay here?"
"It is," Jace says before the kid builds a story. He nods at the other table's sauce dish where a plate of tripe lies overturned, ruined. "Charge me for anything they spilled. It's faster than arguing."
The kid blinks at being handed the high ground he didn't earn. His friends elbow him to shut up.
The manager weighs the tableau in a second and nods. "That dish is $26."
"Run it," Jace says.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend detected: $26.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Evaluating Talent…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback: ×0.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Disbursement today: +$0.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Total cashback disbursed today: +$739.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $99,261.00.
Max winces. "Oof."
"Odds are odds," Jace says, and means it. He dips a folded napkin in water, presses it to his knuckles once. Angry pink, not blistered. He files the pain under later and flips tofu into the broth with a smooth wrist.
The server checks the burner. "Do you sell a to-go kit?" Jace asks. "Broth and a few items, packed."
"We do. Family pack is $35."
"Add it. Please run it now."
She beams, thumbs the reader.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend detected: $35.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Evaluating Talent…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback: ×3.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Disbursement today: +$105.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Total cashback disbursed today: +$844.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $99,156.00.
Max leans back, hands up. "Okay, bishop of numbers. I'm ready to be baptized."
"Eat," Jace says. He builds Max a perfect bite—beef, mushroom cap, a square of tofu that's soaked just enough—and drops it into his bowl with surgical cheer.
The manager swings by again, discreet, reading the table the way good managers do. Jace meets his eye. "Do you sell house gift cards? I'd like to load $200."
The manager's eyebrows tick up—just recalibrating. "We do. Most guests load fifty or a hundred."
"I plan ahead," Jace says.
"Of course." The manager returns with a fresh card in a sleeve and a practiced smile. The reader chirps on the table.
Jace glances at the panel once to verify the category. It obliges.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend categorization: Gift card purchase = eligible merchant spend.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Advisory: frequent high-value sequential purchases at single merchant may attract attention.
"Load $200," Jace says.
Tap. Chirp.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend detected: $200.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Evaluating Talent…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback: ×3.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Disbursement today: +$600.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Total cashback disbursed today: +$1,444.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $98,556.00.
Max inhales like he just jumped into a cold lake. "You are the main character."
"Don't say that out loud," Jace says on reflex. He turns the gift card once between his fingers, then tucks it into his wallet in a different slot from his transit card. Redundancy is free; he pays for it with attention.
"You know," Max says, aiming for casual and hitting reverent, "if we weren't already friends, I'd try to date you for access to your menu."
"You're not my type."
"What is your type?"
"Receipts," Jace says.
The varsity loudmouth clears his throat and, unable to tolerate equilibrium, nods at Jace's hand. "You good?"
"Fine," Jace says. He means: he chose to be. He means: he kept the table from moving. The kid nods too hard and returns to his pot pretending it was all a boring misunderstanding.
"Manager," Jace says, when their eyes meet again. The tone is friendly, not secret. "One more. I'd like to load $1,000 on the same card. Please."
That lands. Not badly—just with weight. The manager's smile holds. "We can do that." He glances at the register and brings the reader with the same smoothness as before. "This may take a second."
Jace breathes once, even. He checks the panel the way a pilot checks a dial.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend categorization: Gift card purchase = eligible merchant spend.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Daily cap remaining (Cashback): $98,556.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Note: Host remains under daily cap.
He taps. The reader sings its little song and then thinks.
Heat lifts into his face from the pot; steam drapes his wrists. Around them, a server laughs at a regular's joke; a kid at a corner table announces the discovery of a mushroom shaped like a celebrity; ice clinks in glasses; the ventilation hums.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Spend detected: $1,000.00.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Evaluating Talent…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Verifying exclusions…[SYSTEM PROMPT] Eligible. Roll variance: active.[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback roll pending…
The manager's eyes flick to the reader's progress bar, then to Jace, then to the table: the tidy receipts, the controlled hands, the fact that nothing is messy here except variance itself. He nods once, like a man who recognizes another man's hobby and respects it from a safe distance. "Do you need anything else?"
"Dessert menu in a minute," Jace says. "After we see if the house likes us."
"Understood." The manager ghosts away to de-kink a jammed tray at a four-top with the same calm as before.
Max leans in. "If this hits like the last one, we are—what's the technical term—so up."
"If it doesn't," Jace says, "we eat dessert because we planned to eat dessert, not because the numbers told us we could."
"That's… healthy," Max says.
"My therapist would be thrilled," Jace says, and swishes greens through the broth. The color slides from forest to jade. He places the chopsticks on their rest parallel, centers his glass on its condensation ring, and straightens a corner of the sauce menu so it sits square with the table's edge. Control is a habit. Luck notices.
The reader blinks its patient blink.
A server carrying a full pot lifts her tray over their heads; Jace angles his shoulders to give her a clean line. A couple on a first date negotiates the concept of tripe with panic and grace. The varsity table has gone quiet now that their performance has no audience.
"Tell me again," Max says, "in small words, why you didn't pump the Money thing instead."
"Because I can spend by choice," Jace says. "Income needs other people to say yes. We start with the lever I can pull a hundred times a day without asking permission."
"And later?"
"Later we assign for income," Jace says. "When I've built runway." He nudges a mushroom to Max's bowl. "Later we buy time."
Max chews, swallows. "You sound like you practiced that speech in a mirror."
"I did," Jace says. "In a different life."
The reader pings—a small sonar blip from the edge of the table.
[SYSTEM PROMPT] Cashback roll pending…
Jace doesn't flinch. He watches the steam, breathing slow. The hot metal smell of the burner laces the star anise and chili. He counts the tiny bursts of bubbles: not to three this time, but to thirty.
"Whatever happens," Max says, "I'm ordering the chrysanthemum jelly."
"Live bold," Jace says.
They sit in that poised second where chance tries to remember their names.
And the house thinks, and thinks, and thinks.