Even from the opening paragraph, I could tell there was a real person on the other side of the screen—someone genuinely interested in me. A small IT startup, more like three friends with a dream, was looking for a junior developer for mostly remote work. Despite that, the offered salary was two and a half times what I earned at the café—even on good nights with heavy tips.
No unnecessary formalities—just a date, a place for the interview, and an attached file with a test assignment to see what I could do.
I was so thrilled by their message that I immediately wrote back, confirming the time. Then I opened the file and dove into the task, heart pounding, afraid to lose my chance—and determined not to fail.
Two days later, I found myself standing in front of a heavy wooden door, wearing a slightly loose jacket, a crisp white shirt, and a pair of shoes I'd borrowed from a classmate. My heart sank the moment I lifted my eyes to the neon sign above it: "Hookah Lounge."
For a few seconds, I was speechless. Surely this was a prank. Some cruel joke from my classmates, who all knew about my desperate attempts to find a job. There was no promising tech startup, no career opportunity—just me, a fool in borrowed shoes, standing outside a smoky bar.
Really, what legitimate company would hire a student with no experience, offer remote work, and pay above the market rate? The position had been a dream served on a silver platter—too good to be true. And in my excitement, I'd blinded myself to the obvious.
Angry—mostly at myself—I was already turning to leave when the door opened.
"Hey, you there!" a voice called out. "You Mark, by any chance?"
I froze and nodded, half-expecting the bald man with the thick dark beard and gold hoop earring to laugh in my face and tell me I'd been pranked. But he didn't. Instead, he stepped forward, offered a firm handshake, then clapped me on the shoulder and, almost by force, pulled me inside.
Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out if my future boss, Oleg, hadn't stepped out for a breath of fresh air that afternoon. Had we missed each other by even a minute, fortune might've slipped from my hands like a wet bar of soap in the shower.
After that first meeting in the hookah lounge, I quickly learned a simple truth: in Moscow, small businesses rarely begin over watery coffee in bright co-working spaces near the ring road—they're born here, among swirls of fruity smoke and patterned carpets, in dim rooms filled with murmurs and ambition.
Since I didn't smoke, I often had to excuse myself during discussions just to gulp some fresh air outside. Luckily, I wasn't the only one. Oleg, too, preferred oxygen to tobacco clouds, and would step out with me.
We hit it off fast.
The project had a steady flow of investment, and I handled my tasks well—approaching every problem with both precision and creativity. I enjoyed the work. With the right people beside me, I could feel my own potential unfolding.
By the time I received my diploma, our company had grown by fifteen employees. I'd been promoted, with new responsibilities that occasionally required my presence in the office. Things were moving fast.
Before I even realized it, I was renting a two-room apartment near the metro and dining out in cozy restaurants where they brought guests a compliment from the chef before the main course: the softest herbed butter with garlic and warm, freshly baked rolls whose thin crust gave the sweetest little crunch under the tongue.
Life was… good.
Not perfect, not thrilling, but steady. I no longer feared the thought of returning to my parents' home. I could set aside savings for a rainy day and look toward the future with a cautious optimism.
And yet, something was missing. That quiet, ordinary picture of life felt incomplete, though I couldn't yet say why.
Not until I met her.
It's hard to say which of us stepped into whose life first—me into Lisa's, or Lisa into mine. We met suddenly, and inevitably, it seemed, at a lonely bar counter in the grand lobby of a St. Petersburg hotel.
I was there with my team for a business meeting. She was there for a book fair—as a featured author.
That night, I couldn't sleep. Morning loomed ahead with my first major presentation for a partner project—one I had to deliver myself, in front of ten strangers in tailored suits and heavy gold watches. The closer the hour crept, the faster my heart pounded, while my mind painted failure after failure with cinematic precision.
I could already imagine it: my voice cracking on the first slide, my hand shaking as I reached for the water pitcher, spilling it all over the table, the clients, and myself. Then, of course, I'd drop the glass, panic, bend down to clean it up, trip over a cable, and go crashing backward—hitting my head on the edge of the table before being wheeled out of the conference room on a stretcher in utter disgrace.
My imagination, once it got going, could turn the faintest anxiety into full-blown catastrophe—an entire sitcom episode starring a bumbling fool who couldn't keep his life together. I wasn't clumsy in reality, but that never stopped my mind from replaying disaster reels on loop whenever I cared too much.
After tossing and turning for what felt like hours, I gave up on sleep, got dressed, and headed downstairs to the hotel lobby. Even past midnight, the air hummed with a soft blues tune. Behind the lacquered bar stood a bartender in a pristine white shirt and a gold-embroidered vest, polishing glasses with patient precision.
And I wasn't the only guest awake.
To my surprise, a young woman sat at the bar—a slender, delicate figure perched on a tall metal stool. A platinum blonde with hair barely brushing her chin. She glanced at me briefly, tucking a strand behind her ear.