Chapter 6: Rejected
"Hey — look. It's Veronica and Wallace."
Meg spotted them first, nodding toward a corner table near the courtyard wall. Simon looked over and sure enough, there they were — Veronica picking at a salad, Wallace talking with his hands about something, both of them looking like they'd known each other longer than one morning.
"Huh," Simon said.
"Let's go over."
She was already moving before he answered.
They set their trays down and Simon dropped into the seat across from Wallace.
"So when did you two become best friends?" he asked.
Wallace leaned back and spread his hands like the answer was obvious. "Okay, think about it from my perspective. I'm new. I've got exactly two options for social connections so far. Option A — the people who taped me to a flagpole and took selfies. Option B — the people who cut me down." He shrugged. "It wasn't a hard call."
"For the record," Simon said, "I also cut you down."
"I know." Wallace pointed at him. "Which is why you're my boy. You need anything — I mean anything — you say the word."
"Appreciate that."
"Besides," Wallace added, glancing between Simon and Meg with the diplomatic awareness of someone who had already mapped the room's social dynamics in less than twenty-four hours, "I'm not trying to be a third wheel. I know how to read a situation."
Simon laughed. He liked this kid. Neptune had a way of grinding people down or sharpening them, and Wallace was clearly the second kind.
He turned to Veronica. "The Weevil situation — you two figure something out?"
"We made a deal," Veronica said, in the tone she used when she'd already solved something and found the conversation about it mildly tedious. "We keep his guys out of trouble with the school administration. He leaves Wallace alone going forward."
"That actually hold?"
"It'll hold."
Simon studied her for a second. "You need anything from me on that?"
"We're good."
He nodded. "Offer stands."
"Noted," Wallace said. Veronica said nothing, which with Veronica meant the same thing.
The afternoon moved the way school afternoons moved — slowly until they didn't, and then suddenly it was three o'clock and Meg was heading to musical rehearsal and Simon was alone in the parking lot with his truck and a decision he'd been putting off all day.
He drove to the garage.
He'd been thinking about UCLA since junior year.
Not USC — too expensive, and the financial aid wasn't generous enough to make the math work. Not a school out of state, for the same reason. UCLA was the right answer: close enough that he could live at home and skip the housing costs, strong enough academically that it actually meant something, and public enough that the tuition, while brutal, was at least theoretically survivable.
The Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science was his target. Mechanical engineering specifically. It was the most direct line between what Simon was already good at and what the job market would actually pay for. With his Mechanic skills at Expert level — real, deep, practiced knowledge of how machines worked at a fundamental level — he was confident he could outperform almost anyone in that program from day one.
He just needed to get there first. Which required money he didn't have yet.
Which was the whole problem.
Dom was underneath a Charger when Simon found him, a creeper rolled halfway out from under the chassis, a torque wrench in one hand.
"Dom." Simon crouched down. "You talk to everyone?"
Dom rolled out the rest of the way and sat up. He wiped his hands on a shop rag and looked at Simon with the expression of a man who'd already made his decision and wasn't happy about having to say it out loud.
"Yeah," Dom said. "We talked."
A beat.
"And?"
"We can't bring you in, Simon."
Simon kept his face even. "Why."
"Because you've got something ahead of you." Dom stood up, tossing the rag over his shoulder. "What we're doing — it's not your road."
Letty came around the side of the car, already reading the room. "Simon, come on. You're almost out. Don't blow that."
"She's right, man." Vince appeared in the doorway to the back bay, arms crossed. "This isn't your scene."
Jesse leaned out from behind a workbench. "Hey — if cash is the problem, I've got some saved up. Like, not a lot, but—"
"It's fine," Simon said.
It wasn't fine. But he wasn't going to stand there and argue with all four of them at once.
He looked at Dom for one more second — Dom who had taught him to drive, who had given him his first real shot at the races, who was currently telling him no for reasons Simon understood even if he didn't accept them.
Then he walked back to the truck and drove away.
Letty watched the truck turn out of the lot and disappear.
She moved up beside Dom, who was staring after it.
"He'll get over it," she said.
Dom didn't answer for a while. Then: "Yeah."
He picked the torque wrench back up and went back to work. But his jaw was set in the way it got when something was bothering him that he wasn't ready to talk about.
Simon drove two blocks to Mia's grocery and sat down at the counter.
"Beer," he said.
Mia looked at his face, pulled a bottle from the cooler, popped the cap, and set it in front of him without asking.
"Dom said no," Simon said.
"I know." She leaned on the counter. "And I agree with him."
Simon looked up.
"I'm serious," Mia said. "Simon — I've known you for years. You're not built for that life. You're built for something better and you know it."
"I'm built for whatever gets me where I need to go." He took a drink. "And right now I need money. A lot of it. And that was the fastest way."
"It's also the fastest way to throw everything away." Mia's voice stayed level, but there was something underneath it — the particular worry of someone who had watched people she loved make the same calculation and come out wrong. "You're not out of options. You're just out of easy options. Those aren't the same thing."
Simon turned the bottle in his hands.
She wasn't wrong. He knew she wasn't wrong. The problem was that the right answer required time he wasn't sure he had, and patience he was running low on.
"Think about it," Mia said, softer. "You're smarter than this move. Find another way."
She disappeared into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a tuna melt she set in front of him without ceremony.
"On me tonight. Eat. Then go home and sleep — you look like you haven't done either properly in two days."
Simon almost smiled. "Thanks, Mia."
"Don't mention it."
He was halfway through the sandwich when the door opened.
The sound of the System activating was by now as familiar as a text notification.
DING.
[ Fast & Furious franchise protagonist: Brian O'Conner. Daily check-in available. ]
Check in.
[ Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery: +100 XP. ]
Simon looked sideways without moving his head. The guy who'd come in was maybe mid-twenties — easy build, blond, the kind of face that looked naturally trustworthy. He sat down two stools over, picked up the laminated menu, and frowned at it like he was making a serious decision.
"Tuna melt," he said when Mia came out. "Thanks."
Simon went back to his own sandwich.
A moment passed.
"These actually good here?" the guy asked — not rudely, just making conversation. "The sandwiches?"
Simon considered the tuna melt in his hand. "Honest answer? Not really."
"So why are you eating here?"
"Habit." Simon shrugged. "You eat somewhere long enough, the taste stops mattering. You just keep coming back."
The guy nodded like that made complete sense. "I'm Brian, by the way."
"Simon."
They shook hands with the casual ease of two people who had nothing particular to hide at this exact moment.
"You from around here?" Brian asked.
"Grew up two blocks over. You?"
"Just moved in." He glanced around the place. "Trying to get the lay of the land."
Mia came out with Brian's sandwich, and when she set it down she caught Simon's eye.
"Dom's crew is heading back soon," she said quietly. "You might want to..."
Simon understood. The last thing he wanted right now was an awkward reunion in a twelve-foot diner counter.
He folded a ten onto the counter, stood up, nodded at Brian. "Good luck with the neighborhood."
"Thanks." Brian was already reading the menu again. "Something tells me I'm gonna need it."
Simon pushed through the door and out into the evening.
Behind him, through the window, he could see Mia saying something to Brian and Brian laughing at whatever it was.
He stood by the truck for a second, hands in his pockets, looking up at the strip of California sky visible between the rooftops.
Find another way.
He'd figure it out.
He always did.
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