Chapter 8: Doc
The valet at the hotel entrance took one look at the Supra and tried to hide his reaction. He mostly succeeded.
Simon handed over the keys, straightened his jacket, and walked around to the passenger side. He opened the door and offered his hand.
Meg took it, stepping out in a way that made the dress look intentional rather than the other way around — which it was, because everything Meg did was intentional, she just made it look effortless.
"Thank you," she said, taking his arm.
"You look incredible," Simon said.
"I know." She smiled. "You clean up pretty well yourself."
They rode the elevator up seventy-one floors in comfortable silence. The doors opened to 71Above — floor-to-ceiling glass, downtown Los Angeles laid out below them like a lit circuit board, white tablecloths and candlelight and the particular hush of a restaurant that understood its job was to make the view feel earned.
The host found Simon's reservation, led them to a window table, and left them with menus.
Meg looked out at the city for a moment without saying anything.
"Worth it?" Simon asked.
"Completely." She turned back to him. "We should come back."
"Whenever you want."
"I don't need a special occasion," she said. "I just need you."
Simon reached across the table and covered her hand with his.
The waiter appeared, took their orders — chef's recommendations for both, Simon didn't feel like making decisions tonight — and disappeared again.
They ate slowly, talked about nothing important, let the evening do what a good evening was supposed to do. By the time dessert arrived, the city below them had gone fully dark and the lights had multiplied.
Simon flagged the waiter for the check.
"Actually, sir," the waiter said, with the carefully neutral expression of someone delivering unexpected information, "your bill's been taken care of."
Simon looked up. "By who?"
The waiter stepped to the side and nodded toward the bar area near the entrance. "The gentleman over there."
Simon saw him immediately.
He was standing near the bar with a glass of something amber, talking to another man with the unhurried ease of someone who had never in his life felt the need to rush. Mid-fifties. Well-dressed in the way that didn't announce itself. A cigar burning slow between two fingers.
Simon knew who he was.
"Someone you know?" Meg asked, reading his expression.
"My parents' friend," Simon said, which was close enough to true that it didn't feel like a lie. "Give me a minute?"
Meg waved him off. "Go."
Simon crossed the room and stopped a respectful distance away, waiting until the man acknowledged him rather than interrupting.
The man turned. Took in Simon with the measured attention of someone who never looked at anything without taking notes.
"Mr. dubbed Doc," Simon said. "Good evening."
The man — Doc — drew on his cigar and let the smoke out slowly. "You know who I am."
"You came to see Dom about two years ago. I was there." Simon kept his hands loose at his sides, his voice easy. "You're the best wheelman coordinator on the West Coast. Some people call you the criminal's criminal. I've always thought that was reductive."
DING.
[ Baby Driver franchise protagonist detected: Doc. ]
[ Check-in available. Proceed? ]
Check in.
[ Select one skill: ]
[ 1. Composure (Passive) ]
[ 2. Enhanced Analytical Thinking (Passive) ]
Simon considered for half a second. Both were passive skills — no levels, no XP grind, just permanent traits baked in. The analytical upgrade was vague. Composure was specific and he knew exactly what it meant: the ability to stay functionally calm when everything around him was going wrong.
In this world, that was worth more than any amount of smarts.
One.
[ Passive skill acquired: Composure. This skill cannot be leveled up. It does not degrade. ]
[ Universal XP: +500. Consecutive daily check-ins will multiply this reward. ]
Something settled in Simon's chest — quiet, anchoring. Like a gyroscope finding its center. He filed it away and refocused.
Doc was watching him with the look of a man who was deciding something.
"You're perceptive," Doc said. It wasn't a compliment exactly. More of an observation being entered into evidence.
"You didn't pay for my dinner to make conversation," Simon said.
Doc almost smiled. "No." He took another draw from the cigar. "I need a driver. Sometime in the next few weeks. Someone who knows this city — not just the freeways, the streets. Someone who can read traffic in real time and make decisions faster than the other guy."
"And you chose me because Dom's occupied."
"I chose you because you're the best wheel in Los Angeles under thirty. Dom's occupied, yes. But even if he wasn't—" Doc tilted his head slightly. "You're hungry in a way he isn't anymore. Hunger matters."
Simon was quiet for a moment. "Split?"
"Even share. Every seat at the table gets the same piece."
"One job?"
"Maybe two. Depends how the first one goes."
Simon thought about the Buy More. About the fifteen hundred a month it would put in his account. About the two hundred thousand dollar problem sitting at the end of his senior year.
Then he thought about what Doc's jobs paid.
"I'm in," Simon said.
Doc reached into his jacket and produced a phone — a clean prepaid, nothing fancy. He held it out.
"When I have the crew together, I'll call," Doc said. "Keep it charged."
Simon took the phone and pocketed it. "I'll be ready."
Doc turned back toward the bar. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was complete.
Simon walked back to Meg.
"Everything okay?" she asked, reading his face the way she always did — not intrusively, just attentively.
"Fine." He sat down and picked up the last of his wine. "Old family connection. He was in the neighborhood."
Meg looked at him for just a moment longer than the answer required, then let it go. That was one of the things he valued most about her — she knew which questions to ask and which ones to leave alone.
"So," she said, leaning forward. "My place or yours?"
Simon set down the glass. "Yours is further."
She stood and took his hand. "Then we should get going."
Saturday morning.
Simon dropped Meg at her house just after nine, waited until the front door closed, and drove to the Buy More.
Doc's job was coming — he didn't know exactly when, but soon. In the meantime, he'd committed to Big Mike, and Simon didn't back out of commitments over something as abstract as inconvenience. Besides, Doc's work would be a few days at most. The Buy More would still be there after.
He found the employee entrance around back, got handed a green polo shirt with the Buy More logo on the chest, clipped on a name badge, and officially became a part-time floor associate without any orientation, any training module, or any instruction beyond be helpful, don't break anything, commission starts on day thirty.
Simon looked at the floor. The floor looked back at him.
"Hey."
He turned. Chuck Bartowski was standing six feet away holding a tablet and looking at Simon's polo shirt with the specific expression of someone who has just discovered an unexpected variable in a situation that was already complicated.
"Chuck," Simon said. "Hey."
"Why — what are you—" Chuck pointed at the shirt. "Is that a Buy More shirt?"
"I work here now. Part-time. I tried to tell you yesterday but you disappeared."
Chuck opened his mouth, closed it, looked over his shoulder at nothing in particular, then looked back. "You work here. At the Buy More. Starting today."
"Starting today."
Chuck processed this for what seemed like slightly longer than it should have taken. "Okay," he said, in the tone of a man deciding to accept something he couldn't do anything about. "Okay. Sure. That's — yeah. Fine." He started to back away. "I've got a thing, so—"
"Bartowski."
Big Mike's voice carried across the floor like a foghorn finding land.
Chuck froze.
Big Mike lumbered toward them, moving with the deliberate momentum of a man who had decided something. "Chuck. Good timing. I've got a job for you."
"Big Mike, today is genuinely a bad—"
"Don't finish that sentence." Big Mike stopped in front of them, looked between Chuck and Simon, and pointed. "You're going to show the new guy the ropes. Sales floor, Nerd Herd basics, where the stock room is. The whole thing."
Chuck stared. "You want me to—"
"Train him. Yes."
"I have—"
"The answer is yes, Chuck."
A long pause.
Chuck looked at Simon. Simon looked at Chuck.
"Okay," Chuck said, in the voice of a man accepting a fate he didn't choose. "Fine. Let me just—" He glanced at the front entrance. Then at the back hallway. Then at Simon. "Do you want to start with the floor layout or the point-of-sale system?"
"Dealer's choice," Simon said.
Chuck pointed toward the nearest aisle. "Floor layout. Come on."
Simon followed him, hands in his pockets, taking in the store at a new angle.
He had the quiet feeling that working here was going to be considerably more interesting than anyone involved currently understood.
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