เข้าสู่ระบบThe car ride passed in silence.Eventually, Nathaniel handed his phone over. “Anything to add?”Nora took it. Onscreen, a message thread to Richard’s father.Nathaniel: I won’t even mention that Richard arrived after we did, dead last. Walked in one-armed around Vivian, handing off a gift with the other, a Buddha statue, for the founder’s own grandmother.Nathaniel: His invitation went out over a month ago. Not only did he show, he crashed a private family dinner and pitched a nonexistent partnership over the meal.Nathaniel: He served the host the first bite of food, personally. They spent the whole meal feeding each other, hand to hand. When cake came out, he demanded a slice of the low-sugar cake made specifically for Grandma Chen.Nathaniel: On the way out, he took a shot at Nora directly. She’d already texted him earlier to leave quietly, he not only stayed, he escalated it in front of everyone.Nathaniel: Dad, if you can’t handle this, I’m perfectly happy pretending this nephew
Approaching the table, Nora caught Marcus murmuring something to a waiter.She glanced over. Marcus leaned in, quiet. “I sent Richard’s invitation over a month ago, never actually reserved seats for them at this table. I genuinely didn’t expect them to show.”Anything sent beyond the standard thirty-day window functioned as a soft rejection, the polite version of “send a gift, don’t bother coming.”It was the polite way to invite someone you were obligated to include but didn’t actually want present. Marcus probably felt awkward inviting Nathaniel without technically extending something to his nephew too.In her last life, Sophie would’ve handled correspondence like that, and any invite arriving that far out would’ve triggered a simple gift-and-decline. Richard actually showing up hadn’t been on the table.He probably had no idea exactly when the invite arrived, and Vivian, oblivious to the etiquette entirely and driven purely by wanting to compete with Nora, had dragged him along reg
Nora didn’t much care how her father and Edward kept bragging after the night fishing trip, she just rested at home until the day of Grandma Chen’s birthday.Marcus Chen, full name Marcus Chen, was a genuinely capable executive, not just a major shareholder of TikTok, but one of its actual founders, still running point on the platform to this day.If she handled things right with Marcus personally, the partnership with TikTok was basically already locked in.So instead of the original plan, show up for the gift exchange, leave immediately, Nora decided to arrive early and stay through dinner. She’d brought a rare piece of antique art, after all; showing up for two minutes wouldn’t do it justice.“How does this look? Nothing off, right?”She kept asking, repeatedly, on their way out.She’d originally assumed her marriage to Nathaniel would stay strictly hands-off, mutual respect and nothing else. Instead it kept feeling more like an ordinary couple, and questions like this had started
The whole point of night fishing is staying up. Nobody was supposed to sleep, that was the deal.Six tents pitched along the water, and not a single one had anybody inside.Nora had been fishing purely for fun, not tracking her catches at all, until her back finally started screaming from sitting too long. As the sky darkened fully, she stood and stretched.At the neighboring pond, her father and Edward remained deep in concentration. Richard and Vivian, though, had vanished.A few minutes later, the two of them reappeared, walking back with Richard’s assistant.“Grabbed some snacks and drinks for later, juice, soda, whatever, help yourselves if you’re hungry.”“Oh, right, I actually packed food too. Still in the car.”Nora smacked her forehead.“Want me to grab it?”“Let’s go together. I know what I packed and where.”Before Vivian could volunteer to join, Nora grabbed Nathaniel’s arm and pulled him toward the car first.The dirt path at night was rough going, especially in midsummer
The meal ended in easy warmth. The moment Edward and Nora’s father finished eating, they bolted straight back to the riverbank to keep watch over the lines.Maybe it was the change of scenery, but Nora’s video feed had shifted almost entirely to fishing content. One clip stopped her cold, a kid pulling in fish with what was clearly a toy rod, some kind of plastic dinosaur-shaped thing.Her own father’s gear ran well into six figures, not counting entry fees per session, tonight’s outing alone probably cost a real number.If he ever saw this video, she wondered if he’d have an actual stroke.“What are you looking at?”“Look at this.”Nora handed her phone to Nathaniel just as her father, curious, leaned over from a few feet away. One glance and he erupted. “Impossible! Absolutely fake! That video’s staged!”“Fine, fine, it’s fake. I’m just watching for fun.”“What’s so interesting about it? Want to actually try fishing with us?”Nora hesitated at the question.Was she getting a preview
“Bite! We’ve got a bite!”“Told you the bug spray wouldn’t matter, I didn’t pour it in the river! Taking a picture right now, sending it to the whole chat!”Edward was practically vibrating with excitement.“Big Brother, that fish isn’t really that big, though.”The catch was decent, but average-sized, nowhere near the trophy fish from before.“Oh, don’t worry about that. At least dinner’s covered. We’ll keep casting after we eat.”He held the basket up for Nora and Nathaniel to admire.The haul had come in strong, seven or eight decent fish thrashing in the basket, plus a whole scatter of smaller ones. Way more than four people could eat in one sitting.“I’ll have Kevin run these to a restaurant nearby, get them cooked and brought back. You two keep fishing, dinner will come to you.”“We could just go eat there, couldn’t we? Hauling it back sounds like a hassle.”Edward and her father both felt a flicker of guilt watching Nathaniel accommodate them so easily.“No hassle at all. This







