Wait, How Much Was That Again?

Josh rested his chin on his fist as he stared out the window, rolling over the various complexities of the situation in his mind and figuring out the best way to holy shit he was RICH!

Snatching up his phone again (and nearly hurling it a fair distance for the second time in twenty minutes), he navigated over to his bank account and almost had a heart attack. ‘More money than he could comfortably spend’ meant that he was looking at enough zeroes to **** a dolphin, much in the same way it was cutting off oxygen to his brain.

Realistically, this was probably the first thing he should have done once he found out he had a reality-warping app. All of those fetish things had gone a long way toward creating the type of world he’d like to live in, no doubt, but winning the National Service Lottery (otherwise known as the Nasal, his half-interested memories told him, some kind of wealth-distribution program that changed parameters every x-ty years or so) would go a long way toward improving the quality of that life. Forget building materials, I can buy an entire house! Sara and I can move out of that apartment, quit our day jobs, and settle in for a life of infinite rest and relaxation! We’ll live like kings! We’ll never want or need another thing again, and we’ll never need to work another day in our… hmmm. Josh sagged in his seat as he considered that Sara actually liked being a cop—using her Valkyrie strength to bust bad guys was something that she enjoyed, and gave her a reason to get up in the morning. Could he really take that away from her? And his own office job wasn’t so bad. Maybe. A little. Well, it was alright. At the very least, I can use all my money to ride around in her patrol car, like on Castle—OOO! We can buy up every season of Castle!

Josh reached up to rub his brow, realizing that somewhere along the way he’d gotten a bit sidetracked. The important thing was, he’d already made the decision that mattered--that he was determined to see the spark of delight in Sara’s eyes as he railed another woman in front of her. The only question was how…

How…

How…

Josh considered this question all of the way home, while driving through city streets, waiting at stop lights, and then getting honked at for lingering too long at said stop lights. By the time he pulled in to his apartment’s lot, he almost welcomed the reprieve of pondering the problem in regard to exactly how he was going to get all of his materials up his building’s stairs without his Russian beau--when his phone suddenly buzzed with her smiling face, as if reading his mind.

S: Hey babe

J: What’s up

S: Nothin much, but Anna’s feeling a little down

J: What happened, did she get sold

Josh’s thumb snapped back a second before sending his message as a reply, the words speaking to his state of mind and him being a stupid, stupid idiot.

J: What’s up

J: ?

Instead of replying, Sara merely showed a screenshot of a conversation they’d had earlier that day, with Anna doing most of the talking:

A: fucking FUCK

A: FUCK EVERYTHING

A: FUCK MEN

A: FUCK WOMEN

A: (except 4 u sar-bear)

A: FUCK

A: GBSUUAFSUIFWUFUSJEGNEGUIE

Josh winced at the series of symbols that was probably something like an open palm striking the keyboard, then composed a response.

J: Looks pretty rough. What happened?

S: She had a break-up, and she’s not taking it very well. I know it’s not how you wanted to spend your day off, but do you think you could stop by and check on her? I’m still at work

Josh’s thumb flexed and shifted indecisively in the air. Oh, you mean the woman I was thinking of buying is both newly single AND emotionally ****? This can only end well.

J: Sure, I’ll stop by, I was just about done with my running around anyway

S: Thanks babe, you’re the best <3

Despite it taking around a half hour to unload everything that he’d bought into their apartment's designated garage, and another twenty minutes to drive to Anna’s place, it didn’t occur to him until he was walking up the stairs to the Asian woman’s floor that this might have been an attempt by his girlfriend to facilitate the exact kind of thing he’d been agonizing over for the past hour+. That’s obviously wishful thinking. Josh thought as he emerged into Anna’s hallway. Isn’t it?

The thudding of his heart colored the edges of his vision a pulsing red, which only further served to remind him of what was probably the color of Anna’s grandmother’s hair. Come on, think of something, anything else… What are Anna’s other ethnicities, anyway? Josh found this question frustratingly hard to answer, hovering just as tantalizingly out of reach as Sara’s had earlier. It ended up distracting him enough that he found himself knocking on Anna’s door without an ounce of hesitation, rendering the point moot as it opened after a brief pause to reveal…