But the room was still buzzing. Students whispering, phones subtly coming out to google Mayvel land prices, the entrepreneurial spark lit in a dozen minds at once.
Exactly as Mark had planned. He didn't even have to look behind him. He could feel Alex Sentara's attention sharpening, that predatory focus rich kids got when they smelled opportunity. That little flicker of curiosity, the mental gears turning as Alex started calculating what it would mean to his grandfather if he pulled off a successful land flip on his own.
Hook set. Line ready. Now he just had to reel it in before the forty-eight-hour countdown ran out. The system notification pulsed quietly in his vision.
[TASK FOUR: Progress 15%]
[STRATEGY DETECTED: Land flip scheme initiated | ESTIMATED SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 64%]
[WARNING: Multiple variables remain uncontrolled]
Sixty-four percent. Not the best odds, but better than zero. And it was the best plan he had given the time constraints.
Mr. Chen droned on about market elasticity while Mark's mind raced through the next steps. He needed to contact the land owner in Mayvel immediately. Needed to secure an option to buy at $600,000 or less. Needed to make sure Alex took the bait.
And he needed to do all of it in less than two days. He pulled out his phone under the desk and typed quickly.
Hey, sorry. Crazy busy today. Can we meet tomorrow instead? Promise I'll explain everything.
He hit send to Becky and slipped the phone back under his notebook. He almost made it.
"The Moonwell girl."
Mark turned. Sherry was looking at him with her arms crossed over her desk, chin tilted slightly, the way people look when they're trying to appear less interested than they are.
"Yes," he said.
"Are you two something?"
"Not yet."
The words landed and she let them sit there for a second, turning them over.
"Not yet," she repeated, like the phrase had personally offended her. She'd abandoned all pretense of watching Mr. Chen. "What does that even mean."
Mark glanced toward the door. Alex was rising from his seat in the back, slipping out into the corridor with the quiet efficiency of someone who'd already made a decision. There he goes.
"Mark." Sherry's voice dropped half a register. "I asked you a question."
He looked back at her. She had that expression again, the one from the library, the one she packed away before it became anything he was allowed to name. Her pen was tapping a slow rhythm against her notebook without her seeming to notice.
"It means what it means," Mark said simply, and turned back to his notes.
The pen stopped tapping. He could feel her looking at the side of his face for a long moment before she finally turned back toward the board. Mr. Chen was still going, chalk squeaking, completely unaware that two entirely separate negotiations were happening in his classroom simultaneously. Mark gave it four seconds.
"You're insufferable," Sherry said under her breath.
"You keep talking to me though," Mark replied, not looking up.
Silence. Then the faint, reluctant sound of someone trying very hard not to smile.
"You've been such a wonderful class today," Mr. Chen said, already moving toward the door.
He glanced across the room and noticed where Mark was sitting. A small smile crossed his face, the private satisfaction of a man who felt he'd done something decent for once, even if it cost him nothing but a cappuccino and thirty seconds of class time.
He walked out without another word. Students started gathering their things. The usual end-of-period shuffle, chairs scraping, bags zipping, conversations picking up mid-sentence from wherever they'd been paused.
Mark stood and slid his notebook into his bag with the unhurried ease of someone who had already moved on to the next thing.
Sherry was still seated. He could feel it without looking. That particular stillness of a person waiting to see what you'll do. He didn't give her the satisfaction of a goodbye or the insult of pretending he hadn't noticed. He just left, the way you leave a room when you know the room is still thinking about you.
The corridor opened up around him and he felt the familiar shift, that thing that he had felt the big part of his first life. Eyes finding him without him asking for it.
Space clearing slightly as he moved through it. He pushed through the main doors into the open air.
The Buell sat exactly where he'd left it, chrome catching the midday sun. He pulled out his phone and leaned against the seat, scrolling to the number he'd tracked down that morning before first period. Land registry. Public records. One phone call to a clerk who'd confirmed the owner's contact details without even asking why.
Hugo had always said the easiest doors to open were the ones nobody thought to guard. He pressed call. It rang twice.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was older. Unhurried. The voice of a man who had nowhere particular to be.
"Mr. Harper," Mark said. "My name is Mark Lidorf. I understand you own a parcel of land just outside Mayvel. The undeveloped plot off the county road, about sixty acres."
A pause. "That's right. Who'd you say you were?"
"Someone who wants to buy it," Mark said. "Today, if possible. I don't like waiting and I don't negotiate in circles. I'd like to meet you this afternoon and make you an offer you won't need to sleep on."
Another pause. Longer this time. The sound of a man recalibrating his afternoon.
"Well," Mr. Harper said slowly. "I suppose I'm not doing anything that can't wait."
Mark almost smiled. Sixty-four percent, the system had said. He was going to make it higher than that.