Monday morning. Shane leaned against the tiled wall of the school hallway, a cigarette pinched between his fingers.
The abacus in his head was clicking loudly.
The shop—or rather, Fiona's shop—was his biggest priority right now, aside from his internet fame hustle.
The place he found yesterday felt like it was practically prepared just for him. A tattoo parlor two streets down from the subway station that got smashed up not too long ago.
The owner was totally demoralized by the whole thing, too lazy to clean it up, and just wanted to unload it as fast as possible.
Monthly rent was $900, one month deposit, one month up front. For this part of the South Side, especially being so close to the subway, that price was extremely solid.
The only downside was having to clean up all the shattered glass, busted flooring, and ruined drywall themselves. But for the Gallaghers, that kind of manual labor was nothing.
Shane was currently trying to figure out how to grind down that miserable-looking landlord later this afternoon. Maybe squeeze the deposit down a bit, or get the landlord to hire someone to haul away the trash themselves...
"Hey, Shane," a hand waved in front of his face, snapping him out of his thoughts.
Shane focused and saw Karen puffing her cheeks, holding his phone up so close the screen was practically touching his nose.
On the screen was a highly "focused" photo, accompanied by a very polite message.
"saw your pics. You're so— impressive. New number. Don't block me again :)"
Karen looked pissed.
"Look at this. I delete one, he makes a new account. I delete that one, he makes another. Does he think you're some 24/7 online pin-up boy, huh?"
Shane glanced at the screen. He felt absolutely nothing inside.
He might have been disgusted at first, but his "experience" forged in the fires of future internet toxicity (like Sun Bar and Little Red Book) had long since made him completely numb to this kind of stuff.
He answered casually, "Then just delete it."
"Just. Delete. It?" Karen repeated his words, emphasizing every syllable.
"Listen to yourself, Mr. Shane Gallagher. Do you just not care anymore, or do you actually enjoy the feeling of being treated like public property for everyone's fantasies?"
Karen yanked the phone back, glaring at him angrily. "Or have you actually been secretly replying to some of them?"
Shane sighed and snuffed out his cigarette butt on top of a nearby trash can.
Ever since his Facebook account blew up, suspicions and arguments like this had become a regular feature.
"No, Karen. You know my account passwords. You can check whenever you want. If I really replied, you think you wouldn't find out?"
Shane patted Karen on the head.
"Besides, what exactly am I supposed to do about these DMs? Crawl through the internet cable and punch them in the face?"
"Well, you could at least act a little disgusted or angry. Even faking it would be fine!"
Karen ranted, expertly deleting and blocking the message.
She opened the next one, took one look, and shoved it back at Shane.
"And this one. 'Daddy,' with a fucking leather whip emoji?! Shane, do you know what it feels like when I clean up this trash every day? I feel like I'm watching a flock of starving seagulls fighting over a single french fry!"
"Then you're the hand holding the fry," Shane replied smoothly, trying to lighten the mood.
Karen glared at him again. "So you admit you think you're the french fry? Ha! So you do enjoy this feeling!"
"I'm saying you're holding my—" Shane was about to blurt out the word, but remembered he was at school, surrounded by classmates.
He coughed quickly.
"Delete it. Just delete it. If you don't like it, cuss them out. Don't sit there sulking, otherwise you'll make yourself sick, and I'll have to explain to Eddie and Sheila why you're smoking at the ears."
"Hmph!" Karen scoffed, totally unappeased by the joke.
Ring, ring, ring—
The school bell rang just then.
Shane checked his watch. 8:30 AM. He needed to get to class for his exam.
It was the standardized midterm ( in the US, if you fail or miss it, making up the credits is a huge pain in the ass).
He leaned in close to Karen and planted a quick kiss on her cheek. "I gotta go in. Don't you have class this morning too? You really don't have to wait for me."
"No," Karen turned her head slightly, but didn't completely pull away. "I'm staying right here to wait for you. Hurry up and get your ass in there."
Shane knew there was no talking her out of it when she got stubborn. He nodded, but added one last reminder: "OK, well if you see any DMs asking about buying courses, remember to send them the link. And by the way... try to push the expensive ones."
"I know, I know, Boss Shane." Karen shooed him toward the classroom like swatting a fly. "Go take your stupid test."
After Shane went inside, Karen's eyes dropped back to the phone screen, resuming her battle against endless cyber harassment and her own inner possessiveness.
At the exact same time, inside an alley near the Central Subway Station...
—
Lip expertly backed the van into the alley they usually parked in.
Once parked, Lip took a final drag of the cigarette in his mouth and flicked the butt out the window.
He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard.
8:31 AM.
"Ha, pack up by 8:45 at the latest?" he muttered to himself, his tone dripping with smugness.
"I got it done by 8:30. Now Fiona won't have shit to say, saving her from constantly bringing up Shane and nagging endlessly."
He killed the engine, but didn't get out right away.
Sitting in the driver's seat, he looked out the window toward the mouth of the alley.
The street outside was a typical Monday morning: commuters rushing by, private cars, taxis.
Further down, a couple of homeless guys were digging through trash cans for food. Everything looked completely normal.
Lip looked closer just to be sure, scanning the road for any government plates, or the Chevys the city loved to use... not even a shadow of one.
"Heh." Lip smirked. He lit another cigarette, blowing out any lingering morning anxiety along with the smoke.
"Bet Fiona's hands are tired from counting all that cash over there."
Thinking about the money made him feel even better.
To sell out as fast as possible within the safe window this morning, he took a bunch of extra items and bundled them into "value meals."
Thanks to Shane's mysteriously cheap and high-quality supply channels, word of mouth for their breakfast stall was excellent right now. Even people living slightly further away were detouring to buy from them just to save a few bucks.
Just his side's take this morning alone, doing a rough estimate, had to be at least $700. And that didn't even include the income from Fiona's fixed stall.
"Thanks for the secret hookup, Boss Shane," Lip muttered, impossible to tell if he was being sarcastic or sincere.
He pulled the keys from the ignition, grabbed his laptop out of its bag, and climbed into the back of the van.
He needed to keep writing code.
He could have done it in the driver's seat, but the back of the van had a crude power setup rigged up to run the hot plates and oven.
Moving into the back, Lip plugged his laptop into the power source, and the sound of typing quickly followed.
This was a massive gig he landed a few days ago. The payout was solid, and the client needed it ASAP. That's why he was squeezing every second of free time, even bringing his laptop to the stall. Part of the reason for all this hustle was just to finish this project's code.
Soon, the final core module was written.
Lip stopped and stuck another cigarette in his mouth.
He saved the data and files. He planned to run the code tests when he got home.
He shut down the laptop, unplugged it, and shoved it back into the bag. He instinctively wanted to take the bag with him, but then felt like he was being paranoid.
"I'm just going to take a piss right over there. It's two steps away. Is someone really going to steal this piece of shit van?"
Despite thinking that, Lip inexplicably wedged the laptop bag into the tight space between the bolted-down hot plate and the wall of the van.
He shoved it in deep, then grabbed a torn jacket they used as a rag and threw it over the top.
"Should be fine now."
He hopped out of the van and walked quickly toward a half-collapsed corner deep in the alley.
Zip down. The sound of water splashing. A cold wind blew past, making him shiver.
His mind wandered again. Like, how was he going to explain the massive spike in income over the last few days to Shane? And if he added the payout from this coding gig, how much would his total cut be for the week? ...It was pushing $1,000.
Maybe he could start picking out Christmas presents for the family now.
He harbored a somewhat twisted thought: using the money he made selling breakfast from the food truck to buy a gift for Shane. He wanted to use this as proof to show his little brother, who was always preaching about stability:
Look. I used my brain to make way more cash.
He was completely immersed in the high of turning intelligence into hard currency.
Done taking a leak, he walked back to the van.
But he didn't shut the back doors all the way. He left a crack open, since Fiona should be showing up any minute.
Right now, he needed to count this morning's haul.
He popped open the cash box. Seeing it stuffed to the brim with bills and coins deepened his smirk.
Lip reached in. Just as he was getting off on counting the largest bills...
Knock, knock, knock—
Three loud raps came from the back doors of the van.
Lip froze. Thinking it was a prank by Fiona, he turned his head. Looking through the crack in the doors, he didn't see Fiona's familiar cargo pants.
He saw an expressionless human face.
The guy was wearing a dark jacket, an ID badge clipped to his chest, holding a clipboard.
"Chicago Department of Public Health. We received a complaint about unlicensed mobile food vending—"
The guy held his badge up to the crack in the doors. "Where's your Mobile Food Dispenser license? Who's the operator? I need to see your ID."
"Fuck! Shane and Fiona called it!"
Lip felt dizzy, a loud ringing starting in his ears.
...
Fuuuck!!!