Although it had been a while, Liu’s voice was unmistakable. Lucas opened the door for her and found her standing there in the doorway with four giant grocery bags, two in each hand. He very much remembered having always seen her dressed in outfits that were either casual, frumpy, or designed for comfort, but today, she was wearing what looked like standard office garb: a long, black pencil skirt, a matching jacket that covered up a white blouse with the unnecessary frill in the middle, and black high heels. Whereas her hair used to always hang in curls, it was now straightened out and styled. The sight of her looking cleaned up and taken care of was just as jarring as the sight of her at all.

Lucas didn’t linger on the transformation too long, however, and extended a hand right away to grab some of the bags from her. “Cheese?” he asked, spotting the familiar-shaped bulges in one of the sacks.

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure which was your favorite, so I think I grabbed a few. I also got four types of crackers and two different types of wine,” she said.

“Cheese and wine were her thing,” Lucas said with a frown as he carried the bags inside and set them on the table.

“Ugh. Wow,” Liu grunted, stopping just inside the door and staring at the empty living room. “I’ve heard of spartan accommodations, but this is taking it a little bit further than usual, don’t you think?”

“Didn’t see the need to buy anything else,” Lucas said. Then he looked over at the dive device. “I spend most of my time in the game anyway, so it’s not like I need much comfort in this world.”

“Need? Nice to have? Present just in case? Lucas, what happened to your couch? Didn’t—”

“I forgot it during the move,” Lucas quickly interjected with a dismissive shrug. “I have some water and soda in the fridge . . . in case you only brought alcohol.”

“I’m fine,” Liu answered. “I took a taxi here so I could drink with you.”

“A taxi?” Lucas asked, thinking about how that meant she still wasn’t using her self-driving car again. “You sure you should be drinking a lot before you go back to work?”