EROS CASHBACK SYSTEM: You Can't Fake the Interest

Chapter 29: Chapter 29: Preparations

Garrett woke up on Sunday already half-smiling before he’d worked out why.

Right. Today.

He lay there for a minute enjoying it, properly enjoying it, no fine print attached, no requirement counter running quietly in the back of his head. Just a normal, uncomplicated kind of looking forward to something. Then it hit him.

’What am I supposed to wear.’ He sat up too fast.

The wardrobe offered nothing useful. Same six or seven shirts he always had, all of them somewhere between "fine for a park bench" and "actively wrong for whatever today was supposed to be."

He held up the black one again, out of habit, and put it straight back — too casual, too much like every other day he’d worn it. A jumper he liked but that made him look like he was heading to a lecture. A shirt with a collar that had gone slightly soft with age. Nothing screamed today matters the way today apparently did.

He went further back into the wardrobe than he usually bothered to, past the stuff he never wore, and his hand caught on something in a suit bag he’d genuinely forgotten was in there. He pulled it out.

The bag came away to reveal a suit he hadn’t seen properly in years — dark, immaculately cut, the kind of thing that even folded on a hanger somehow looked more expensive than everything else in the room combined.

Tom Ford.

His dad had bought it for him. Garrett remembered the day clearly — his eighteenth birthday, before things had properly gone sideways for his dad’s business, back when the idea of spending that kind of money on a suit for a birthday hadn’t required a second conversation. His dad had stood behind him in the shop mirror, hands on his shoulders, saying something about how a man should own at least one suit that actually fit him.

He hadn’t worn it since. There hadn’t been an occasion that felt like it deserved it, and somewhere along the way it had just become a thing hanging in the back of his wardrobe, a leftover from a version of his family’s life that didn’t really exist anymore.

He held it up against himself in the mirror. ’This is a lot for a hangout that already happened.’ He almost put it back. Then he looked at himself again, properly looked, not just glanced, and thought, with a shrug he could feel more than see, "why not."

He put it back in the suit bag. Not yet. He still had a few things to do first.

The first was his hair.

He hadn’t bothered getting it properly cut in a while, and if he was going to wear a suit his hair couldn’t exactly look like he’d been negotiating with it in the dark. He showered quickly, threw on something casual, and headed out.

The barbershop wasn’t anything special. It didn’t need to be. He sat in the chair, gave the barber a simple instruction, and let someone else deal with his hair for the next forty minutes while he stared at himself in the mirror and wondered, occasionally, whether he’d somehow made a mistake agreeing to a planned hangout that somehow felt like an actual date.

By the time he stepped back outside, his hair was shorter, cleaner, and considerably less likely to betray him in photographs. He checked his phone. Almost 1pm. Right, He headed home.

---

Back at the flat, Garrett dropped his keys into the bowl he’d bought yesterday and stood there for a second.

The apartment looked different in the afternoon light. He’d already seen the difference yesterday, but now that he’d slept on it, the changes felt more permanent. The new curtains sat properly on the rod. The rug actually made the room feel finished. The lamps softened the place without making it look like a showroom.

He glanced toward the bedroom. The new duvet was still neatly arranged. Good, One less thing to worry about.

He went to the bathroom and took a proper bath, taking his time instead of rushing through the usual morning routine. Afterward, he brushed his teeth, worked a comb through his freshly cut hair, and checked himself in the mirror. Nothing dramatic. He looked like himself Just slightly more put together. That was probably enough.

He still had time before he needed to leave, and Garrett had learned enough about himself by now to know that being nervous on an empty stomach was a terrible combination. So he went to the kitchen.

Scrambled eggs and oatmeal.

Nothing complicated. He cracked the eggs into a bowl, whisked them with a little milk, then put a pan on the stove. While it warmed, he measured out the oats, added them to a pot with milk, and let them simmer. The eggs went into the pan next. He stirred them slowly, watching them come together while the oatmeal thickened beside him.

For a few minutes, the date disappeared from his mind. There was just the smell of butter, the soft scrape of the spatula against the pan, the quiet bubbling from the pot.

He seasoned the eggs, spooned the oatmeal into a bowl, and sat down to eat. Halfway through, his phone buzzed. Garrett glanced at it. Nothing important. He put it back down.

He finished his breakfast, washed the dishes, and checked the time again. 20 minutes after one. Plenty of time.

Only then did the reality of the date start creeping back in.

He went to the wardrobe and pulled the suit bag out again. This time, he didn’t hesitate. He laid the Tom Ford suit carefully across the bed and started getting ready. Shirt. Trousers. Jacket. He adjusted the cuffs, checked the fit in the mirror, then fixed his hair one more time even though he’d already done it twice.

He stared at his reflection.

"You’re going on a date," he said quietly.

The sentence sounded strange out loud. He wasn’t sure whether that made it better or worse.

He still needed something to feel like it, what was missing? He looked around twice

"Ahh flowers."

Garrett grabbed his wallet and headed back outside. This time, he knew roughly what he was looking for. Roughly.

He stood in front of the florist’s display for a while before settling on a simple bouquet — white flowers with a little green, tasteful without looking like he’d emptied his bank account to prove a point. He added a small box of something sweet beside it. Flowers and dessert. That seemed reasonable. He hoped.

Back at the flat, he set the flowers somewhere safe, checked the time, and finally ordered the Uber. For the first time that morning, everything was actually ready. The apartment, the suit, His hair and the flowers. Him.

Garrett looked around once more before picking up the bouquet.

None of this was for the System. He hadn’t checked his phone once since waking up. He hadn’t thought about the objective or calculated what anything might be worth.

He just wanted today to go well.

And for once, that was reason enough.

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