Alex Dunphy stares at the young man walking in her classroom. She's not someone overly interested in boys like her sister but even she can admits right now that she's feeling something.
His outfit is modern, He wears a fitted white t-shirt, hugging his broad shoulders. Over it, a light beige oversized cardigan, unbuttoned, the fabric rolled at the sleeves to his forearms. His pants are beige chinos, casual, sitting perfectly on his frame. On his feet white low-top sneakers. His black watch adds a functional contrast to his relaxed outfit.
He's tall, larger than the quarterback of the high school's team. His dark black hair styled in a fade haircut and his eyes, his deep blue eyes falls on her as he senses her gaze.
" Jake Helm will joined this class henceforth." The teacher says as he motions to a empty desk.
" Hey, nice to meet you all. Hope we'll get along." Jake says, straight and white teeth showing as he smiles then walks to his desk besides Alex.
She wears a button-up plaid shirt, mostly shades of navy and forest green, It's neatly tucked into a pair of straight-leg jeans. Her black rectangular glasses sit prominently on her face, often sliding down her nose when she leans over her books. Her whole look screams I'm here to get an A, not a boyfriend.
"What's your name?" Jake asks her, his voice low.
"Alex." She answers almost shyly looking at his face, replacing her glass.
"Can I read with you? I didn't have time to get the textbook." He asks her and she nods, trying to not be awkward as he gets close to her. Silence falls upon them once more as they both read the math exercise.
"You're already done?" Alex asks, surprised to see he's resolved the equation before her.
"What? You thought I was just a pretty face?" Jake retorts, smiling playfully at her.
"So where are you from?" Alex asks, changing the subject, keeping her voice low enough to not be noticeable by their teacher.
"New-York." Jake answers.
"Wow, LA must be strange to you then?" Alex says.
"Nah, I've came here some time ago in vacation so it's not soo scary for an urbanite like me." Jake answers her question.
"Urbanite, huh? What, do you travel by subway and complain about bagels that aren't authentic enough?" Alex says showing an unexpected sarcastic side as she raises an eyebrow.
"Only if the bagel's a crime against humanity. There are standards, you know." Jake says as he chuckles.
"So you're a bagel snob and you can do math. I'm both terrified and impressed." Alex retorts.
"Don't tell anyone." Jake leans slightly closer, whispering like they're conspiring. Alex bites back a laugh as the teacher send them a look.
The rest of the class continues like this, with exercices easily done by Alex and Jake as they makes small talk.
[ Later ]
The cafeteria buzzes with noise, laughter, trays clattering and gossips. Alex walks in with her usual routine, head down, backpack tight on her shoulder, eyes scanning for an empty table far from loud voices.
She spots one in the corner. She sits, pulls out her salad and a tattered copy of 'House of leaves', cracking it open like a shield.
But her eyes wander. She sees him Jake. Laughing with the school's golden circle cheerleaders and athletes. He's in the middle of it all like he's always belonged, like today isn't his first day in a new high school.
Pretty face, tall, quick brain, social GPS set to 'popular.' She thinks, returning to her book, trying not to care.
Someone at Jake's table says, prompting laughter. Jake laughs too, but his eyes glance up toward the edge of the room.
He spots her. Alone. For a second, their gazes meet then Alex look away.
[ After school ]
Jake drives back home, on hand on the wheel while the other is outside of the opened window.
As he passes an old man driving slowly he thinks back on his first day. He easily integrate himself with the popular kids, he's charming smile and good looking face free od acne easily earning him points with Jennifer, Evelyn and Sarah, the leading cheerleaders. As for James, William and Pete, the 'jocks' he made quick friend of them with their shared interest in working out.
Parking in front of his building, Jake turn off his car, a black used Honda Accord. Getting inside the building, he sighs as he sees the elevator is still out of service. Taking the stairs, he reaches his studio on the fourth floor and get inside.
Jake's studio is small, barely more than a single room with a bathroom tucked behind a sliding door but it's neat and organized. The walls are plain white, no artwork or posters. The bed is a simple twin, pushed against the wall, dressed in solid gray sheets and a navy blanket. Next to it, a small nightstand holds a phone charger, a half-full water bottle, and a cheap desk lamp. A fold-out table doubles as a desk and dining area, with a three mismatched chairs tucked underneath.
One corner of the room has a compact kitchenette two electric burners, a mini-fridge, and a scratched-up microwave. There's a small dish rack beside the sink, and a single frying pan drying on the counter.
Clothes are kept folded in a small, open IKEA-style shelf unit, and he puts his shoes neatly by the door. The only signs of personal touch a stack of library books on the desk mostly science and economy, a roll-up yoga mat by the closet, a chess set and an old Bluetooth speaker quietly humming lo-fi music in the background. It's not luxurious, but it's calm, ordered, and clearly the space of someone who's learned to rely on himself.
Pulling out his laptop from underneath his bed, Jake sit on his bed with his back against the wall and boot up his laptop.
Though only sixteen, Jake has carved out a modest but steady income for himself using his computer skills and a lot of self-discipline. He started at 12 with small things, fixing bugs in WordPress sites, cleaning up broken layouts for local businesses, and doing light graphic work for online stores. Over time, he learned to offer more advanced services.
Now, Jake works as a freelance web administrator and server administrator. He's set up a Linux VPS through a budget-friendly but reliable hosting provider, and on it, he runs a handful of client websites. Most are small businesses, a mechanic, a real estate agent, an e-commerce shop. He handles everything end-to-end setting up the site, maintaining uptime, configuring SSL certificates, performing software updates, and even doing lightweight SEO.
Jake charges his clients a monthly maintenance fee that's significantly higher than the VPS cost. He pays around 100$ per year for the VPS, but charges his clients 30$ 50$ month each depending on the complexity and support level.
Most of the work happens late at night or on weekends. Jake manages his time carefully, using tools like UptimeRobot to monitor his sites, and Cron jobs to automate backups. His technical stack is simple but effective Nginx, PHP, MySQL, and an Ansible role he wrote himself to deploy new environments fast.
He doesn't brag about it, most people wouldn't understand anyway. But it's this behind-the-scenes hustle that lets him afford his modest studio and pay for his meals.
When he started he knew he couldn't afford to wait until eighteen to get a bank account, sign contracts, or register services. So he crafted a fake ID, not some blurry high school party trick, but a real identity bought on forums accessible only by invitation.
He signed up with a neo bank that offered fully digital onboarding and AI based KYC checks. No human verification, just a document scan. A week later, he had a real bank account under a fake name, attached to a virtual debit card. That account became the spine of his freelance life, allowing to expend his services.
His stable income in a month are 360$ thanks to his ten clients, 3 clients paying 50$ per month and the rest 30$. With the others freelance jobs he takes he makes 400 to 700$ a month depending on how much works he gets.
That's why he also does some more gigs beside, he isn't particularly proud of it but it pays. Selling scripts on forums, a keylogger in Python, a custom clipboard hijacker, and later, a rat. He didn't build everything from scratch he forked existing code from GitHub, added obfuscation, changed signatures, and built a clean GUI that looked professional enough to sell.
Buyers are mostly wannabe hackers or shady resellers, people who wants plug-and-play tools they could deploy without understanding how they worked. It allows him to double his income and keep his head out of the water.
He spends the rest of the day working on his laptop, eating then going back to work. Soon it's past midnight and he finally closes his laptop. Eager to get some sleep.
[ Three days later ]
Jake sits beside Alex in physics class, a small circuit board and a multimeter between them as the experience they're conducting under the teacher supervision is advancing smoothly. Alex adjusts a resistor on their breadboard, her brows knit in concentration. Jake leans slightly over her shoulder, watching the setup.
"Careful," He says, voice low. "You're about to cross the wires again. That's how you shorted it earlier, Edison." Alex shoots him a sideways look.
"You mind if I?" He asks gently, nodding toward the wires.
"Uh-no. I mean yes. I mean go ahead. Sorry." She startles slightly, her fingers twitching back. He smiles without comment and gently rotates the resistor into place.
"I think you had it right. Just needed to line it up." He says. Alex stares at the blinking LED for a moment.
"Right. Obviously." She clears her throat and quickly looks down at her notebook. Her handwriting is small and beautiful.
"You good at this stuff?" Jake asks, tapping a pen against the circuit board.
"Not really," She mutters. "Okay, well, I get good grades. But I'm not... practical. I overthink things." She adds.
"Nothing wrong with that," He says, shrugging. "The circuit doesn't know how long you hesitated." Jake chuckles and Alex laught, a soft and melodic sound that pleases him.
"Do you always work alone?"
"What? Oh. Yeah. I mean, I don't really.. people usually pick someone else first. Which is fine. I'm used to it." Alex's head snaps up slightly.
"Well, their loss." Jake says.
"You don't have to pretend I'm interesting. You already have lunch with the 'cool' table." She makes a confused noise that might be a scoff or a laugh.
"Right. I've been told I'm on thin ice if I stop laughing at their jokes." Jake quips back. That gets the faintest smile from her, though she looks away almost immediately.
"You're... not what I expected." She says quieter.
"Lemme guess. You thought I was just another pretty face with biceps and no brain cells." He says.
"I didn't say 'pretty face.'" Alex turns red instantly.
"You didn't have to," He teases, looking straight ahead, as if reading a voltage. "Your expression on day one kinda said it all."
"I didn't have an expression. " She protests quickly.
"You totally did."
"Well... maybe I just wasn't expecting you to ask to share a textbook." Alex frowns, but her ears are bright pink.
"Excellent progress. Good teamwork." The teacher walks past and nods at their work. Alex flushes again as Jake leans over.
"Guess we're lab partners now." He says and Alex shakes her head, hiding a smile behind her notes.
[ Next week ]
[ School library ]
The school library is almost empty this late in the day. At a back table near the window, Alex sits alone, a stack of textbooks beside her. She's wearing a plain navy hoodie with the school logo, sleeves pushed to her elbows. Her bag is half-unzipped and filled with color-coded tabs and a mostly uneaten granola bar.
She's deep in concentration when a shadow falls across her table.
"This seat taken?"
She looks up, startled.
Jake offers a casual smile, though there's a subtle alertness in his posture. Like he's testing the waters.
"I mean, it's not reserved. But.. you're here?" Alex says.
"I do wander into libraries sometimes," He says, sitting before she can object. "Mostly to smell the books. And intimidate the nerds."
"Are you... actually trying to be funny?" Alex raises an eyebrow.
"Trying? I'm succeeding, Alex."
She hides a small smile and pushes a book aside so he has more space. They lapse into silence, but it's not uncomfortable. Jake pretends to read his book. Alex keeps stealing glances at him.
"You study a lot." Jake finally says.
"It helps me stay ahead. I don't do well with surprises." Alex answers. He nods. Doesn't push.
"I want to get into college. MIT, maybe. Somewhere far." She speaks again after a moment.
"That's ambitious. Cool." Jake looks up at her.
"Not really." She shifts in her seat, suddenly self-conscious. "I just want.. to be somewhere I'm not weird. Where people like me don't feel like aliens."
He's quiet for a second, studying her.
"You don't seem like an alien to me." He says.
"That's because you're new. Give it time." She retorts. She tries to joke, but it comes out soft. Vulnerable.
"Well, I'm not leaving any time soon." He says with a smirk. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"So what's your excuse?" She asks. "You come here to read, or to annoy me while I'm trying to solve fluid mechanics?"
"Annoy you. Obviously."
They sit shoulder to shoulder, bent over her notebook. Jake gesturing at a corrected formula.
"There. Your mistake was being too smart for the textbook." He says.
"You flatter me because you're scared of integrals? Alex gives him a skeptical glance.
"Terrified." He admits.
She lets out a short, involuntary laugh, then immediately tries to hide it behind a cough.
"Hey do you, uh, want to trade numbers?" Jake glances at her, then says, as casually as possible.
"Oh. Um. You mean, like.. just for homework?" Alex blinks.
"Unless you also want to send me memes. Or weird facts. Or, I don't know just texts." Jake answers.
She pulls out her phone and unlocks it. She hands it to him with some hesitation, like she's not sure if this is real.
He types in his number, then texts himself quickly. Her phone buzzes a second later. The text read 'This is Jake. Don't delete me.'
Alex reads it and gives a small smile, tucking her phone away. She doesn't say anything else, just turns back to her notes. But the edges of her mouth stay curved.