the strange adventure of a broke mercenary
Jake wasn't too worried about that because everyone who was close to him was out of the stock market and he himself knew pretty well when the bubble would burst, even Matthew who had billions of dollars invested gave up talking to Jake about selling the stock and just trusted him.
Furthermore, Jake knew that even after the bubble burst if people understood the stock market well they would have time to sell the stock before it went bankrupt, only those who hoped the stock could rise again would get in trouble.
Fortunately Jake knew that at that time when the internet was not so present in people's lives it was difficult to find many ordinary people who would take risks in the stock market, so few people who didn't understand the stock market would do something like mortgage their house to invest.
Soon Jake's friends arrived and everyone ate together and praised a lot the pancakes that were delicious, after eating, Jake went to his room to call Kate, Jake would call Kate after two games so he wouldn't bother her and also so Kate wouldn't be mad at him for not calling.
"Hello Kate, how are you?"
"Jake, I was waiting for you to call me, I saw that your team won again yesterday, it looks like you're closer to playing the NBA Finals, with two more wins your team goes to the final."
"Yeah, I'm glad the Lakers team managed to win those two games at home and we're going to try to win at least one away game to advance to the NBA Finals."
"And you Kate? How are you? Are the shows going as good as you expected?"
"Yes, it's ok with me, the shows are going better than I expected, the tickets are selling really well and many shows are sold out, my last musical album is selling really well too and the record company is satisfied with that."
"I'm glad to hear that, I know how hard you work to get these great results and how hard you rehearse singing and dancing for shows, you deserve all the good that's happening in your music career."
Jake was really happy to see how Kate's music career was going really well, he saw in the newspapers sometimes some news about how Kate's fans were increasing, and that was one of the few things Jake didn't know would happen in the future.
Of course Jake already expected Kate to become more and more famous after she won an award at the Grammy Awards, but he was worried about Kate because he also knew a lot of female singers who had a great start in their careers and then ended up failing.
Jake always thought about how he could help Kate if her music career started to deteriorate, Kate was known for writing a lot of the songs she was successful with, so if that didn't work out well Jake would hire some composers who would be famous in the future to write some songs for Kate.
Jake even knew some songs that would be successful in the future and he had no remorse about giving these songs to improve Kate's success if that was necessary, he wouldn't do it to make more money, but for the success that someone he loved, he would.
"I believe you will become even more famous Kate, when more people listen to your songs, you will have even more fans."
"I hope so, I want a lot of people to know me through my music, that I want to feel that my parents are proud of me in heaven and that they know they were right to support me."
"I'm sure they're already proud of you."
Jake knew that Kate still missed her parents who died a few years ago, Jake could understand what Kate felt because he himself had already felt how bad it was to see his mother dying in his past life, and it must have been even worse for Kate who lost both her parents.
Jake and Kate talked for a longer time and talked about how they expected to meet soon when the Los Angeles Lakers team made it to the NBA Finals, Kate hoped the Lakers team made it to the NBA Finals and Jake also thought that would happen.
Jake spent the rest of his day talking to his friends and without Eva who was resting in her room, William, Zack, and Haruto told Jake what had happened at the university after he left.
They joked with Jake saying that their love life had improved a lot in college after he left, after starting the third year at college, it was easier for men to get girlfriends who were younger in college, especially since they were known for be friends with Jake.
Even though William and Zack were serious in class, they still found it hard to resist the sudden popularity, yet they still continued to respect women, but the 2 had changed girlfriends a few times over the past year.
Haruto was more serious and continued with the same girlfriend after Jake left college, William and Zack told Jake that Aaron was the most popular of the group, after all, Aaron was also Jake's friend and was in the third year of college and was still a player football player in college.
But as with Jake, Aaron was the least interested in getting a girlfriend in college because he was too busy worrying about studying and training for college football games.
Zack also told Jake that Aaron was already the longest-playing player on the football team as WR, but he was still worried because he lost too much time because of his injury, so Aaron still didn't know if he would have a chance to go to the draft after college.
Jake also worried because he didn't know Aaron's future and that could mean he failed to become a football player in Jake's past life, but Jake still had hope because if Kate and Zack's life changed, so did the life of Aaron, too, could change because of him.
After they talked for a few hours, Jake decided he would take advantage of having plenty of time to rest and called Zack to do running training with him, after all, Jake had a place like he used to train at the university right at his house.
Also, Jake wanted to know how Zack had gotten better after not seeing him run for so long, Zack was happy to see that Jake had asked him to train and William said he would just watch their training.
Jack and Zack did some warm-up exercises and soon they started training, Zack knew well how insane Jake's training was and so he decided to start running a little before Jake, Jake also knew that and hoped that Zack would start before.
As Jake didn't want to overdo it too much he decided to start training at a fast pace, but not that fast, Jake's training for marathons was 50 km, and Zack didn't run more than 30 km normally, so their training time had to be different too.
Jake ran at a fast pace of 2 minutes and 54 seconds per km, so after 30 minutes of training he had already passed Zack who started training way before him, Jake ran the 50 km he would do in 2 hours and 25 minutes, after just over 10 minutes Zack also finished his training.
William didn't understand their training, after all, he couldn't expect Jake to train to do a world record pace, William also didn't know that Jake ran for 50 km and Zack ran for 30 km, so he just said he found the training of the two very good.
Jake who knew very well what had happened praised Zack who had done training that before would have been difficult for him calmly, running 30 km at a good pace like Zack ran was very difficult for amateur athletes.
Of course, who was most surprised was Zack who knew that Jake hadn't trained for a few months because of the NBA and still trained the same way they trained at university and still wasn't even tired.
Jake just said that it was because training for NBA players was usually pretty intense and so he even improved his fitness, so Zack accepted because that would normally be true.
Of course, it wasn't true for Jake that he had the system to strengthen his body, and even if that was true, training an NBA player was completely different from training a marathon runner.
Jake took advantage of the rest of his rest days with Zack, Haruto, William, and Eva also that after resting he spent more time with them, Jake also had to go train in two days with the Lakers team.
Coach Rambis decided to do light training to let the players rest as much as possible before the next streak of games that could be tough, of course, the coach didn't know that Jake had run a marathon in training on his rest day.
So the day before the game the Lakers team players had to go to San Antonio, Texas to stay in town and rest before the game, just as they had arranged Jake's friends stayed in Los Angeles at Jake's house and Eva said that would go on helicopter game day.