Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 217: 218 | The Plot of a Light Novel

Jordan’s stomach did something complicated. "What did you say?"

"I said she should talk to you first. Because that’s a decision that affects all three of us and I’m not making it alone." Chloe’s voice had settled from spiraling into something firmer. The version of Chloe that managed a six-figure OnlyFans account and tracked every dollar on color-coded spreadsheets was back online. "Jordan, we need ground rules. Real ones. Not just ’we’ll figure it out’ energy. Actual rules about what we share publicly, what stays private, and how we handle it when Kumiko’s excitement override kicks in and she posts a stick figure drawing of you with hearts in the caption."

"She already posted that."

"I know. It got four hundred likes."

Jordan rubbed the back of his neck. A knot of tension sat between his shoulder blades, courtesy of last night’s activities with Kumiko and this morning’s interrogation by Ashford. "Okay. Here’s what we do. Tonight, after your stream, after dinner, after whatever Kumiko needs to process, the three of us sit down and write actual rules. On paper. With bullet points if you want. You can make a spreadsheet."

"I love spreadsheets."

"I know you do."

"This is why you’re my boyfriend."

Jordan laughed, and the sound felt real and loose in his chest, the kind of laugh that came from a place he couldn’t fake. A month ago, nobody on this campus would have recognized the sound of Jordan McKnight laughing. A month ago, Jordan McKnight didn’t laugh. He scrolled through Reddit threads about a girl who didn’t care about him and watched someone else’s content and counted the hours until he could stop being conscious.

Now he was leaning against a library pillar in the sun, talking to his girlfriend about their shared girlfriend’s social media impulse control, and the laugh that came out of him was genuine and warm and maybe a little unhinged because his life had become the plot of a light novel written by someone with a very specific fetish and zero sense of pacing.

"How did the rest of the stream go?" Jordan asked.

"I talked for another hour after you left. Kumiko stayed the whole time. Michael stayed for about thirty minutes and then left, which is honestly amazing for a zero-follower channel. A couple other people drifted in and out. Peak viewers was six." Chloe’s voice shifted into something quieter. Something that didn’t belong to Calypso or Campus Chloe but to the version of her that existed only in private, only with Jordan, only when nobody else could hear. "It felt good. Different from what I used to do. Less like a performance and more like... I don’t know. Talking."

"You’re good at talking."

"I talk for a living. Two livings, technically."

"How many followers at the end?"

"Twelve."

"Twelve viewers on day one, zero-promotion, zero-content, zero-audience? Chloe, that’s actually good."

"Kumiko said the same thing. She said most new streamers get zero for their first three weeks and that twelve followers from a cold start is above the seventy-fifth percentile for Just Chatting debuts." Chloe paused. "She cited a statistic. She cited an actual statistic. I think you’re rubbing off on her."

"Brooke might be rubbing off on her, actually. She sent Kumiko that market analysis."

"The forty-seven-page one?"

"Kumiko read the whole thing."

"Of course she did. That girl absorbs information like a sponge absorbs water. She probably memorized the charts." Chloe’s tone softened further, dropping into a register Jordan recognized as the one she used right before she said something that cost her to say. "Jordan."

"Yeah."

"Thank you for watching. Even if it was only for five minutes during Ashford’s class, and even if you almost got caught, and even if your message was only two lines." She swallowed, the sound audible through the phone. "You were my first viewer. Before Kumiko. Before Michael. Before anyone. You were there."

Jordan’s throat went tight. His phone felt warm against his ear. The library pillar pressed cool and solid against his back, anchoring him to a physical world that sometimes felt less real than the golden interface tracking his heartbeat and his bank account and the precise numerical value of every connection in his life.

"I’ll always be there."

"Don’t make promises you can’t keep."

"That one I can keep."

Chloe was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Jordan heard a bird call from somewhere near the quad and the distant thump of a bass speaker from someone’s dorm window and the mechanical hum of the HVAC system pushing air through the library vents.

"Come home early tonight," Chloe said finally. "Kumiko’s coming over at seven for the rules meeting. I’m ordering sushi. And I’m going to edit the VOD to cut the boyfriend clip before I upload it anywhere, so stop worrying about that."

"I wasn’t worrying."

"Your breathing changed when I mentioned the VOD. You hold your breath for exactly one point five seconds when something stresses you out. Kumiko noticed it first and told me about it, and now I can’t unhear it."

Jordan closed his eyes. His girlfriends had cataloged his stress responses and shared notes. He was dating two women who communicated about him with the thoroughness of intelligence operatives. The old Jordan would have found this terrifying. The new Jordan found it terrifying too, but in the way standing at the top of a roller coaster was terrifying, the kind of terror where you screamed but kept your hands up because the ride was too good to stop.

"Seven o’clock. Sushi. Rules meeting." Jordan pushed off the pillar and started walking toward the parking structure. "And Chloe?"

"What."

"Twelve followers is the start. Give it time."

He could hear her smile through the phone. Not the Instagram smile or the Calypso smile or the meet-the-parents smile, but the real one, the one that reached the corners of her eyes and made the blue streak in her hair seem to glow.

"Give it time," she repeated softly. "Yeah. Okay."

Jordan hung up and checked the System notification that had been sitting in his pocket for the last forty minutes.

The golden interface displayed a single line.

Chloe Kim. Chemistry: 77% → 78%.