Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 222: 223 | Transaction Complete

"I wasn’t going to say any of that."

"Your face said it. Your face said ’I have opinions about content strategy and I’m holding them back because I want you to think I’m cool.’"

Jordan’s jaw tightened. She wasn’t wrong. That was the annoying part. Brooke’s market analysis documents had been living rent-free in his brain for two weeks, and apparently some of the terminology had leaked into his actual thought patterns.

"Fine," he said. "I have a friend who’s into that stuff. She’s rubbing off on me."

"She?"

"Business partner. It’s complicated."

"Everything with you is ’something like that’ or ’it’s complicated.’" Lila pulled the lollipop out of her mouth and pointed it at him like a tiny red sword. "You’re either the most boring person on this campus or the most interesting, and I genuinely can’t tell which."

"Keep guessing."

"See, that’s exactly what a boring person would say to seem mysterious."

"It’s also what an interesting person would say because they don’t feel the need to prove anything."

Lila stared at him for a long moment. The car’s interior felt smaller somehow, the afternoon light turning golden as they approached the Brookhurst exit. Her violet contacts were unsettling up close, inhuman in a way that made Jordan’s brain keep trying to find the real color underneath.

"Okay," she said slowly. "Maybe not boring."

"High praise coming from KhaosKitten."

"Don’t push it."

Jordan made the turn onto Brookhurst. The strip mall she’d mentioned came into view almost immediately, a generic collection of storefronts that could’ve existed in any city in America. Nail salon. Pho restaurant. A laundromat with half its neon sign burned out. Behind it, he could see the apartment complex rising three stories, beige stucco and iron railings and the kind of architecture that said "we stopped caring about aesthetics in 1987."

"That’s me." Lila pointed at the complex. "You can drop me anywhere."

Jordan pulled into the strip mall parking lot and found an empty spot near the entrance to the apartments. He put the car in park but didn’t unlock the doors yet.

"Ten dollars," he said.

Lila dug into her backpack, rummaging through what sounded like a collection of loose items that had never seen the inside of an organizer. She pulled out a crumpled bill and held it up, checking the denomination. A five. She frowned and kept digging.

"Hang on. I know I have..."

"Venmo works too."

"I don’t have Venmo."

"Cash App?"

"I have Cash App." She pulled out her phone again, unlocked it with a swipe pattern that Jordan definitely did not watch, and opened the app. "What’s your handle?"

"JordanMcK404."

"Four-oh-four like the error code?"

"Yeah."

"That’s..." She paused, thumbs hovering over the screen. "Actually kind of clever. Did you come up with that?"

"A friend did."

"The same friend who’s rubbing off on you with the branding shit?"

"Different friend."

Lila made a sound that was half laugh, half sigh. "You’ve got a lot of friends for a guy who looks like he spends all his time at the gym."

"The gym is where I met some of them."

"Of course it is." She tapped a few buttons, and Jordan’s phone buzzed in the cupholder. Ten dollars received. "There. We’re square."

"Pleasure doing business."

"Don’t make it weird." Lila shoved her phone back into her backpack and grabbed the strap, preparing to exit. Then she paused, one hand on the door handle, and looked back at Jordan with an expression he couldn’t quite read. "You’re... not what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

"I don’t know. For you to hit on me? Ask for my number? Do the whole ’nice guy’ routine where you pretend to be helpful and then get pissy when I don’t want to fuck you for giving me a ride?"

Jordan’s face didn’t change. "That’s a pretty specific expectation."

"It’s a pretty common experience." She said it flatly, without bitterness, just stating a fact of her existence the same way someone might mention the weather. "Most guys who offer to help random girls in parking garages have an angle."

"My angle was ten dollars."

"Yeah." Lila’s black lips curved into something that was almost, almost a real smile. "That’s why you’re not what I expected."

She opened the door and got out, her platform boots hitting the asphalt with a heavy thud. The afternoon heat rushed into the car’s interior, chasing away the clove-and-vanilla scent she’d brought with her. Jordan watched her walk toward the apartment complex, her stride just as confident as it had been in the parking garage, the purple streak in her hair catching the golden light.

She didn’t look back.

Jordan sat there for a moment after she disappeared through the gate, processing. His phone buzzed again, and this time he actually checked it.

Three messages from Kumiko.

The first one was the continuation of the underwear situation, which Kumiko had apparently solved by shoving the strawberry-printed evidence into her backpack and hoping Chloe didn’t notice during their morning conversation. The second was a series of emojis that Jordan didn’t have the mental energy to decode. The third was a question.

"jordan-kun did you get lost??? you said you’d be home by 4 and it’s 4:47 and Chloe is making concerned faces at her phone"

Jordan typed back quickly. "Got sidetracked. Home in 20. Tell Chloe to stop making faces."

The response came in three seconds. "she says her face is doing what it wants and you can’t control her face"

"Fair enough."

He put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking spot, leaving the strip mall and its beige apartment complex behind. The drive back to Cooper Garment Lofts took eighteen minutes. Jordan spent most of it thinking about nothing in particular, letting his brain decompress from the unexpected social interaction.

KhaosKitten. Lila Martinez. The girl who dressed like a Tim Burton character and streamed farming simulators to an audience of god knows how many people. The girl who’d called him out for being money within thirty seconds of getting in his car and then accepted a ride anyway because the alternative was worse. The girl with violet contacts and snakebite piercings and a laugh that sounded like it had been through some shit.

Jordan wasn’t sure what to make of her. She wasn’t like Chloe, who hid vulnerability behind composure and professionalism. She wasn’t like Kumiko, who wore her emotions on her sleeve and treated every interaction like an opportunity for connection. Lila was something else entirely. A wall of spikes and sarcasm that dared anyone to get close while simultaneously making it clear that getting close would require effort she wasn’t sure most people were capable of.

Not his problem. He’d given her a ride. She’d paid him ten dollars. Transaction complete.

His phone buzzed one more time as he pulled into the parking structure at Cooper Garment Lofts.

Kumiko again.

"chloe says you better have a good explanation for being late because she ordered the spicy salmon rolls and they’re getting warm"