Infinite Cashback System

Cassie laughed.

Not the warm dazzling one she deployed like a weapon at networking events and not the short bark she used when somebody at the office said something stupid enough to register. This laugh came out surprised, a single bright note that she caught between her teeth and killed before it could become a second note, and Jordan watched her face do something he had never seen it do in twenty-five years of being her brother. It rearranged itself around genuine amusement.

"Black," Cassie said. "No sugar. And I wouldn’t say threatening."

"I would," Chloe said from the kitchen, filling the Brita pitcher in a towel like she’d been born doing it, water splashing against the filter with a hollow patter that filled the silence Cassie left behind.

The bite mark on Chloe’s throat sat above the towel line, purple and unambiguous, and Chloe made zero effort to adjust the fabric or angle her chin or do any of the fourteen things Jordan would have done if his sister had caught him with visible evidence of recent sexual activity on his neck at nine in the morning. She just stood there and let the mark exist, fully visible, like it was a tattoo she’d chosen instead of a consequence she’d earned. She poured water into the machine with steady hands. Pressed the button. The pitcher went back in the fridge with a decisive click.

Cassie’s eyes tracked the mark. Jordan watched her track it. Cassie knew he was watching.

Nobody said anything about it.

The coffee machine gurgled and hissed and Jordan felt the hum behind his ribs adjust, recalibrate, settle into something lower and more manageable now that physical contact had broken. Sisterly annoyance remained amplified. Sisterly warmth remained amplified. The categorical structure held. He’d been right about the theory and he was going to use that fact as a load-bearing wall for the rest of his natural life, or at least until the next time Cassie showed up unannounced and weaponized her presence like a corporate auditor.

"Give me ten minutes," Chloe said without turning around, already walking toward the stairs with the specific posture of a woman who intended to be beautiful when she came back down and was informing everyone present that the ten minutes were non-negotiable. Her tone made it clear the number wasn’t a request or an estimate. It was a deadline. She’d be gorgeous in nine and spend the last sixty seconds making sure she looked like she hadn’t tried.

Her bare feet made soft damp sounds on the concrete as she climbed.

The towel rode up exactly one inch on her left thigh as she moved, revealing a fresh stretch of skin Jordan had definitely put his mouth on within the last twelve hours, and Jordan stared because he was alive and because Chloe had the kind of legs that made staring a reflex action rather than a conscious decision. The muscles in her calves flexed with each step. The towel threatened to slip higher but didn’t. Chloe didn’t adjust it.

He dragged his attention back to the kitchen when she disappeared into the loft bedroom.

His sister was already looking at him with the expression of a financial analyst who has just discovered an asset class she didn’t know existed and is currently running the numbers on whether that asset class represents an opportunity or a liability.

Jordan opened the bakery bag and focused very intently on the croissants.

"She’s extraordinary," Cassie said.

"Yeah."

"That wasn’t a compliment," Cassie said. "That was risk assessment."

She pulled a stool out from the island and sat down, crossing her legs at the ankle. The motion looked effortless and deliberate at the same time, the same way she probably sat down in boardrooms before delivering news that tanked stock prices. She arranged herself in his kitchen like she’d arranged herself in his life: without asking, with total confidence, and in a way that made arguing with her presence feel like arguing with gravity.

"That girl just walked into a room with your older sister standing in it," she continued. "Wearing a towel. With a hickey the size of a half-dollar on her neck. And she didn’t flinch. She didn’t apologize. She made a joke about my coffee preferences and offered to play hostess. That is either the most confident nineteen-year-old I’ve ever met, or the most dangerous one. Possibly both."

"She’s eighteen."

"Even worse." Cassie reached into the bakery bag and extracted a single croissant with the precision of a surgeon selecting an instrument. She set it on the counter between them. It sat there looking golden and perfect and expensive, flaking slightly at the edges in a way that suggested it had been made by someone who got paid more per hour than most people made per day. "When I was eighteen I was applying to summer internships and crying in the Starbucks on campus because a boy in my Econ seminar told me I talked too much during group projects. That girl currently standing in your loft bedroom is running damage control on an unannounced family visit while functionally naked. We are not operating on the same emotional software. Not even the same operating system. Different species entirely."

Jordan picked up the croissant. It was still warm. The butter content probably violated several health guidelines. Cassie didn’t buy pastries from places that listed prices on their menu boards.

"You flew down from San Francisco," he said. "On a Friday night. Because Mom said I sounded different on the phone."

"I drove. Five hours. Left after market close." She pulled a second croissant from the bag for herself and tore off a corner with the precision of someone who controlled her carbohydrate intake the way other people controlled their tempers. "You haven’t answered a single one of my texts in three weeks. You haven’t FaceTimed Mom since January. Dad says you called him once, sounded like a different person, and then disappeared. I had to find out you had a girlfriend from a FaceTime I didn’t expect to answer. Do you understand how many red flags that is."

"I was busy."

"Busy doing what." She ate the corner. Chewed. Swallowed.

"You were a disaster in December. Mom called me crying on Christmas because you didn’t come to dinner. Dad cut your allowance. I had you categorized as a six-month recovery timeline minimum."

She set the croissant down.

"I’m your sister, Jordan. I don’t need a spreadsheet. I need you to tell me what happened."