Infinite Cashback System

The drive to Giuliano’s took forty-seven minutes because Chloe insisted they leave at six-fifteen for a seven o’clock reservation and Jordan had learned not to argue with pregnant women about scheduling. She sat in the passenger seat of his Civic, which she’d made him vacuum twice this week, wearing the blue dress she’d mentioned and a thin gold chain that caught the last of the California sun through the windshield.

Jordan kept his eyes on the 405.

"Your sister ran my credit," Chloe said, scrolling through her phone. "Found the scholarship. The Koreatown address. The dry cleaning business."

"How do you know?"

"Because I would have." She set the phone face-down on her thigh. "She’s building a file. By the time we sit down she’ll have a timeline, a list of inconsistencies, and three theories about where your money comes from."

Jordan changed lanes. A BMW cut him off and he didn’t react, which felt like growth. "What are her theories?"

"Drugs. Gambling. Sugar mama." Chloe’s mouth curved. "She’ll rule out drugs because your pupils are normal. Gambling because you don’t have the tells. Sugar mama because I’m eighteen and visibly not wealthy enough to fund your transformation."

"So she’ll have nothing."

"She’ll have nothing that closes." Chloe turned to look at him, brown contacts catching the light. "Which is worse. Cassie doesn’t like gaps. She’ll pick at this for months."

Jordan thought about the golden app sitting dormant on his phone, the quest timers and attraction percentages and the gacha system that had given him the ability to make women weak in the knees with his voice. Cassie could run background checks until her fingers bled. She’d never find the thesis because the thesis was insane.

"Let her pick," he said.

Chloe’s hand found his thigh, warm through his jeans. "Your parents are going to cry."

"Mom’s going to cry. Dad’s going to get quiet and then corner me in the bathroom to ask if I know what I’m doing."

"Do you?"

Jordan glanced at her. The blue streak in her hair. The freckles beneath her contacts. The particular way she held her chin when she was testing him.

"I know I’m keeping you," he said. "Rest of it I’ll figure out."

Chloe’s expression did something complicated, softening at the edges before she caught it and smoothed it away. "That’s not a plan."

"It’s the only one I’ve got."

She squeezed his thigh once and went back to her phone, and Jordan drove the rest of the way in comfortable silence, the hum of the trait quiet behind his ribs now that Cassie wasn’t in the same room.

Giuliano’s sat on a corner in Irvine that had been serving the same marinara recipe since before Jordan was born. The parking lot held his dad’s truck, his mom’s Camry, and a rental sedan that had to be Cassie’s. Jordan pulled into a spot three spaces away and killed the engine.

"Ready?" Chloe asked.

"No."

"Good answer." She leaned across the center console and kissed the corner of his mouth, her lips soft and brief. "Let’s go tell your family they’re having a grandchild."

Jordan followed her across the parking lot, watching the way the blue dress moved against her hips, the way she walked like she owned every space she entered. Six weeks ago he’d been a disaster. Now he was about to walk into a family dinner with a pregnant girlfriend and explain a transformation he couldn’t explain.

The System hadn’t prepared him for this. No gacha pull was going to make this conversation easier.

The hostess recognized them from last time and led them to the back room his parents always requested. David McKnight sat at the head of the table, his weathered hands wrapped around a glass of water, still wearing the polo shirt he probably wore to the stores that morning. Susan McKnight sat beside him, her dirty blonde hair pulled back, her eyes already wet before Jordan even entered the room. Cassie occupied the seat across from their mother, her posture perfect, a leather folder sitting closed beside her bread plate.

Of course she brought a folder.

Susan stood the moment she saw Jordan, her chair scraping against the tile. "Oh, honey."

"Mom."

She pulled him into a hug that smelled like the same perfume she’d worn his entire life, her arms tight around his shoulders, her face pressed into his chest because he was taller than her now, had been taller than her since freshman year of high school but it still surprised her every time.

"You look so good," she said against his henley. "You look so calm. Your father said you sounded different on the phone but I didn’t believe him until I saw you last time and now you’re even more."

"I’m fine, Mom."

"You’re not fine, you’re good." She pulled back to hold his face the way she’d done when he was six, her thumbs on his cheekbones, studying him like she was memorizing the changes. "My baby boy looks like a whole different person."

David stood more slowly, extending his hand the way he did with employees and business partners, the handshake firm but brief. "Son."

"Dad."

They looked at each other. David’s eyes tracked across Jordan’s face, noting the same things Susan had noted, the jaw definition and the squared shoulders and the absence of the desperate need for approval that used to radiate off Jordan like heat from a radiator.

"Your mother was worried," David said.

"I know."

"I told her you sounded fine. She didn’t believe me."

"I know that too."

David nodded once, something unreadable in his expression, and sat back down.

Cassie hadn’t moved from her chair. She watched Jordan cross the room with Chloe, watched Chloe accept Susan’s hug with grace, watched the way Jordan pulled out Chloe’s chair before sitting in his own. The leather folder sat untouched beside her bread plate.

"You’re on time," Cassie said.

"Chloe’s influence."

"Clearly." Cassie’s eyes moved to Chloe, who met them without flinching. "The dress is lovely."

"Thank you. I bought it specifically for tonight."

"I can tell." Cassie picked up her water glass. "Mother, should we order? I’m famished from the flight."

Susan dabbed at her eyes with her napkin and signaled the waiter, a middle-aged man who’d served their family at least a dozen times and knew to bring the house red without asking. He set the bottle on the table and began pouring, starting with Susan and moving clockwise.

When he reached Chloe, she shook her head.

"Just water for me, thank you."