Infinite Cashback System

David walked away toward the Camry, and Jordan sat on the concrete wall watching his father’s retreating back. The security light caught the gray at David’s temples, the slight stoop in his shoulders that had developed sometime in the last decade without Jordan noticing. Twenty years of inventory counts and early mornings and employees who called in sick on holidays. Twenty years of building something from nothing while his son spent four months crying over a girl who never even kissed him.

Jordan’s phone buzzed.

Kumiko had sent a photo of herself at her sewing table, needle between her teeth, one eye closed in concentration. The Sally cosplay was coming together. Orange wig on a styrofoam head. Blue dress pinned to a mannequin. Thread everywhere.

Still awake. Still not spiraling. Chloe taught me a breathing technique. I hate it. It works. Tell me everything tomorrow. I love you.

Jordan typed back: You’re allowed to spiral a little.

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.

Page 27 says I’m allowed to feel my feelings without judgment. Page 27 is annoying. But also correct. Come home safe.

Jordan pocketed his phone and stood from the wall. His father had reached the Camry. Susan was hugging Chloe again, both of them laughing at something Jordan couldn’t hear. Chloe caught his eye over Susan’s shoulder and raised one eyebrow in a question.

Jordan nodded.

The drive home took forty minutes. Chloe reclined her seat two inches and closed her eyes, her hand resting on Jordan’s thigh with the casual possession of someone who had stopped asking permission weeks ago.

"Your dad cornered you," she said without opening her eyes.

"Yep."

"Prenup?"

"Among other things."

"Smart man. I’ll have Brooke draft something this week."

Jordan glanced at her. "You’re not offended?"

"I’d be offended if you didn’t get one. Do you know how much Nova is going to be worth in three years? I’m protecting my assets, Jordan. The fact that one of those assets is your genetic material is beside the point."

"Romantic."

"I’m not romantic. I’m strategic. You knew this when you registered me."

The freeway lights strobed across her face in regular intervals. Blue streak dark against the headrest. Gold choker catching the glow from passing cars. She looked like an algorithm that had learned to wear makeup, and Jordan loved her for it.

"Your mom wants to throw a baby shower," Chloe said.

"Already?"

"She has a Pinterest board with eighty-seven pins. She’s been ready since October."

"We didn’t know each other in October."

"Mothers operate on different timelines. She told me she knew you’d find someone eventually because you have your father’s jaw and your grandmother’s stubbornness. Then she cried. Then she showed me photos of you at age four in a bathing suit and asked if I wanted copies."

"Jesus Christ."

"I said yes."

"Of course you did."

Chloe’s thumb traced a circle on his thigh. Not provocative. Grounding. The motion settled something in Jordan’s chest that had been tight since Cassie showed up at his door that morning with a croissant and an expression like she was preparing to audit his entire existence.

They reached the Cooper Garment Lofts at nine forty-three. Jordan parked in his usual spot and killed the engine. Neither of them moved.

"Kumiko’s still awake," Chloe said.

"I know."

"She’ll want to see you."

"I know."

Chloe opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. Brown contacts catching the streetlight. The real Chloe underneath, the one who slept in his shirts and ate ginger candy to fight nausea and had mapped the emotional landscape of his entire life like she was planning a hostile takeover.

"Go," she said. "I’ll be upstairs."

"You sure?"

"She needs you tonight. I had you all day." Chloe leaned across the center console and kissed the corner of his mouth, soft and brief and tasting of the ginger candy she’d been chewing since they left the restaurant. "Don’t stay too long. You have training with Maya at six."

"I remember."

"Do you remember that you’re supposed to tell Maya about us this week?"

Jordan’s stomach did something unpleasant.

"I remember."

"Good." Another kiss, this one pressed to his jaw where Kumiko had marked him that afternoon. "I’ll leave the door unlocked."

Chloe climbed out of the car and walked toward the building, her blue dress swaying with each step. Jordan watched until she disappeared through the lobby door, then sat in the dark and tried to figure out how he’d ended up with a pregnant girlfriend who scheduled his emotional conversations and a second girlfriend who documented everything in a notebook and a boxing trainer who might actually kill him when she found out.

Three months ago, his biggest problem was a parasocial relationship with an OnlyFans creator.

Now he was the problem.

Jordan laughed once, short and humorless, and got out of the car.

The elevator took fourteen seconds to reach the fourth floor. Jordan counted them the way Cassie probably had that morning, the habit contagious. When the doors opened, he turned left toward Unit 403 instead of right toward his own apartment.

He knocked twice.

The door opened before he finished the second knock.

Kumiko stood in the doorway wearing his black shirt, the one she’d claimed two nights ago and would probably never return. Her twin tails were crooked. Thread clung to the fabric over her shoulder. She looked at Jordan like he was the first good thing she’d seen in hours, which was probably true because Kumiko’s emotions operated on a scale from desperately happy to catastrophically worried with very little middle ground.

"You came," she said.

"Chloe told me to."

"Chloe is wise." Kumiko stepped back to let him in. "Also scary. But wise."

Unit 403 smelled like her. Fabric softener and the particular sweetness of whatever shampoo she used. Her sewing table occupied one corner of the main room, covered in fabric scraps and pins and a laptop playing what sounded like a lo-fi study playlist. The Sally cosplay hung from a dressmaker’s mannequin near the window, half-finished but recognizable.

"Tell me everything," Kumiko said. "Start from when you arrived. Include emotional subtext. I have questions."

Jordan sat on her couch, which was significantly more comfortable than his own because Kumiko had inherited her furniture from someone with actual taste. She sat beside him with her legs tucked underneath her, close enough that her knee pressed against his thigh.

"My dad gave me a speech about prenups."

"Important. Chloe will appreciate the practical consideration."

"My mom cried four separate times."

"Expected. Grandmothers cry. This is documented."

"Cassie told me I’m hiding something and she’s going to find out what."

Kumiko’s face shifted. "Cassie is concerning."

"Cassie is a threat."

"Will she discover us?"

Jordan looked at her. Kumiko’s eyes were wide, the particular kind of worried that meant she was already catastrophizing several steps ahead. Her notebook sat on the coffee table, open to a page filled with her small neat handwriting. He could see the header: Saturday Debrief (Pre-Event).

"No," Jordan said. "She’ll discover that I have money I shouldn’t have and a transformation that doesn’t make sense. She won’t discover you because she’s not looking for you."

"But she could."

"She won’t."

"But what if—"

Jordan put his hand on top of her head.

Kumiko went silent mid-sentence. Her entire body softened, tension draining out of her shoulders like water from a bathtub. She made a small sound that was half whimper and half sigh, her eyes fluttering closed.

"Haaahh..."

"Better?"

"Cheating," she mumbled. "This is cheating. I was going to spiral productively."

"There’s no such thing as productive spiraling."