Chapter 168 | Ricky the Recluse’s Book Club
Chapter 168: 168 | Ricky the Recluse’s Book Club
They finished shoulder work in comfortable silence, the kind that only existed between guys who had nothing to prove to each other. Jordan moved through rear delt flies, face pulls, and shrugs with a focus that bordered on meditative, his body operating on the upgraded autopilot that the Tune Up trait provided while his brain ran calculations in the background.
The streaming empire quest required three streamers with minimum one thousand followers each. Chloe had zero followers on her new StellarNote account, though her personality and camera presence could build an audience fast. Kumiko had two thousand consistent Twitch viewers and ten thousand on Instagram, which put her well above the threshold. The third slot was open.
Jordan needed a third streamer.
Brooke Hastings was brilliant and could run the business side, but she didn’t have a social media presence and her personality was approximately one standard deviation too awkward for live content. She’d mentioned never having watched a stream before, which disqualified her from the performing end of the operation. She was management material, not talent.
Alexis had forty-three thousand Instagram followers. Her face could stop traffic in both directions, had stopped traffic, probably caused at least three fender benders in the Fashion Island parking lot. She could announce a Twitch channel with a single Instagram story and wake up the next morning with a thousand followers asking when she’d go live.
Her personality had enough edge to be entertaining instead of just mean, and her fashion sense was the kind that other girls screenshot and tried to recreate with a quarter of the budget. She was built for IRL content, had the camera presence, knew how to work an audience.
But asking Alexis to join a streaming group run by the guy she’d called "Ricky the Recluse" two weeks ago, the same guy whose henley she now wore to bed while scrolling his Instagram at 2 AM, felt like asking a tiger to join a house cat’s book club.
Then again, that same tiger had described her ideal man at a karaoke bar using measurements that matched Jordan’s body almost exactly, height and build and presence, all while three shots deep and unaware she was basically drafting his blueprint. So maybe the book club wasn’t as far-fetched as it sounded.
Maybe tigers liked books.
Jordan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He finished his last set of shrugs and pulled it out, expecting Chloe or Kumiko.
It was Brooke.
BROOKE: Good morning, Jordan. I hope this message finds you at an acceptable hour. I wanted to confirm that our arrangement for collaborative work remains active. I have prepared a preliminary analysis of the content creation market that I believe you will find relevant to your stated business objectives. The document is currently 47 pages and includes 12 charts. Should I send it as a PDF or would you prefer a Google Doc with commenting permissions?
Jordan stared at the message. Read it twice. Forty-seven pages. Twelve charts. He’d mentioned the streaming idea to Brooke once, during a five-minute conversation after class, and she had produced a small dissertation overnight.
JORDAN: Google doc. And Brooke, we talked about this for like 5 minutes
BROOKE: 4 minutes and 38 seconds. The brevity of our conversation did not diminish the quality of the data available. The creator economy is extensively documented in both academic literature and industry reports. I simply compiled and cross-referenced the most relevant findings.
JORDAN: In one night?
BROOKE: I had difficulty sleeping. Research is my preferred method of addressing insomnia. It is significantly more productive than the alternatives, which in my case typically involve reorganizing my Lego collection by structural complexity or watching competitive StarCraft matches until 4 AM.
Jordan laughed loud enough that Kyle looked over with raised eyebrows. Jordan shook his head and typed back.
JORDAN: You’re insane. In the best way. Send it over
BROOKE: Sending now. I should note that pages 31 through 38 contain a comparative analysis of streaming group structures that I believe directly addresses your organizational model. I identified 7 successful streaming collectives and mapped their growth trajectories against solo creators of comparable audience size. The data strongly supports the group model for early-stage creators, though there are notable failure patterns you should be aware of.
JORDAN: I’ll read it during econ
BROOKE: That is Dr. Jones’s class. His lecture material overlaps significantly with Chapter 4 of the textbook, which you can read independently in approximately 22 minutes. Allocating that lecture period to reviewing my analysis would be a more efficient use of your cognitive bandwidth.
Jordan pocketed his phone with the specific kind of grin that came from discovering a weapon he didn’t know he had. Brooke Hastings wasn’t just smart. She was the kind of smart that bent the world around her through sheer force of intellect and complete obliviousness to social norms. The fact that she had zero charisma points and the social instincts of a TI-84 graphing calculator was irrelevant when her output was this good.
Forty-seven pages. In one night. Because she couldn’t sleep.
Jordan wanted to pat her on the head so badly his palm actually itched.
"Earth to Jordan." Kyle stood in front of him with a towel draped over his shoulder and his gym bag already packed. "You’ve been grinning at your phone for thirty seconds. Either Chloe sent you something inappropriate or you’re losing it."
"Neither. Business stuff."
"You keep saying business stuff without explaining what the business actually is."
"Content creation. Streaming. Building a brand."
Kyle considered this with the same skeptical expression he used when evaluating a new protein powder brand’s nutritional claims. "You’ve never streamed in your life."
"I’m not streaming. I’m managing."
"Managing what?"
"People who stream."
"Which people?"
"Chloe. Kumiko. Maybe a third person I’m still working on."
Kyle’s face went through a journey. Confusion first, then recognition, then something that looked like reluctant admiration mixed with concern. He crossed his arms over his Pacific Crest hoodie.
"So you’re starting a streaming agency with your girlfriend and her best friend."
"Basically."
"The same best friend who blushes every time you exist within ten feet of her."