Chapter 169 | Version 1.3
Chapter 169: 169 | Version 1.3
Jordan’s stomach dropped approximately six inches. "You noticed that?"
"Bro. Everyone noticed that. At karaoke, she sang a love song with you while literally holding your hand and looking at you like you were the last bowl of ramen on earth. Alexis noticed. Leo noticed. I noticed. The waitress noticed. I’m pretty sure the karaoke machine noticed."
Jordan rubbed the back of his neck. The gymnasium suddenly felt very warm and very public and very full of people who could potentially hear this conversation.
"It’s complicated."
"Yeah, dating two girls at once tends to be."
The words landed between them like a dropped barbell, the metallic clang reverberating in the space where casual conversation used to live. Kyle’s tone wasn’t angry or judgmental. It was flat. Observational. Clinical, even. The same voice he used when he told Jordan that Eliza was using him, except this time the observation cut in the opposite direction entirely.
Jordan felt his throat tighten. "I’m not cheating on Chloe."
"Didn’t say you were." Kyle’s posture remained relaxed, but his eyes had sharpened. The way they did during a difficult set when he was analyzing form, checking for errors. "But you’re dating Kumiko. That’s what you just said."
"Chloe knows. She’s the one who brought it up."
Kyle’s arms uncrossed. Slowly. His eyebrows climbed toward his hairline and kept climbing, achieving an altitude that suggested his brain had temporarily lost contact with his facial muscles. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. No sound emerged during the first attempt.
"She..." Kyle’s voice cracked slightly. He cleared his throat. "Chloe... your girlfriend Chloe... brought it up."
"Yeah."
"Brought up you dating Kumiko."
"That’s correct."
"The same Chloe Kim who grabbed your hand during karaoke. That Chloe."
Jordan nodded. His hands had found their way into his pockets because leaving them visible felt dangerous somehow. Like they might betray something his face hadn’t already given away.
"Chloe Kim. Your girlfriend. The girl who slammed a door in your face. The girl who told Eliza to stay away from you in a bathroom. That Chloe."
"That Chloe."
"Voluntarily suggested that you also date Kumiko."
"That’s what happened."
Kyle stood perfectly still for five full seconds. Jordan counted. Then Kyle walked to the nearest bench, sat down heavily, and stared at the floor with the expression of a man whose entire model of reality had just been restructured without his consent.
"I need a minute."
"Take your time."
"How. How does that even work. Logistically."
"We’re figuring it out."
"Do they know about each other?"
"They were both there when we had the conversation."
"Both of them. In the room. At the same time."
"On the same couch."
Kyle pressed both palms flat against his face and dragged them downward in one long, deliberate motion. His features distorted beneath the pressure—eyelids pulling down, cheeks sagging, mouth stretching into something vaguely amphibian—before snapping back into place when his hands finally dropped.
"Three weeks ago," Kyle said, his voice taking on the careful, measured tone of someone narrating a nature documentary about an animal that shouldn’t exist, "you were alone in your apartment. Crying. Over a girl who never even kissed you. That was twenty-one days ago. Twenty-one. And now—" He gestured vaguely at Jordan’s entire existence. "Now you’ve somehow acquired two girlfriends."
Jordan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "When you phrase it like that, it does sound kind of insane."
"It doesn’t sound kind of insane. It is insane. Objectively. Factually. In every measurable way."
"I know."
"You understand that, right? That this is certifiably, clinically, documentably insane?"
"I’m aware."
Kyle blew out a long breath and leaned back on the bench, his spine curving against the padding. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then sat up and pointed at Jordan with one finger.
"I’m not being your therapist when this gets complicated."
"It’s already complicated."
"Then I’m not being your therapist for the additional complications that will inevitably arise because you are an eighteen-year-old with zero romantic experience who has somehow acquired two devoted girlfriends through what I can only describe as either witchcraft or the most aggressive glow-up in human history."
Jordan grinned. "You think it’s aggressive?"
"I think you went from Tier 4 to Tier 1 in less than a month and the universe hasn’t figured out how to correct the error yet. When it does, I want to be far enough away that the explosion doesn’t hit me."
"That’s dramatic."
"You’re dating two women. Dramatic is the baseline."
They walked toward the locker room together, weaving through the thinning morning crowd. The volleyball girl from earlier watched Jordan pass with open interest, her eyes tracking from his face down to his shoulders and back up. Jordan felt the familiar buzz of a System notification vibrate against his thigh and ignored it completely.
Inside the locker room, they grabbed their bags from the day-use lockers. Kyle pulled a clean shirt from his bag and changed with the efficient movements of someone who had done this exact routine five hundred times. Jordan toweled off his face and neck, the fabric coming away dark with sweat.
"Four thirty," Kyle said, pulling his gym bag over one shoulder. "Iron Coast MMA. Don’t forget to pick up Leo."
"He’ll try to cancel."
"Send him a picture of Alexis. He’ll show up."
"That’s manipulative."
Kyle pointed at Jordan without looking back. "Motivational strategy."
The locker room door swung shut behind him, leaving Jordan alone with the sound of dripping showers and the distant clang of someone reracking plates in the weight room. He pulled out his phone and checked the time. Eight forty-three. Economics started in seventeen minutes.
He opened Brooke’s Google Doc.
The title page read: "PRELIMINARY MARKET ANALYSIS: Content Creator Collective Viability in the Current Digital Entertainment Landscape" by Brooke Hastings, followed by a date, a version number (1.3, which meant she’d already revised it three times), and a disclaimer that read "This document represents approximately 6.2 hours of research and should not be considered exhaustive."
Jordan scrolled past the table of contents, the executive summary, and the methodology section, landing on page thirty-one where Brooke had promised the good stuff lived.
She wasn’t kidding.