Chapter 171 | smart boys are SO attractive
Chapter 171: 171 | smart boys are SO attractive
Dr. Jones stood at the whiteboard drawing aggregate demand curves with the enthusiasm of a man who had accepted that macroeconomics was both his career and his punishment. The lecture hall held approximately two hundred students, most of whom had already retreated into their phones or the soft oblivion of a Monday morning nap. Jones’s monotone voice filled the room like white noise, the kind of sound that existed primarily to prove that time was still passing.
Jordan sat in his usual spot between Kumiko and Alexis, his notebook open to a blank page while Brooke’s document occupied his phone screen beneath the desk. Page thirty-six contained a revenue projection model that assumed a three-person streaming collective could reach profitability within sixty days if each member maintained a minimum of four streams per week at three hours each. Brooke had included a footnote explaining that the model accounted for a thirty percent drop in viewership during midterm weeks, which Jordan found both impressive and slightly terrifying in its specificity.
Kumiko sat to his left in a lavender cardigan with white lace trim, her twin tails secured with ribbons that matched the exact shade of the fabric. Her pink notepad was covered in hearts she had drawn during the first ten minutes of class, interspersed with occasional economics terms written in Kumiko’s loopy handwriting. She had not looked at the whiteboard once. Her attention kept drifting sideways toward Jordan with the subtlety of a searchlight, her brown eyes catching on his jaw, his hands, the ridge of his shoulder where his t-shirt pulled tight.
Every time Jordan turned a page on his phone, Kumiko’s gaze snapped forward so fast her twin tails swung.
She was terrible at this.
Alexis occupied Jordan’s right in a cream turtleneck and dark jeans, her laptop open to what appeared to be a combination of class notes and a text conversation with someone named Harrison. From Jordan’s angle, he could read fragments of Harrison’s messages. The man texted like a LinkedIn profile had gained sentience. "Would love to connect over dinner this week." "My assistant can coordinate schedules." "Thinking of you."
Alexis had not responded to any of them.
Her jaw was tight. Her fingers rested on the keyboard without typing. The turtleneck covered her neck completely, which struck Jordan as deliberate. Alexis dressed with intention the way generals planned campaigns. The high collar, the muted palette, the expensive boots with the low heel that said money without screaming it. Everything about today’s outfit communicated control. Order. A woman who needed the world to know she had her life together even when the cracks ran all the way through.
Jordan returned his attention to Brooke’s document. Page thirty-seven addressed brand identity requirements, listing specific deliverables: a logo, a website, unified social media handles, a content calendar, and a brand style guide covering typography, color palette, and voice guidelines. Brooke had also included a section titled "Organizational Hierarchy Recommendation" that suggested a clear separation between talent and management to prevent conflicts of interest.
The footnote for this section read: "Historical data suggests that romantic relationships between management and talent constitute the single highest risk factor for organizational failure. See previous citation re: catastrophic impact rating."
Jordan minimized the document.
"McKnight."
His head came up. Dr. Jones had paused mid-curve, his dry-erase marker hovering over the board like a conductor’s baton. Two hundred pairs of eyes rotated toward Jordan with the synchronized attention of an audience that smelled blood.
"Can you define the multiplier effect and explain why it matters for fiscal policy?"
Jordan’s brain made a sound like a hard drive spinning up from sleep mode. The answer existed somewhere in the textbook Chapter he had skimmed last night between rounds two and three with Chloe, which meant the information shared neural real estate with the memory of her thighs and the particular noise she made when he—
Focus.
"The multiplier effect is what happens when an initial injection of spending into the economy generates additional rounds of spending that exceed the original amount." Jordan kept his voice even, letting the Alluring Whisper trait add just enough weight to make the words land with authority. "Government spends a dollar, that dollar becomes income for someone, who spends part of it, which becomes income for someone else. The formula is one over one minus the marginal propensity to consume. If the MPC is point eight, the multiplier is five, meaning every dollar of government spending creates five dollars of total economic activity."
Jones stared at him for a long beat. The dry-erase marker lowered half an inch.
"That’s correct. The multiplier works in both directions, however. Can you explain the implications of that?"
"Contractionary policy multiplies too. Cut government spending by a dollar and you lose five dollars of economic activity. Which is why austerity during a recession is—" Jordan paused, remembering that professors generally preferred neutral language to strong opinions. "Contested."
Jones’s mouth twitched. Something that might have been approval on a man with more expressive facial architecture.
"Well put. Contested is a generous way to describe the last forty years of macroeconomic debate." He turned back to the board. "As McKnight just illustrated, the multiplier effect means that fiscal policy has an outsized impact relative to its direct cost. This is the theoretical foundation for Keynesian stimulus..."
Jordan exhaled and dropped his gaze back to his phone. Kumiko’s hand appeared under the desk, holding a folded piece of paper. She pushed it onto his thigh and withdrew her fingers so fast they might have been spring-loaded.
Jordan unfolded the note.
A stick figure with spiky hair stood at a podium while tiny hearts floated above several other stick figures in the audience. Below this masterpiece, Kumiko had written: "smart boys are SO attractive (heart) (heart) (heart) also ur arm looks really good in that shirt dont change it"
Jordan refolded the note and slipped it into his pocket without changing his expression. His phone buzzed.
CHLOE: I heard you just bodied an econ question from three buildings away. Kyle texted me.
JORDAN: News travels fast
CHLOE: You’re dating a communications major. Information is my whole thing.
CHLOE: Also Kumiko just texted me that you said something about MPC and she doesn’t know what that means but it made her feel things
JORDAN: She passed me a note in class like we’re in middle school
CHLOE: Was it cute?
JORDAN: There were stick figures
CHLOE: That’s my girl