Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 182: 182 | The Edison Method

"You’re in lust," Kyle corrected. "There’s a difference."

"Isn’t lust just love with better abs?"

"That’s not how that works."

"Pair up again." Maya’s voice cut through their conversation. "Practice the jab. Twenty on each side. Focus on form, not power. If you’re muscling it, you’re doing it wrong."

Jordan faced Kyle and they began trading jabs at half speed. The movement felt foreign and awkward, like trying to speak a language he had only read about. His shoulder didn’t want to rotate properly. His hip kept lagging behind. His foot refused to pivot at the right moment.

But somewhere around rep twelve, something clicked.

His jab snapped out clean. Shoulder, hip, foot all rotating in sequence. The power started from the ground and traveled up through his body and out through his fist in a single unified wave.

"Haah."

Jordan exhaled as the punch landed against Kyle’s padded hands.

"Nice." Kyle nodded with approval. "You felt that one."

They continued trading, Jordan’s form improving slightly with each repetition. Kyle’s jabs were cleaner, more practiced, but Jordan was catching up fast.

At some point, Jordan became aware of Maya watching him from across the room. Her dark eyes tracked his movements with unsettling intensity, cataloging every mistake and every correction.

She said nothing. Just watched.

When the session ended, Jordan’s arms felt like they were filled with sand. His shoulders burned. His calves ached from maintaining proper stance. He had thrown maybe two hundred punches total and his body was protesting like he had run a marathon.

"Good first day." Maya addressed the group. "Most of you didn’t embarrass yourselves. Come back Thursday if you want to continue."

She walked toward the bag room without waiting for responses.

"Wait." Leo scrambled after her, ignoring the warning looks from Jordan and Kyle. "Maya. Excuse me. Maya."

Maya stopped. Turned. Looked at Leo with the same expression she might have given a bug that had landed on her lunch.

"What?"

"I just wanted to say." Leo was breathing hard, either from the workout or the courage it took to approach her. "You’re an incredible teacher. Really inspiring. The way you move? Like poetry. Athletic poetry. I was wondering if maybe you’d like to get coffee sometime? Or dinner? Or a meal of some kind that involves sitting across a table from me?"

The silence that followed was the loudest Jordan had ever heard.

Maya stared at Leo for a full three seconds. Her expression didn’t change. Her eyes didn’t blink. She simply looked at him like she was trying to determine if he was serious.

"No." The word came out flat and final. "I don’t date."

"Ever?"

"Ever."

"What if I—"

"No." Maya turned away. "Take care of yourself, rookie."

She disappeared into the bag room, and Leo stood frozen in her wake like a man who had just been struck by lightning and wasn’t sure if he had enjoyed it.

"Well." Kyle clapped Leo on the shoulder. "That went better than expected."

"She didn’t say never." Leo’s voice was distant, dreamy. "She said she doesn’t date. That’s present tense. Implies potential future change."

"That is not what that implies."

"I’m going to win her over."

"Leo. Buddy. She could literally murder you."

"Everyone has to die somehow."

Jordan watched his friend stare at the door Maya had vanished through and felt something complicated in his chest. Leo was delusional. Completely and utterly detached from reality. The woman he had decided to pursue could break him in half without breaking a sweat, and she had already rejected him with the kind of finality that most people reserved for terminal diagnoses.

And yet.

There was something almost admirable about it. Leo, for all his flaws, was putting himself out there. He was taking risks. Getting rejected. Trying again.

Three weeks ago, Jordan would have done the same thing and gotten the same result.

Maybe that was growth. Recognizing when to pursue something and when to acknowledge that the universe was sending very clear signals to back off.

Or maybe Leo just hadn’t figured that part out yet.

"Come on." Jordan grabbed Leo’s arm and steered him toward the exit. "We need to sign up and pay. Kyle, you remember the price?"

"One fifty a month. First month free for trial members who commit."

Jordan did the math in his head. Four fifty total for three memberships. Expensive, but manageable. And if the workout they had just done was any indication, it would be worth every cent.

They found Reyes back at the reception desk, filling out paperwork with the slow deliberation of someone who had done administrative work enough times to hate it but not enough times to get fast at it.

"Signing up?" He looked up as they approached. "All three of you?"

"Yeah." Jordan pulled out his wallet. "Monthly membership. All three."

"First month is covered by the trial." Reyes pulled out three forms. "Fill these out. Emergency contact, medical history, waiver saying you won’t sue us if you get hurt. Standard stuff."

They filled out the forms in silence. Leo kept glancing toward the bag room like he expected Maya to reappear at any moment. Kyle focused on his paperwork with methodical attention. Jordan breezed through his form and handed it back first.

"That girl." Reyes nodded toward the bag room. "Maya. She’s my daughter. Best fighter I ever trained."

"She’s incredible," Kyle said. "The way she moves. Never seen anything like it."

"She competes?" Jordan asked.

"Used to. Underground circuit mostly. Some official stuff when she was younger." Reyes’s face clouded briefly. "She’s focused on teaching now. Helping me keep this place running."

Jordan filed that information away for later. Maya Santos. Underground fighter turned instructor. Daughter of the gym owner. Completely uninterested in dating, especially uninterested in dating Leo.

The three of them paid for their memberships and headed back toward the car. The sun was starting to dip toward the horizon, painting the strip mall parking lot in shades of orange and gold.

"So." Kyle stretched as they walked. "Same time Thursday?"

"Wouldn’t miss it." Jordan unlocked the Civic. "Leo? You actually coming back or was that a one-time masochistic experience?"

Leo had been silent since Maya’s rejection. Now he looked up with eyes that burned with something Jordan had never seen in him before.

"Thursday." Leo nodded with uncharacteristic seriousness. "And every day after that. I’m going to prove her wrong."

"Prove her wrong about what?"

"About not dating." Leo climbed into the backseat. "She said she doesn’t date. That means she hasn’t met someone worth dating yet. I’m going to be that someone."

"Leo, she rejected you in under ten seconds."

"Edison failed a thousand times before he invented the lightbulb."

"Edison didn’t have to worry about the lightbulb punching him in the face."

"Details."