Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 186: 186 | A Work in Progress, Forever

His phone buzzed again. And again. And again.

Jordan sighed.

Very carefully, he shifted Chloe’s weight and slid out from under her. She made a sound of protest but didn’t wake up, instead rolling onto her stomach and burying her face in the pillow that still smelled like them both. Jordan watched her for a moment longer than necessary before reaching down to grab his jeans.

The phone showed seven unread messages.

Three from Kumiko, all sent within the last hour.

The first was a photo of her bedroom ceiling with the caption "can’t sleep" and a single moon emoji.

The second was longer. "I keep thinking about today. About how you fixed my ribbon. About how you said you’d try. I’ve never had someone say they’d try before. People either promise forever or they disappear. Trying feels honest."

The third was just a heart emoji followed by "goodnight Jordan-kun" and approximately forty z’s.

Jordan typed a reply without thinking too hard about it. "Goodnight Kumi. Sleep well. I’ll text you in the morning."

Send.

He watched the typing bubble appear almost immediately. Disappear. Appear again. Then nothing.

She was probably staring at her phone trying to decide if she should respond again or if that would be too clingy. Jordan knew the feeling. He’d spent countless hours doing the exact same thing with Eliza, agonizing over whether to double-text, whether she’d seen his message and was ignoring it, whether he should have added more emojis or fewer emojis or no emojis at all.

The difference was that Kumiko actually liked him. Her anxiety came from a different place. Not wondering if he cared, but wondering if she was allowed to show how much she cared without scaring him away.

Jordan sent another message. "It’s okay to respond. I like hearing from you."

This time her reply came in under three seconds.

A single emoji. The blushing face with the hearts around it.

Then: "You’re the best boyfriend ever and I know you’re with Chloe-chan right now so I’m going to stop texting and go to sleep for real this time I promise okay goodnight I love you both bye"

Jordan read that last part three times.

I love you both.

She’d said it casually. Thrown it in with the rest of her rambling like it was no big deal. Like loving two people simultaneously was just something she did now and everyone should get on board.

Jordan locked his phone and set it on the nightstand.

Chloe hadn’t moved. Still face-down on the pillow with her bare back exposed and the sheets tangled around her legs. The outline of her spine caught the ambient light from outside. Jordan could count her vertebrae if he wanted to.

He didn’t want to.

Instead he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over both of them. Chloe made another small sound and immediately rolled toward him, seeking his warmth with the single-minded determination of someone who had very strong opinions about sleep positions. Her head found his shoulder. Her arm draped across his chest. Her leg hooked over his thigh.

Within thirty seconds she was breathing evenly again.

Jordan lay there in the dark.

Somewhere out in the city, Leo was probably still scrolling through social media looking for any trace of Maya Santos. Kyle was sleeping in his truck because he refused to crash on anyone’s couch no matter how many times Jordan offered. Brooke was either passed out at her desk or pulling an all-nighter on LLC paperwork that wasn’t due for another forty-eight hours. Alexis was doing whatever Alexis did at night, which Jordan tried very hard not to think about because it made his brain hurt.

All of these people were part of his life now.

A month ago he’d had Kyle and maybe Leo if Leo was bored enough to respond to texts. That was it. That was the whole list. Everyone else was either a stranger or someone who actively avoided him.

Now Jordan had connections that felt real. People who checked in on him. People who wanted things from him, sure, but also people who wanted to give things back.

Was that the System’s doing? Partially. Probably mostly. The System had pushed him to talk to people, had tracked his social interactions like a fitness app tracking steps, had rewarded him for doing things that humans were supposed to do naturally.

But the System couldn’t force people to like him. Couldn’t make Chloe curl up against him in her sleep. Couldn’t make Kumiko send rambling texts at one in the morning because she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t make Kyle drive across town for a boxing gym just because Jordan asked.

Those were choices other people made. About him.

The realization settled into Jordan’s chest and stayed there.

He might be cheating. He might have advantages that nobody else had. He might be playing a game where the rules were rigged in his favor.

But the people in his life weren’t NPCs following a script. They were real humans with real agency who had decided, for whatever reason, that Jordan McKnight was worth their time.

That had to mean something.

Right?

Chloe’s hand moved in her sleep. Slid lower across his stomach. Stopped just above his waistband in a way that was definitely not intentional but definitely made it harder to focus on existential questions about personal growth.

Jordan exhaled slowly.

Okay. Maybe he wasn’t fixed. Maybe he’d never be fixed. Maybe the best he could hope for was being a work in progress forever, always improving but never arriving at some final version of himself that had everything figured out.

That sucked but it also felt honest.

The old Jordan would have obsessed over whether he deserved what he had. Would have sabotaged himself just to confirm his own worst beliefs about who he was and what he was worth. Would have pushed people away before they could leave him because at least then the rejection would be on his terms.

The new Jordan was lying in bed with a beautiful woman who had cooked him dinner and laughed at his jokes and said things to him in the dark that he was pretty sure he’d remember for the rest of his life.

The new Jordan had another beautiful woman texting him goodnight messages with too many emojis because she couldn’t stop thinking about a headpat.

The new Jordan had a business plan, a gym membership, and a forty-seven-page market analysis written by someone who stayed up all night just to help him succeed.

Was that the System’s doing? Sure. Partially. Mostly.

But the old Jordan wouldn’t have known what to do with any of it. Would have squandered every opportunity. Would have found some way to turn gold into garbage because that’s what the old Jordan did.

The new Jordan was at least trying not to fuck it up.

That had to count for something.