Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 199: 199 | A Tea Kettle Reaching Boiling Point [GT BONUS]

The question hung in the apartment like smoke from a blown-out candle.

Kumiko pressed her face deeper into Jordan’s shoulder, her twin tails tickling his neck. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and green curry and something warm that was just her.

Chloe sat on Jordan’s other side, her expression unreadable. She hadn’t moved since Kumiko asked.

Jordan waited.

This was Chloe’s call.

He knew that. She knew that. Even half-asleep Kumiko probably knew that somewhere in the foggy depths of her exhausted brain.

"She can stay at Jordan’s place," Chloe said.

Jordan blinked.

Kumiko’s head lifted from his shoulder. "Huh?"

"My apartment is too small for three people to sleep comfortably. Jordan’s bed is bigger." Chloe took a sip of wine that she had been nursing for the last hour, her blue streak catching the lamplight as she tilted her head back. "Take her next door. Make sure she actually sleeps."

The words landed with a weight that exceeded their surface meaning by about four hundred percent.

Jordan looked at Chloe. Really looked at her.

Her face was calm. Not the fake calm she used on camera, not the public smile she wore for Alexis and the campus crowd. This was private Chloe. The one who made decisions about complicated things while maintaining total composure because falling apart was a luxury she’d never been able to afford.

"You sure?" Jordan asked.

"I’m sure." Chloe leaned over and kissed his cheek. Her lips were warm from the wine. "Go."

"Chloe-chan..." Kumiko’s voice wobbled. "Are you really okay with this? Because if you’re not, I can go home. It’s fine. I can call an Uber. Or walk. Walking is exercise. Healthy exercise. For my legs."

"Kumi."

"Yes?"

"Shut up and go with your boyfriend."

Kumiko made a sound like a tea kettle reaching boiling point. A high, whistling little noise that escaped through her nose because her mouth was pressed into a flat line of pure overwhelm.

"Okay," she whispered.

Jordan stood up first and offered his hand to Kumiko. She took it with both of hers, her fingers cold and slightly trembling. He pulled her to her feet, and she swayed against him, her head barely reaching his collarbone in her platform sneakers.

"I’ll see you in the morning," Chloe said from the couch, reaching for the remote. "My alarm goes off at six forty-seven. If you’re not awake by then, I’m banging on the wall."

"Romantic," Jordan said.

"I’m a romantic person."

"You’re terrifying."

"Also true." Chloe smiled. The real one. The one that reached all the way to her eyes and made her look younger than eighteen. "Goodnight, Jordan."

"Night."

"Goodnight, Chloe-chan! I love you! Thank you for sharing him! I promise I’ll take good care of—"

"Kumi. Door. Now."

Kumiko squeaked and let Jordan guide her toward the exit. He grabbed his keys from the counter on the way past.

The hallway of the Cooper Garment Lofts was quiet at ten fifteen on a Tuesday. The industrial lighting cast long shadows on the concrete floor, and the faint smell of lemon cleaner mixed with old brick. Jordan’s apartment was twelve feet away. Twelve feet and one door.

He unlocked Unit 404 and pushed the door open.

Kumiko hovered on the threshold. Her brown eyes traveled across his living space, taking in the clean kitchen, the grey couch, the factory windows showing the Newport Beach skyline. She’d been inside his apartment before, during the PC building session. She’d seen the layout, the minimal furniture, the basic bachelor pad aesthetic that his mother would have described as depressing.

But she’d never been inside at night.

With just him.

"Come in," Jordan said.

Kumiko stepped across the threshold like she was entering a temple. Each footfall on the concrete was deliberate and almost reverent, her platform sneakers making soft tapping sounds. She turned in a slow circle in the middle of the living room, her pastel pink crop hoodie riding up at her waist as she craned her neck to look at the loft.

"Your apartment smells like you," she said.

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good. Very good. Cedar and soap and... boy." She wrinkled her nose in a way that made her look about twelve years old. "I don’t know how to describe it. You just smell like a person I want to be close to."

Jordan closed and locked the door behind them.

The sound of the deadbolt engaging seemed very loud in the quiet apartment.

Kumiko turned to face him. The distance between them was about six feet. She stood in a patch of ambient light from the kitchen, her hair slightly mussed from leaning on his shoulder during the movie. One of her pink ribbons had come loose, and the left twin tail was sagging toward her ear.

"I should fix that," Jordan said.

"Fix what?"

He closed the distance and reached for the loose ribbon. His fingers found the silky fabric and the warm hair beneath it, and he retied the bow with a care that surprised even him. The ribbon slid into place against her black hair, neat and straight.

Kumiko stopped breathing.

Her entire body went still the way it always did when he touched her head. Her eyes glazed over, her lips parted, and a tiny, involuntary "mmnh" escaped her throat.

Jordan’s Headpat trait hummed through his fingertips.

He felt it in his wrist, his forearm, the center of his chest. A low vibration that traveled from his hand into Kumiko’s skull and spread through her nervous system like warm water filling a bathtub. Her shoulders dropped. Her jaw unclenched. The constant vibrating anxiety that powered Kumiko Yamanaka like a nuclear reactor went offline, and what remained was just a girl. Small and soft and leaning into his palm with her whole body weight.

"Nnnn," she sighed.

"Better?"

"Mm." Her eyes were half closed. Her lips curved into a dreamy smile. "S’nice."

Jordan removed his hand before the moment tipped from tender into dangerous.

Kumiko swayed forward.

"Bed’s upstairs," he said.

Her eyes snapped open. Full focus. Instant sobriety. The pink in her cheeks went from faint blush to full crimson in about half a second.

"B-bed," she repeated.

"You said you wanted to stay. I assumed that meant sleeping."

"Right. Sleeping. Yes. That is what I meant. One hundred percent sleeping and nothing else. Zero percent anything else. Completely and totally just unconsciousness in a horizontal position."

"You’re spiraling."

"I’m spiraling."

Jordan took her hand and led her toward the stairs.