Infinite Cashback: My Wealth Rebate System

Bree turned the pen over once more before setting it down flat, like she needed her hands occupied one last time before the rest of her caught up.

"I read people because I used to get everything wrong," she said. "Not socially awkward wrong. Actually wrong. I’d think someone liked me and they didn’t. I’d think a friend was fine and they weren’t, not even close, and I wouldn’t find out until it was already too late to do anything useful with the information." She glanced up at him briefly, then back down. "So I started paying attention. Properly. Not just listening to what people said, but actually watching everything underneath it. Eventually I got good at it. Too good, probably. It became less of a skill and more of a habit I couldn’t turn off."

"That sounds exhausting."

"It is. Constantly." She laughed, short and a little rueful. "I catalogue people within about thirty seconds of meeting them now. It’s not even a choice at this point. You walked in that first day and I had you sorted before Vivian even finished the introductions."

"What’d you sort me as."

"Careful. Guarded, but not cold. Someone who’d been burned recently enough that it still shaped how he held himself in a room." She said it plainly, no hesitation, and Jason felt something land slightly off-center in his chest at how precisely she’d nailed it without him telling her a single actual detail. "I write the notes because it’s the only way I’ve found to actually give something back instead of just quietly collecting information about people and keeping it for myself. Feels less like spying if I hand a piece of it over."

"That’s a strange way to think about it."

"Maybe. It works for me." She tapped her pen lightly against the table, a small, restless motion. "I’ve never really explained that to anyone before. You’re the first person who’s asked."

"I didn’t ask."

"You would have eventually. I decided to save you the trouble." She smiled slightly, something warmer under the usual careful precision, and reached across the table, tapping one finger lightly against the back of his hand, quick, deliberate, testing something. "You’re good at reading people too, by the way. You just do it quieter than I do. Less obvious about it."

"I don’t do what you do."

"You do. You just did it to me two days ago at that corner." She pulled her hand back, though the flush hadn’t fully receded, sitting there stubborn along her cheekbones. "Most people don’t catch that I’m performing calm. You caught it in one conversation."

"You underestimate how much attention people actually pay to you. You just never let anyone finish the thought before you deflect."

Her breath caught, the same small hitch from a minute ago, and this time Jason let himself lean in slightly, not closing the whole distance, just enough to make the air between them feel deliberate instead of accidental. "You’re very easy to fluster for someone who reads everyone else so easily."

"I’m not flustered."

"You are. It’s genuinely one of the more entertaining things I’ve discovered this week." He kept his voice low, even, entirely unhurried, watching the color climb further up her neck at the observation. "You catalogue everyone else in thirty seconds and completely forget how to function the second someone actually looks back."

"That’s not fair."

"It’s very fair. I’m just stating facts. You’re the one who taught me that’s supposed to be a compliment."

Bree opened her mouth to argue, closed it again, and for a second the room held nothing but the low hum of the building’s air conditioning and the specific, charged quiet of two people who’d both stopped pretending the conversation was still about studying.

Then her phone buzzed against the table, loud and sudden, and both of them startled slightly at the noise.

Bree grabbed it fast, more out of reflex than urgency, and her expression shifted the second she read the screen, something like relief and mild irritation crossing her face at once. "It’s my roommate. Apparently there’s a plumbing situation and she needs me to deal with the landlord because I’m apparently ’better at being scary over text.’"

"Are you scary over text?"

"Extremely. It’s a whole other skill set." She was already gathering her things, the moment from a second ago dissolving into practical motion, notebook closing, bag zipping. "I should head out. This sounds like it’s going to eat the rest of my evening."

"I’ll walk with you. We’re probably headed the same way." Jason stood too, packing up his own things, unbothered by the shift in mood, though he caught the way Bree’s hands paused for half a second at his offer before continuing to move.

"You don’t have to."

"I know I don’t have to. I want to." He said it simply, and watched Bree’s expression flicker at the sentence, something in it landing differently than he intended, a beat of hesitation before she nodded and finished zipping her bag.

They left the library together, the evening cooling around them, and walked the first two blocks in easy conversation, Bree recounting some story about her roommate’s ongoing feud with their landlord that had Jason genuinely laughing by the second detail, the tension from the study room settling into something lighter, more comfortable.

"You’re better at this than I expected," she said, glancing at him. "Making a plumbing dispute sound entertaining."

"You’re the one telling the story. I’m just an appreciative audience."

"An audience that keeps interrupting with commentary."

"That’s what good audiences do." He glanced sideways at her, the streetlights starting to flicker on overhead as the evening properly settled in. "You’re better at storytelling than you let on in the group, by the way. Same thing as the conversation earlier. You take up more space when it’s just one other person listening."

"Is that a compliment or an observation."

"Both. Same as before."

Bree’s step faltered slightly, and Jason noticed the exact moment they approached the corner where the road actually split, the same intersection, he realized a beat too late, that ran parallel to his own street.

"This is me," she said, a little too quickly, gesturing vaguely toward the road that curved off to the left. "I’m this way."

Jason frowned slightly. "I thought you lived closer to the library. Isn’t your building the other direction?"

"No, it’s, I moved. Recently." The lie arrived fast and thin, not nearly as smooth as anything she’d said all evening, her usual careful precision abandoning her entirely under the pressure of the moment. "New place. This way."

"Bree."

"I really have to go. Roommate. Plumbing. Landlord who’s apparently terrified of me over text." She was already backing up, the words tumbling out faster than her usual measured cadence, her whole composed exterior from an hour ago completely gone now, replaced by the same flustered energy from the corner two days earlier, except amplified this time, unmistakable. "This was fun. Studying, I mean. See you tomorrow."

"You’re going the wrong way."

"I’m going my way." She turned before he could argue the point any further, walking fast, faster than the situation warranted, disappearing down the side street with the same abrupt, uneven urgency she’d shown before, leaving Jason standing at the corner watching her go, mildly amused and thoroughly unconvinced by the entire performance.

She lives the other direction. I’ve heard her mention the same street Vivian’s on at least twice. He shook his head slightly, a small, private smile tugging at his mouth as he turned to continue on toward his own apartment, the evening settling comfortably around him despite the ten day clock still quietly ticking somewhere in the back of his mind.

Guess I flustered her worse than I thought. He pulled out his phone, checking the time, and started walking. Interesting. Didn’t expect that to actually work twice in one week.

He walked the rest of the way alone, the quiet of the evening settling around him, replaying the last hour without really meaning to. The trap questions. The way she’d actually loosened up once the group had thinned down to just the two of them. The small, deliberate note she’d handed him days ago, and the far less deliberate exit she’d just made.

Three different personalities in that study room, he thought, letting the observation stretch out properly for the first time since Vivian had first described them to him on the way over. Nadia treats everything like a battle plan. Vivian treats everything like a performance she’s genuinely enjoying. And Bree treats everything like a puzzle she’s already solved, until it’s her turn to be the puzzle, and then she just runs.

He reached his building, climbed the stairs, and let himself inside, the apartment quiet and empty around him, and sat down on the edge of his bed without turning on the lights right away.

Ten days. The number was still there, waiting patiently in the corner of his vision the second he actually let himself think about it again. And somehow I’ve spent half of today thinking about anything except that.

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