Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 326: 326 | She Adapted [CASTLE BONUS]

He read the screen twice. Then he locked his phone, flipped it face down on his desk, and stared at the whiteboard, where Nguyen was currently butchering a trig substitution.

Thirty-nine percent. Five points just for existing. Five points for hitting the gym, eating dry chicken, and ignoring her messages. That meant Eliza Hartwell had spent her Saturday night in Cameron Mitchell’s bed, Cameron’s hand somewhere on her body, while she scrolled through pictures of the guy she used to call just some guy from class.

He reached for the dopamine hit. He wanted that petty vindication, but what he got felt thin and hollow, like watching a wrecking ball plow through a house he used to live in.

Kyle texted at 11:20.

Kyle: gym at 4? maya said dirty boxing thursday but she’s in today

Jordan replied yes. He ate his bagel eight hours late, sitting on the concrete retaining wall outside the Business Building.

At 1:41, his phone vibrated.

Chloe: you’re going in soon

Jordan: 19 minutes

Chloe: what are you wearing

Jordan: black tank. grey sweats.

Chloe: good. that’s not effort. don’t put on a jacket.

Chloe: and Jordan

Chloe: you don’t owe her anything today. not the project, not politeness, not the version of you she wants to see. she gets a debate outline. that’s the whole invoice.

Jordan: noted

Chloe: text me when you’re out

He stared at the chat bubble. He typed a reply, deleted it, tried a different phrasing, and deleted that too. Finally, he sent exactly what he was thinking.

Jordan: hey

Jordan: the thing the system wants. objective three.

Jordan: I don’t know if I want to do it.

The typing indicator popped up instantly. It stayed there a solid minute. She was writing and rewriting, probably because she’d been waiting for him to crack and say exactly that.

Chloe: then don’t

Chloe: the money’s nice. I made a whole speech about vertical integration and I stand by every word of it because I’m insane about money and we both know it. but I gave you a green light, not a schedule.

Chloe: you don’t have to touch her to break her. you’ve been breaking her since january by getting a haircut.

Chloe: 15 minutes. go.

The library hummed with its usual Monday misery. Four floors of glass and slow-moving dread. A guy on the second-floor landing was asleep face-down on a textbook, his hoodie pulled tight to block out the fluorescent ceiling lights.

Study room 3B sat at the far end of the hall. A narrow pane of glass framed the door.

Eliza was already inside. Fifteen minutes early. Again.

Jordan stopped a few feet back. Through the glass, he got a clear view of the strategy she had mapped out for the next hour.

Her blonde hair fell in careful, practiced waves—a messy look that demanded expensive styling cream and forty-five minutes with an iron. She tucked one side behind her ear, angling her head just enough to expose the bare line of her neck. Her white knit sweater looked plush and thick, but she had let it slide off her left shoulder. The deliberate drape revealed a single black bra strap tracking across her pale skin. Highly visible and entirely calculated.

She wore a pleated tennis skirt holding a much higher hemline than the one from last week. She crossed her left leg over her right. Ten seconds later, she uncrossed them and planted both feet flat. Then right over left. Her fingers tapped her collarbone, smoothed the edge of her sweater, and retreated to her lap, only to migrate right back to her neck a minute later.

Two iced coffees sat on the table between her open laptop and a blank notebook.

Two. She didn’t buy him a blue Powerade this time. She adapted. Nobody had ever accused Eliza Hartwell of failing to iterate.

Her screens glowed, but she wasn’t reading a single word. She was staring directly at the door.

Jordan held his phone. He wasn’t typing. He just needed something to hold so he wouldn’t feel like an idiot standing in the hallway, about to knock on a door he used to have the keys for.

The cold parking lot outside the Sunset Love Hotel flared in his head. The sneer on her face when she looked at him like he was a panhandler interrupting her date. The wet, eager sound she made against Cameron’s mouth while Jordan stood ten feet away with a crumpled Prada receipt in his jacket pocket.

Then yesterday shoved that memory aside. Chloe’s kitchen. The afternoon sun hitting her sides. Chloe’s hand pressing hard and flat against her bare stomach as she closed her eyes.

He grabbed the chrome handle and pushed the door inward.

Eliza sprang out of her chair before the door even swung wide. The movement was a violent burst of kinetic energy, the raw physical reflex of a girl who had spent twenty minutes forcing herself to sit perfectly still.

"You’re early." She laughed, high and brittle. A vocal crack split the sound down the middle. "I mean. I’m early. I’m always early now. That’s apparently a whole new thing I do. Show up places before the actual time. Revolutionary personal growth."

"Yeah."

"I got you a coffee." She tapped the clear plastic cup in front of her. Her manicured nails slid it two inches across the laminate toward the empty chair, then yanked back. She pinned both hands firmly between her bare thighs. "Iced. Vanilla. Like you used to get."

The cup sat beside the closed laptop. Condensation bled down the plastic and pooled on the table.

Jordan dropped his bag. Instead of taking the seat next to her, he pulled out the chair directly across the table. He flipped his notebook open to the outline draft.

"Section two," he said. "You had the meritocracy myth stuff."

Her lips parted. She took a short, uneven breath.

She reached past him and shoved the door. The deadbolt clicked hard into the metal frame. Eliza leaned over the table, planting her palms flat against the wood. The careful, polished act completely collapsed.

"Can we not do the outline first."

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