Chapter 150: 150 | Lo-Fi Hip Hop and Indecent Proposals
Seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars.
He had just made seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars by buying his girlfriend computer equipment.
The System was absolutely unhinged. Jordan loved it.
He locked his phone before either girl could see the notification. The cashier handed Jordan the receipt, and Kumiko immediately took over cart logistics, arranging the bags so the heavier boxes sat at the bottom and the lighter accessories rested on top. She moved the items with the spatial awareness of someone who had played too much Tetris and applied those skills to real life.
Chloe walked beside Jordan as they left the store. She looped her arm through his and leaned her head against his bicep for half a second, a gesture so quick anyone watching might have missed it, but Jordan felt the warmth of her temple through his shirt sleeve and the faint pressure of her body against his arm. She smelled like vanilla and that expensive Korean moisturizer she applied twice a day.
"Thank you," Chloe said.
Jordan smiled to himself. "Told you. Investment."
"You keep saying that word."
"Because it keeps being true."
She squeezed his arm once. Then she let go and moved ahead to help Kumiko navigate the cart through the automatic doors, leaving Jordan walking behind two girls with very different energy signatures and the distinct feeling that the seven hundred dollars sitting in his invisible System account was the least complicated thing about his afternoon.
The parking lot hit them with full Southern California heat. January in Orange County meant sixty-eight degrees and sunshine that felt warm enough to fool tourists into thinking it was summer. Jordan popped the trunk of his Civic and stood there for a full five seconds contemplating the spatial impossibility of fitting $1,347 worth of electronics into the back of a compact sedan that already contained shopping bags from their Fashion Island trip the day before.
"This is not going to fit," he said.
"It’ll fit." Kumiko was already reorganizing the trunk, pulling out Nordstrom bags and stacking them on the asphalt. She rearranged the existing contents with the focus of a surgeon, creating gaps between larger items and sliding flat boxes into spaces Jordan hadn’t realized existed. The acoustic foam panels went flat against the floor. The monitor riser box fit vertically against the rear seats. The microphone and audio interface boxes stacked neatly in the center.
"See?" Kumiko wiped her hands on her skirt. "Everything fits if you believe hard enough."
"That’s not how physics works."
"It’s how Kumiko works."
She was right. Everything fit. Jordan had to put two Nordstrom bags in the backseat next to Kumiko, but the trunk closed on the first try with half an inch to spare. He stared at the closed trunk lid with grudging respect.
"Alright," Jordan said, sliding into the driver’s seat and adjusting the rearview mirror. Chloe buckled her seatbelt in the passenger seat while Kumiko settled into the back between the shopping bags, her legs folded underneath her because the legroom was nonexistent. "Is that everything?"
Chloe tilted her head. Her fingers tapped against her knee in that way she did when a new idea was forming.
"Actually."
Jordan waited.
"I was thinking about background stuff for the stream. Plants. Maybe some artwork. A small shelf for aesthetic props." She pulled up Pinterest on her phone and showed him a photo of a streamer’s setup that featured a monstera plant, a vintage record player, and a pegboard wall displaying Polaroid photos. "Something like this. Kumiko said the background matters almost as much as the lighting."
"It does," Kumiko confirmed from the backseat, her voice returning to something closer to normal volume. "First impressions happen in the first three seconds. If your background looks like a dorm room, people swipe away."
Jordan nodded. "We can do that. But let’s drop this stuff off first before my suspension gives out."
"Deal." Chloe plugged the address into Google Maps. Thirty-two minutes back to the Cooper Garment Lofts. She connected her phone to the Bluetooth and scrolled through playlists before selecting something mellow, a lo-fi hip hop mix that filled the car with soft piano loops and low bass.
Jordan merged onto the freeway and settled into the middle lane. Traffic was light for a Sunday. The sun sat at an angle that forced him to lower the visor, and Chloe did the same on her side. Kumiko leaned her head against the window in the backseat, her Pocky box resting on her thigh with two sticks remaining.
The tension from earlier had started to dissolve somewhere between the keyboard section and checkout. Not gone entirely. More like the volume had been turned down from a ten to a four. Chloe’s body language had loosened. She sat with one leg tucked under her, her bare foot pressed against the glove compartment, scrolling through her phone with the lazy posture of someone who was mostly comfortable. Kumiko was quieter than her default setting but no longer radiating the nervous energy that had followed her through the store.
Jordan drove. The lo-fi beats looped. Cars passed. Palm trees lined the freeway median in neat rows.
Ten minutes in, Kumiko started humming along to one of the tracks. It wasn’t her full voice. Just a soft melody that floated from the backseat like smoke from a candle, barely audible over the road noise. Chloe glanced in the side mirror and caught Kumiko’s reflection. Something in Chloe’s jaw relaxed, a micro-movement so small that Jordan only noticed because he had been watching for exactly that kind of signal.
Fifteen minutes in, Kumiko offered Chloe one of her last two Pocky sticks. Chloe accepted it without turning around, reaching over her shoulder and waiting until the stick was placed between her fingers. She ate it slowly. Neither of them spoke about the exchange. Jordan kept his eyes on the road and pretended his heart wasn’t doing something complicated.
Twenty minutes in, Chloe shifted in her seat. She pulled her foot off the glove compartment and sat up straighter. Her hand found Jordan’s on the center console and covered it. Her fingers were warm and slightly sticky from Pocky residue.
Then she leaned close.
Close enough that her lips nearly brushed his ear. Close enough that her breath was warm on the side of his neck. Close enough that Jordan could smell her shampoo and the faint trace of the perfume she had put on that morning, something floral that he still couldn’t identify.
"Jordan."
Her voice was barely a whisper. Quiet enough that the lo-fi beat from the speakers would cover it from the backseat.
"Yeah."
"Remember the inheritance thing?"
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. Every muscle in his torso went rigid at the same time. The word inheritance carried enough weight to flatten a building, and Chloe had just dropped it directly onto his chest while he was doing sixty-five miles an hour on a California freeway with his girlfriend’s best friend sitting four feet behind them surrounded by Nordstrom bags.
Jordan nodded.
Chloe’s lips moved closer to his ear. Her fingers squeezed his hand.
"I wouldn’t mind Kumiko."
