Chapter 233: 234 | Me
"No. I mean. Nobody sits here. Nobody ever sits here. This is the back corner. People avoid the back corner because Dr. Nguyen calls on people randomly and statistically she favors the left side of the room which means sitting here increases your chances of being called on by approximately twelve percent and most people would rather sit in the middle where they can hide in the crowd but the middle actually has higher call-on rates because—"
She stopped talking abruptly. Her face went from pale to crimson in about half a second.
"Sorry. I’m sorry. I do that. The talking thing. When I’m nervous. Which is always. I’m always nervous. Not that you make me nervous specifically, I mean you do, but everyone makes me nervous, it’s a general condition, I have anxiety, diagnosed, I take medication, not that you needed to know that, I don’t know why I said that, please forget I said anything, please just sit somewhere else so I can die in peace."
Jordan sat down.
The girl made a sound like a small animal being stepped on.
"I’m Jordan," he said.
"I know."
He raised an eyebrow. "You know?"
"You’re Jordan McKnight. Unit 404 at the Cooper Garment Lofts. Business Economics major with a focus on entrepreneurship. You dated Eliza Hartwell for two months before she left you for Cameron Mitchell on Christmas Day. You spent three thousand dollars on an OnlyFans coffee date that somehow turned into an actual relationship with Chloe Kim, who lives in Unit 403 next to you. You’re also dating Kumiko Yamanaka, which is either a polyamorous arrangement or a very complicated situation that gossip hasn’t fully clarified yet. Your GPA last semester was a 2.7 but you’ve been attending classes more consistently this semester so that’s probably going to improve. You answer questions correctly now. You look different. People have noticed."
The words came out in a single unbroken stream, delivered to the desktop rather than to Jordan’s face. The girl’s ears were bright red.
"That’s... comprehensive," Jordan said.
"I notice things. I don’t mean to. I just do. Information goes in and it stays there and I can’t make it stop." She finally looked at him, her brown eyes wide with something between horror and resignation. "I’m not stalking you. I swear I’m not stalking you. I just have a really good memory and people talk in the hallways and I hear things and—"
"It’s fine."
"—my brain just files it all away like a really aggressive librarian who refuses to throw anything out and sometimes I accidentally say things that I shouldn’t know because normal people don’t remember random details about strangers but I’m not normal, I’ve never been normal, my therapist says I have to accept that I process information differently but accepting it doesn’t make it less weird when I accidentally reveal that I know someone’s entire life history from passive observation—"
"What’s your name?"
The girl stopped talking. Her mouth opened and closed twice before any sound came out.
"Ava," she said quietly. "Ava Moreno."
"Nice to meet you, Ava Moreno."
Ava stared at him like he’d just performed a magic trick she couldn’t explain.
"Why are you being nice to me?"
"Why wouldn’t I be?"
"Because nobody is nice to me. Not intentionally. Sometimes people are accidentally nice because they don’t realize they’re talking to me until it’s too late, but then they figure out I’m weird and they leave. That’s usually how it goes. You should probably leave now. Save yourself the trouble of figuring it out later."
Jordan leaned back in his chair. "I’m not leaving."
"But—"
"I’m going to need an accountant."
Ava blinked. "What?"
"An accountant. Someone who understands numbers. Someone who can look at a spreadsheet and see patterns that other people miss." Jordan gestured at her notebook. "You’re doing differential equations that aren’t on the syllabus. In a Calculus II class. For fun, apparently."
Ava’s face cycled through about eight different emotions in three seconds. Confusion. Surprise. Wariness. Something that might have been hope, quickly suppressed. More confusion.
"That’s not... I’m not... those aren’t for fun, they’re just..." She trailed off. "How did you know they weren’t on the syllabus?"
"I read the syllabus."
"Most people don’t read the syllabus."
"I’m not most people."
Something flickered in Ava’s expression. Jordan couldn’t quite identify it.
"You’re starting a business," she said. It wasn’t a question.
"How do you know that?"
"You said you need an accountant. People don’t need accountants for regular life things. They need accountants when they have money moving in complicated directions. You’re dating two women simultaneously, which requires time management skills and probably shared expenses. You mentioned entrepreneurship as a focus. Your body language changed three weeks ago, which suggests a significant life event triggered a personality shift. You’re sitting in the back corner of a calculus class talking to the weird girl instead of the front row where the actual smart people sit. You’re recruiting."
Jordan felt his respect for Ava Moreno increase by several degrees.
"You’re right," he said. "I am."
"For what?"
"A talent management company. Content creators. Streamers. Influencers. People who make things online and need someone to handle the business side so they can focus on creating."
Ava’s pen had stopped moving. Her full attention was fixed on Jordan now, and he realized that when she actually looked at someone directly, her brown eyes had an intensity that was almost uncomfortable. Like being examined under a microscope by someone who could see straight through to your cellular structure.
"That’s a crowded market," Ava said. "Talent management for content creators has been growing at approximately eighteen percent annually for the past five years. Barrier to entry is low. Competition is fierce. Most new agencies fail within eighteen months."
"We’re not going to fail."
"Statistical probability suggests otherwise."
"Statistics don’t account for everything."
Ava tilted her head. "What do you have that other agencies don’t?"
Jordan considered the question. He could tell her about Chloe’s work ethic and business instincts. About Kumiko’s creativity and obsessive attention to detail. About Brooke’s analytical mind and the thirty-four-page operating agreement currently sitting in his email inbox. About the mysterious goth girl with seventeen thousand followers who they were meeting for Korean BBQ tomorrow.
But that wasn’t really the answer.
"Me," Jordan said.
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