Page 125 of The Broker

I wanted to get there someday. To be knowledgeable and always ready with the right answer, and I spent a lot of time doing my research. I was addicted to cleaning subreddits. I watched other influencers videos, not just for their cleaning process, but to see what worked style wise, what I responded to as a viewer.

In all my life, I’d never liked studying, but this was... sort of enjoyable. It was a full-time job that, so far, didn’t feel like work.

I jotted down notes whenever a question came up I didn’t know the answer to, mining the ideas for future videos.

Dryer vent cleaning,I scribbled in my notebook.Apartment rental move-out.

I’d only planned to talk for thirty minutes, but the comments were coming at me fast and furious, which was awesome, but I struggled to keep up. For time, I had to bypass the question asking which curling iron I’d used on my hair this morning.

The wannabe lifestyle influencer I’d been died a little at that.

I would have been happy to talk beauty stuff any other day, but I needed to stay on brand and get through all the cleaning questions.

When the front doorbell rang, my face froze with a smile, and I pretended I hadn’t heard anything. My microphone was sensitive, but only at close range, so it probably hadn’t picked it up.

I was sure my mom would deal with it, and I used this as my sign to wrap things up.

“Thank you so much for hanging out with me,” I said brightly while staring at the screen of my phone. “This was a lot of fun, and I hope it—”

Breath halted in my lungs when a figure materialized in the background. The moment I recognized who it was, my heart bounced into overdrive, and I spun to face him. I forgot all about the camera, or the people who were watching, and gaped at him.

Noah took one look at my setup, saw the red record timer ticking away at the top of my phone’s screen, and froze like a deer caught in headlights.

“Noah? What the hell?” I demanded.

A warning blared in my head, reminding me I was still live. I swiveled back around, plastered an enormous fake smile on, and like the doorbell, I pretended everything was fine. Nothing had just happened, and I definitely wasn’t unraveling at the sight of him.

Comments flashed quickly by.

Who’s that?

OMG, he’s cute! Your bf?

Some were just emojis of heart eyed smiley faces.

Girl, your brother is hot AF.

My brain wasn’t working properly, so I couldn’t stop my knee-jerk response or the disgust in my voice. “He’snotmy brother.” The statement hung for a beat too long. “He’s...”

My ex? The man who ran away the second things got hard?

“He’s my,” I fumbled out, “business partner.”

He remained frozen in the doorway as if every muscle in his stupid, hot body no longer worked, and he was trapped there forever.

My tone was sickly-sweet. “Say hi, Noah. Give the folks a wave.”

Oh, so his bodydidwork.

His expression was dazed as he lifted a hand and gave the worst attempt at a wave I’d ever seen. The comments kept scrolling by.

I would get nothing done if my coworkers looked like that.

Any job openings?

Is he single?

These people were entirely too horny at eleven o’clock in the morning.

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