Page 4 of The Barkeep and the Bro

Like a master football player dodging a tackle, she swerved from my grip and was on her feet in two seconds, phone still in her hand. “No morning sex on weekdays. It takes me twice as long to get ready as you. All the makeup and shaving shit I have to do, whereas guys can just shower, slap on deodorant, and call it a day.”

“You don’t need any makeup or shaving. You’re beautiful just the way you were.”

She rolled her eyes while laughing, brushing her soft hair over her shoulders. If she didn’t have such an affinity for numbers, Serena could totally be a model. She had the beauty and the untouchability.

“Maybe I should get ready first in the mornings. And you can talk to yourself in the bedroom.”

Shit. She could hear me?

“Done. Ladies first.”

She leaned down and hovered her lips over mine. “You don’t need to give yourself a pep talk. You’re already the man, Charlie Porterfield.”

* * *

Serenaand I met as trainees at our investment firm. All the guys in our cohort were attracted to her, but I won out. What I lacked in height, I made up for in charm.

Her competitiveness and ambition fueled me to step up my game at work. I had to constantly prove myself to keep a girl like this. I had fallen into working in finance thanks to a fraternity connection. The job was a lot of numbers and pouring over a computer, not two of my strong suits. But it was a social office, and I made great money, so I was happy. Or at least happy-adjacent.

You have a primo job.

We scrolled on our phones during the subway ride to Wall Street. Serena read stock news while I checked in on sports.

“Demeter is up eight points in pre-market trading.” She nudged my elbow and flashed me a smile. “Good job, Porterfield.”

Demeter was an agricultural tech startup focused on scalable crop growing. The founder was a few years ahead of me in college, but we met at an alumni event and realized we were both from the same frat. He told me about this new technology he was working on, and I got my firm to invest. Since then, the stock has skyrocketed, and once it goes public, we’ll be positively drowning in money.

I opened Instagram and scrolled through before we hit the patch of subway where we lost service. My old college girlfriend, Ellie Dekker, had gotten engaged. We weren’t a great fit—I was heavily into my frat, and she was on the bookish side, but she was a really genuine person. I smiled as I looked through her engagement pictures; she and her fiance seemed more on the same wavelength. I loved seeing good things happen to good people.

I laughed to myself when I remembered her dad Mitch. The dude was kinda scary. He was tall, broad-chested, and very bearded. Half lumberjack, half bouncer. I always did my best to engage him in conversation when he visited Ellie at school, really striving for those boyfriend points. I was a social guy, and I could get ninety-nine percent of people to open up. But Mitch was a brick wall. He took one look at my backward hat and flip-flops, and that was that.

Well, hopefully, this fiance fared better with him.

When we pulled into the station, the internet was restored, and all hell broke loose.

Our phones buzzed with a news notification that made my stomach plummet into my shoes. I raced out of the subway and sprinted up the escalator. When I hit the cold January air, on a huge outdoor TV screen were images of the wunderkind Demeter founder with the headlineReport: Demeter technology called into question. Potential evidence of faked test results.

Oh, holy hell of flaming shitballs.

You got a primo job! You’re packing heat! You’re not going bald!

People buzzed around me, a dizzy blend of suits and briefcases scurrying to their offices. I stood in the middle of the traffic, heart officially stopped.

“Charlie, this is bad.” Serena’s face was glued to her phone. She read from one of the now several articles online. “Internal documents show that the agricultural technology that Demeter stands on, which claims it can cultivate any crop to grow in any environment, is a fiction spun up by enigmatic wunderkind founder Will Watson. The USDA and FDA are now reviewing.” Her gorgeous face went white. “Charlie.”

“I didn’t know! Shit.”

“We’ve invested millions of our clients’ dollars in Demeter. Shares are going to plummet.”

Maybe this was a big misunderstanding. How could a company completely fake its entire business?

Because finance bros like me fell under the spell of Will Watson. He seemed so cool, his own brand of untouchability, like Steve Jobs without the turtleneck.

“Did anything seem off about them?” Serena began walking to the office. I hurried to catch up. “I knew it seemed too good to be true.”

If you knew that, then why didn’t you say anything?

“There’s no hard evidence yet. It’s speculation. Right?”

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