Page 141 of Finance Bros

“Shut the fuck up, Mal.”

“I think the cat’s out of the bag,” Bailey says.

“What gave it away?” I mumble.

“It was the hand in the hair for me,” she admits.

Miguel adds, “It was the chest rub and the kiss on the neck for me.”

Did I kiss him? Shit.

“Missed that,” Bailey says. “But you’re right. Definitely seals it.”

“Okay, okay,” Ryan says. “Sue me for wanting to make him feel better.”

He kissedmyneck?

I can walk fine, but Ryan keeps an arm around my waist all the way to the car he ordered to take us to the ER.

“You think Stephanie’s gonna be okay?” I ask.

Ryan shakes his head and laughs.

26

RYAN

Mal shakes the bottle of narcotic pain pills in my face. “You want one?”

“No,” I say firmly because this isn’t the first time he’s asked. I don’t know what he thinks I’ll say to him that I haven’t already said. It’s Sunday afternoon, and we both woke up late after six hours in the emergency room. His left wrist is broken, but doesn’t require surgery, so he’s in a cast that covers half his hand and his entire forearm.

Bailey dropped off Stephanie around ten, and she peeked in on Mal asleep in my bed. “How long?” she’d asked.

“About three weeks,” I told her.

“Doesn’t he have a girlfriend?”

I sighed. “They’re on a break or something.”

“Is it rude that I like him about ten thousand times more now?”

I huffed a laugh. “Me, too.”

“I didn’t know you…”

“It’s him,” I admitted. “It’s kinda always been him.”

She’d looked up at me like she might cry. “That’s so sweet.”

“Is it?” I asked. “Because most days it feels colossally stupid.”

She left us alone after reassuring me that she approved.

Now, I shove his hand and the pills away. “You get forty-eight hours with those, then you’re weaning.”

“I broke a bone,” he argues.

“You’re suffocating when you’re high.”

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