Page 161 of Finance Bros

She squints at me like she’s thinking really, really hard. “Maybe like…” then she wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “I can’t with penises. Sorry.”

“None taken,” I say, and she laughs.

“Malcolm. Get it together. He’s crazy about you. It’s blatantly obvious.”

“What if he doesn’t want to be? What if he’d rather be crazy about her?”

“Now you’re projecting.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, because that sounds like exactly what you did. You didn’t want to admit you wanted to kiss your stepbrother, and then you found a girl you could tolerate and took your angst out on her. You just happened to like her in the meantime and stuck with it. Maybe you convinced yourself you could keep lying to yourself forever, but that’s not him.”

“You barely know him,” I say, although she’s gotten quite the read onme.

“I know he’s not half as confused as you are.”

“I think you’re wrong about that,” I say with a fair degree of confidence. Ryan might not outwardly be as big of a mess as I am, but he’s decently fucked up over what’s happening with us. But enough to give up on it?

“I just mean he’s crazy about you. And very protective.”

Miguel said the same thing. “How do you know that?” I ask.

“Because he told me.”

“When?”

She sighs. “Are you okay? Are you going to survive the rest of the day and not spiral into a jealousy vortex?”

“Sure,” I tell her. Her tough love isn’t going down easy today, and besides, I know what I know, and I saw what I saw. Ryan and Norah looked like endgame, which makes me a fling.

And if that’s not the case—if it’s just my paranoia making that hug look like more than it was—the doubts I have abouthim and me are still baked in. All his walls, his boundaries, his restraint—it can only mean one thing. He doesn’t want me to get too close. Even the times I thought I was getting closer—breaking through—I might have only been wearing him down. Forcing words from him he didn’t mean or wasn’t intending to say—all while trying to recreate that one moment I shit all over ten years ago and do things better this time.

ButhaveI done better? Have I been clear enough about what he means to me? How important he is? Or have I been too busy trying to get into his pants to say what I’m feeling from the bottom of my heart?

Isla gives me a withering look when I return fifteen minutes late from lunch. I hesitate before sitting down because I just—can’t.

I can’t with this. With her. With this place.

Today sucks, but working with Isla has been a nightmare. I’ve known for a while this isn’t the job for me, and the idea of doing it for one second longer feels impossible. Especially today. Particularly now.

They say there’s no time like the present.

Instead of taking my seat or any shit she’s about to give me for taking a long lunch, I turn, walk down the hall to Georgie’s office, and knock.

“Come in,” they call out. When they see me, they grimace. “Can you make this quick? There’s a lot going on today.”

“I’ll make it super fast,” I assure them.

Georgie nods and gestures to the chair in front of the desk. “Go ahead.”

Without sitting, I put my ID badge on their desk, “Thanks so much for the opportunity, but I don’t think this is the place for me. I’m gonna go ahead and quit.”

“Oh.” I have their full attention now. “Do you need to talk about this?”

I shake my head. I don’t. My mind is made up, and I already feel ten pounds lighter.

“Is it Isla?”

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