Page 165 of Finance Bros

I shouldn’t need his reassurance the way I do. He’s been straightforward enough. He’s not a man of many words, but the ones he’s said have meant something. To me anyway. Probably to him, too.

I know Ryan well enough to know I need to let him breathe for a minute, so I give the Uber driver a different address.

Miguel answers his door in a pair of gray sweats and nothing else. His hair isn’t in the usual bun. It’s down, and it’s longer than I would have guessed, falling just past his shoulders. He’s not a large guy, he’s probably 5’9 and a buck forty, but what there is of him is sleek and fit.

“I love your hair like that,” I say.

“Malcolm,” he says warily. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh. Right. Can we talk?”

He glances over his shoulder like I might be asking someone else, then he looks at me again and nods, stepping aside to let me in.

I start talking immediately. “So, I’m having a misunderstanding or something with Ryan, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“I’d suggest showing up randomly athisapartment. You want a drink?”

“No, I don’t want to bug you.” I sit down on his couch.

He stops by his kitchen, pours himself a glass of red wine from an open bottle and walks over to sit with me. “What’s the misunderstanding?”

“I got really, really jealous of him hugging a woman he was thinking about starting a relationship with today, and I kind of lost it.”

“A woman whowhat?”

I do my best to explain what little I know about Norah while Miguel gets up and pours a glass of wine for me, too. Once I think I’ve got Miguel on the same page, I take a sip, tell him it’sgreat wine, and ramble on. “The thing is, I’ve been with the same girl since I was fourteen years old. We officially broke up yesterday.”

“Oh. Sorry, Mal?—”

“Thank you. It sucked. I mean, it was long overdue. I wasted a lot of her time, and she lowkey wants to kill me, but I think we’ll probably stay friends. We were already on a break.”

“Hm?”

“This summer. She’s been in Europe, and we were on a break, so it’s not like I was cheating on her.”

“But Ryan knows about her,” Miguel says with the look of someone trying to connect the dots.

“Yes. That’s what I’m getting at. Without going into the whole history—which isn’t irrelevant, but I don’t want to waste your time either—Ryan found an engagement ring I bought last year when he was grabbing some stuff from my apartment the other day.”

“Oh…” Miguel nods. “Got it.”

“What?” I ask, feeling like he’s made some sort of connection I haven’t.

“Nothing, go on.”

I open my mouth to press him further on the point but startle when a hulking shadow passes over the wall behind him.

Miguel sighs and turns around as Nathan—bare ass naked—appears in the hallway and sees me.

His eyes open comically wide before he dashes back into Miguel’s bedroom.

“What thefuck?” I ask.

Miguel puts a hand on my knee and leans in. “This is why we text first, honey.”

“Holy shit, I’m so sorry. Should I go?”

I mean, of course Ishouldgo—but I’m secretly praying hewon’t make me. Now that I’ve started talking, I really need to get the rest out.

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