Page 102 of Finance Bros

“On my bed?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“Shit. They don’t know we’re in San Francisco, do they?”

“Yeah. Someone guessed, and I confirmed.”

“Why?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Why not? It’s a big city. We’re not criminals.”

“Do they know this is like—a scheme though?”

“No. They’re just genuinely curious. Don’t worry, they like you.”

“I wasn’t…” Okay maybe I was going to ask what they thought about me. “Good. I’m always kind of insecure about how I come off.”

He looks closely at me for a long moment. “Intimidating,” he says.

I scowl. “How’s that?”

“You know—the surreal good looks, the nearly creepy but very sexy eyes, the little frown line…” He draws a line down the space between his eyes. “That makes you seem annoyed, but really you’re just concentrating. The constantly perfect hair.”

“It’s not,” I assure him.

“No?”

“No,” I say running a hand through it. “I work hard on this. It’s very well trained. Like Stephanie.”

“Don’t make me name your hair.”

“Yeah, don’t.”

“I might,” he says.

“What would you call it?”

“Alex.”

I laugh—hard. If I had water in my mouth, it’d be everywhere.

His smile is huge, and that’s its own reward. Without putting too much thought into it, I lock my calf with his beneath the table. His shoulders drop, and he lets out a breath, his smile going soft. His relief becomes my relief. Touching him comes with a set of complications I’m not sure I’m prepared to deal with, but it also comes with a peace I can’t find anywhere else. If peace can be scary, though, this particular brand of itis. Still, what he said earlier, about how much I mean to him? That was the lifeline I didn’t know I needed.

To change the subject, I hope, I look down at my menu, waiting for the words on it to make sense. In terms of dates I’ve been on, if we’re going to call this a date, it’s definitely lessawkward, and the butterflies or whatever in my stomach aren’t something I usually have to contend with. Has Malcolm always been a flirt? Is he this quick and easy with Kaylin? Am I going to keep thinking about her every time I’m with him, because I wish I wouldn’t.

I also wish I could take his word for it when he says he’s ready to move on from her, but this whole “we’re on a break” thing implies that at some point the break will end. Does that happen when she comes back from her trip? Will he be done with me by then?

These are all questions I want to ask, but now doesn’t feel like the time. He’s smiling, and I’m fucking smiling, and his leg is warm against mine, and I like us like this. Not because it reminds me of old times, but because it feels new and fresh and like something I want to try.

Try being the operative word. Notinvest. He’s way too risky. He’s like a shiny new stock on the market that everyone’s talking about, and I have this chance to get in on it early when I know the smarter thing to do is sit back, wait, and watch to see if it’s really going to perform—live up to the hype.

But it’s also based on a product I have a built-in affection for. I want it to do well, and I want the long term gains, with or without sex.

He must settle on his order because he puts aside his menu and looks at me without the smile. “I assume you brought me here and put a table between us so we could talk.”

I glance around again at the couples engaged in low conversations that all appear to be amusing based on everyone’s grins. It’s been such a pretty day for this town, and everyoneshouldbe in a good mood on a day like this. Mal’s right, though. There’s a reason I wasn’t leaping at the chance to go straight back to my place. Instead of wanting to dive deep into my issues or his, though, there’s an opportunity here tonotdo that.

There are other things I want to know, too. What was it like going to Stanford, why Marks & Baker? When did he decide on finance, because the last I heard, he wanted to be a Marine for whatever reason. I always assumed he wanted to blow shit up or do something more mechanical. He was always taking things apart, wanting to put them together “better.” I would have picked him as a doctor over financial advisor if someone had given me a multiple choice question on what Malcolm Walsh would be when he grew up.

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