Page 121 of Finance Bros

He frowns but leaves the bedroom. When he returns, he’s slurping the hell out of the peanut butter banana smoothie I knew he’d like. “This is amazing.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What are you working on?”

“Ideas for the YouTube. Do you know how hard it is to make 401Ks entertaining?”

“That’s what you want to talk about?” he asks, taking a seat on the beanbag chair. I notice he’s leaning on his left hip, like his hole hurts. I scowl at that but return my gaze to the computer screen.Why does he want it if it hurts?

Why do I care if he has a sore ass? I certainly didn’t give a fuck last night. But I was careful, wasn’t I?

Maybe I have some things to learn about anal sex. It’s not like I’ve ever done it before. Already dreadingthatReddit search.

I answer his question. “I mean, I know people are looking to get rich quick, but we’re trying to givegoodadvice, right?”

“Could we do like a good cop bad cop thing?”

“Meaning what?” I ask.

“Like you hand out conservative money-making strategies, and I counter with ‘but if you wanna make a few bucks fast…’ That kind of thing.”

“You want people to watch us arguing?”

“You asked how to make it entertaining.”

“I guess,” I mumble, making a note on my ever-growing spreadsheet. “I should send this to Bailey.” I also need to mention the conversation I had with Miguel, but since I haven’t heard from him this weekend, maybe things have smoothed out between him and his team.

“How soon do you think she’ll want us to get started?” Mal asks.

“Soon,” is my guess. If we’re going to build off the TikTokmomentum—especially now that Piper’s getting her hands into it—we need to diversify our audience before someone else comes along and starts doing what we’re doing better. Not that I’m worried that person will be Piper, but the more attention we get, the more people will hop on the trend. “We have to establish dominance,” I say.

“You shouldn’t have any problem with that,” he says, making it sound loaded.

“Yeah, well…we both know you can take me.”

Mal laughs, and I slide a glance his direction. He looks incredible. The smile. The wet hair. My t-shirt hugging his chest and a pair of sweats I don’t remember having. He must have really been digging through the drawers. His exposed ankles and bare feet catch my attention. I think I might have a fetish or something. I drool for the sight of his skin.

While I consider whether I want to tackle him and pin him to the bed, both our phones ping with a message from our group text with Bailey.

I open mine first and see the TikTok link. This time, Piper stitched one ofmyvideos. Mal and I watch as she pointedly uses a makeup blender and picks apart my explanation of the commodities market in laymen’s terms. She dismisses it as simplistic and once again tries to make herself sound smarter by using fifty-cent words and speaking way over the heads of a TikTok audience.

“What the fuck is this?” Malcolm asks. “Are they doing the same thing?”

I forgot he didn’t know about this. “I think it’s just Piper. I’m trying to talk Bailey into picking her off.”

“You told Bailey you wanted her to put makeup on?”

I laugh. “No.” I explain my idea about skin care and involving Calyx.

“When doIget to meet Calyx?” Mal asks.

“You want to?”

“You talk about him all the time,” he says with a pout in his voice.

“I don’t actually think I do.”

“Do you think he’s hot?” he asks.

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