Page 17 of Finance Bros

“Of course. Sorry again. Good night,” I tell her, and hang up. Exhaling, I stare at the digits I typed. Talking to Jill was like dunking my head into a bucket of ice water. Sanity has temporarily returned. I guess my therapist knows what she’s talking about.

Closing my phone, I try to go to sleep again. A phone call doesn’t need to wait until Monday—it doesn’t need to happen at all.

I don’t need to talk to Ryan. Rebuilding the bridge I burned between us is a terrible idea. It brings up way too many memories I’d just as soon put behind me for good. The bottom line is, I don’t know him anymore. In fact, there’s an argument to be made for whether I ever knew him at all.

I don’t delete his number or anything, but I don’t add him to my contacts list, either. I need to calm the fuck down. Anyway, it’s Friday night. I don’t have to lie here and dwell on this.

I send Henry a text in case he’s up to something fun.

Turns out he and the guys are out. I put on a fresh pair of jeans, run some gel through my hair, and get the hell out of my apartment.

Ryan’s laugh is sudden,unexpected, and makes every hair on my arms stand on end. Isla startles when I whip my head around to the couch where my ex-stepbrother has been camped out with his mentor since we got out of our intern huddle this morning.

Isla’s hand lands on my forearm, and I jerk away without thinking.

“Sorry,” she says without regret. “Let’s go to the coffee bar. You look like you need a break.”

“I’m fine,” I grumble, turning to look back down at one of her client’s most recent financial statements. I’ve been studying it for half an hour, but it’s like that one time sophomore year when I tried to readA Clockwork Orangebecause I thought it would impress Kaylin. Except half the first page wasn’t writtenwith real words, and it took me four reads through it to realize I didn’t have an attention problem—the book literally wasn’t written in normal English. Likewise, none of the words and numbers on my screen are making any sense, and I wonder what the fuck I went to Stanford for.

“My treat,” Isla tries again.

It’s a free coffee bar, so I get that I’m supposed to smile at her joke or something, but I’m not in the mood.

Ryan laughs again, harder this time. Longer. I can’t hear what Charlie is saying from here, but it must be really fucking funnyorRyan’s acting like he thinks it is. It’s the same way Isla treats everything I spontaneously say like the cleverest or wittiest thing to ever come from a human mouth. Are theyflirting?

In the middle of the office on a Monday morning?

We’ve been in the internship for two weeks now, and Ryan and I haven’t spoken since that second morning at the deli. I haven’t gone a single day without having to tell Isla no multiple times, whether it’s an offer to grab lunch, coffee, drinks after work—I even turned down concert tickets. I’m not sure which part of “I have a girlfriend” she’s not understanding, but I feel the mask of politeness I wear around her slipping.

There’s this other annoying fact nagging at me that I might not be cut out for this kind of work. While I’ve listened to the other interns rattle on about how much they’re learning or gushing over a compliment from their mentors about some idea they had, I have to acknowledge I don’t feel prepared, and Isla’s constant personal questions and comments truly mess with my concentration.

Let’s also forget for a moment that if someone asked me to list them, I could write down all of Ryan’s outfits from the day we started the internship to the brand of shoe he’s got on today. I could also rate how well he wore each one on a scale of one toten. He’s not flashy like Miguel, but clothes look good on him. It’s the only excuse I’ve got for noticing his ass on a daily basis. Well-cut pants.

I probably only pay attention because his jeans used to practically fall off of him, and I assumed he didn’t have the equipment to fill them out. But in retrospect, maybe they were just too big for him, and he didn’t care. Now that it matters what he looks like, he’s dressing the part.

I pinch my eyes shut and nearly take Isla up on her offer. This fixation I have on Ryan’s outfits and his body isn’t like me. I’m going fucking nuts in this place. I blame the failure of my brain to make sense of the spreadsheets and the absolute lack of ideas I’ve had on what to do with my remaining fifty dollars. Meanwhile, the group of five leaves work together half the days of the week, and more than once I’ve watched them all go into a nearby bar for happy hour while I feel fucking lost.

I wish I would have just gotten over myself and said yes to Miguel that day in the elevator, but at the same time, I feel useless and stupid. What good would I do the project they’re working on?

It’s annoying how every single one of them seems to be thriving in this environment. Even Ryan—a guy who’s never fit in anywhere that I know of—seems to have made himself at home with his new bestie Charlie.

I hate them. I hate listening to him laugh and the way he keeps turning my head. It’s fucked up.

I think I might also hate this job. Worse, I might notgetit. So far, I’ve kept those thoughts to myself, but it might be time to sit down and have a talk with Georgie. Not necessarily about whether I’m a good fit or that I’m having trouble finding my footing, but maybe about Isla. It could be that her desire to get me alone is interfering with her ability to be a good mentor.

Fuck, when did I turn into such a pussy? I should be able to do this. It’s driving me nuts that I apparentlycan’t.

“Are you beefing with that other intern? Ryan?” Isla asks. “I’ve never seen you talk to him.”

“No,” I mutter.

“It’s just…” Here, she reaches out and gives my shoulder a squeeze without letting go. “You seem tense.”

I shrug away from her and excuse myself from our workspace. “Be back in a few,” I tell her, unable to tolerate her suffocating presence a moment longer.

I take the elevators to the lobby and step outside. The smog is thick today, so I can’t say I’m getting fresh air, but I need out of the office. Away from Isla and her gardenia perfume. When I told my buddy Jake about her, he’d asked if she was hot.

I told him that wasn’t the point, but the truth is, Isla is sort of hot. Under different circumstances, I might be attracted to her, if not her personality, at least physically. She’s nothing if not extremely physical. I’ve never been with anyone other than Kaylin, and I do feel a certain sense of loyalty to my longtime girlfriend, but she’s seen other people since we’ve been together. While I was at Stanford, she was at UCLA, and we were sort of “open.”

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