Page 18 of Finance Bros

I made do with meeting up with her once or twice a month, but I know she saw other guys while she was in school—nothing serious. I wasn’t jealous exactly. It felt like a natural evolution—like what would normally happen when high school sweethearts go their separate ways for college. The fact that we wound up back together also felt normal and easy. We never even fight. We’re really fucking boring.

My point is, there’s a reality in which I could be excited that Isla seems to want in my pants so bad. Like I said, I’ve been considering asking Kaylin for a break. On the break, or if we broke up—a messy affair with my mentor would probablyappeal to my chaotic side, but in this case—thisreality—I feel like I’m spinning out, and I don’t know what my fucking problem is.

As I sit on a bench across the street from the Marks & Baker building, a thought occurs, as clear as today isn’t. The only thing that’s changed—besides starting a new job—is the reemergence of Ryan in my day to day life. If history is any indicator—he’smy fucking problem. As much as I try to avoid looking at him or thinking about him, the urge to mess him up lies just beneath the surface of my skin. Hearing him laugh, seeing himthrivewhile I’m barely treading water must be some kind of trigger.

Embers of an old rage flare hot in my chest. It’s the urge to prove him wrong. The urge to make his words meaningless. It’s enough to push my ass up off the bench and charge across the street, determined to take action.

When I pass him and Charlie on the couches, I look down at Ryan only to see his slightly dimpled smile fade from his face. I need to shove him the fuck out of my head. My rage burns bright enough for me to slide my thigh alongside Isla’s as I take my seat next to her.

She glances at me with an intrigued smile. “Feeling better?”

“Yep,” I say, double clicking my screen to bring the financial report back up.

“Then maybe you’ll finally let me buy you a drink tonight.”

“I think I might.”

Because fuckhim.

5

RYAN

On the one hand, the internship is incredible. Charlie is a fucking genius. He’s funny, a good teacher, and he’s great about encouraging me to ask questions. I tend to clam up and try to figure things out on my own, and he saw right through it day one. “I can’t teach you shit if I don’t know how you think.”

So now he knows, and working with him feels like I won the mentor lottery.

On the other hand, I have a hundred dollars and no fucking clue what to do with it. I’m about a week away from asking Calyx to go thrifting for vintage t-shirts with me. I’m currently considering re-formatting some of my college essays, putting them into a book, giving it a catchy title and self-publishing it online.

The more I look into publishing a book, however, the more bogged down I get with the marketing end. That alone looks like a full time job, and I have zero social media presence. A hundred dollars would barely make a dent in a marketing budget, and it takes some authors years to break even on a single book. Still, it’s the best idea I’ve had that uses a skill set that seems manageable.

The t-shirt thing? I’d need help with that. Between work andthe gym—working out isn’t optional for me—I don’t know how the hell I’d find the kind of inventory I’d need to get started, much less scale up.

The good news is Malcolm is occupying at least twenty-five percent less of my brain space. I have noticed how miserable he looks every morning in our huddle and how much he’s itching to get the hell out of the office in our debriefs, but while I’m working with Charlie, it’s heads down, total focus. Next week, Charlie’s planning to give me two of his accounts to start managing on my own. One small business, one personal. I’ve been brushing up on risk assessments in my spare time, hoping if I don’t think about the challenge so hard, an idea will suddenly come to me in the shower or something.

But I won’t lie—the group of interns who teamed up together are starting to look pretty fucking smug when they leave work together and file into the bar across the street for happy hour.

Miguel texted one last time to convince me to join their team, but I declined without putting a lot of thought into it. Piper and Lisette rub me the wrong way. I don’t know if they were both cheerleaders or prom queens or what, but they give mean girl energy, and while Jia might be able to tolerate it, and guys like Nathan likely dig it because it’s their crowd, too, I don’t like it.

Piper, whose mentor is probably the best investment banker in the firm—a woman named Sadia—is already acting like she’s head intern or something, which is plainly ridiculous. There’s no way I could take direction from Piper, even if their group has the best idea in the world.

Jia’s cool, though. We realized we live in the same neighborhood, so we walk to work together, and home if she’s not going to happy hour. At first, I wasn’t a fan of the company. It’s a lot of pressure. But she talks enough that I barely have to. Shesurprised me on the walk home last evening though by asking me out.

Our date started at my gym where I got her in with a guest pass. She kept pace with me on the treadmill for six miles. It ended in her apartment with both of us proclaiming we weren’t looking for anything serious and then having sex on her couch. I had to use my wallet condom. I didn’t sleep over, and our walk to work this morning was more relaxed—joking about how strong the wine was, among other things.

Without going into too much detail, she’s not planning to have sex with me again, but there are no hard feelings.

It’s been an unexpectedly good two weeks, and I’m lowkey proud of myself for being able to rise above the fact that I have to see Malcolm five days a week.

It’s not that I don’t think about him. That’d be impossible. But I’m not miserable around him, and that’s an improvement. If anything, he’s the one who looks miserable. I try not to think too much about how that makes me feel, but it always seems to happen when I’m closing my eyes to go to sleep. It’s this stupid yet totally familiar desire to ask him if he’s okay.

I end up dreaming about how the conversation might go more nights than not. Sometimes it’s a fistfight. Sometimes, it ends in a long, endlessly confusing hug where the words I said to him on accident the one time build up in my chest until I feel like a volcano about to burst.

Once—Wednesday night—the dream turned into one ofthosedreams where I woke up with cum-stained underwear. I was physically unable to look at him on Thursday, certain he would know if he took one look at me and then announce to the whole office that I’m a pervert.

On Friday, though, he looks particularly messed up. There’s a look in his eyes I recognize. The kind of look he used to get when he was about to do something reckless—like get blitzeddrunk, start a fight, or fuck his girlfriend in the laundry room. But that particular look of his isn’t wild or desperate. It’s calculating. Devious. It also means he’s hanging on by a thread.

Now I’m up late again, thinking about it. Weighing a scenario where I casually sit next to him Monday morning and ask how things are going with the internship. Let him know if he wants to talk, I’m around.

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