Page 53 of Finance Bros

“It’s up to you guys,” Bailey says, oblivious to the sudden shift in the atmosphere, but I certainly fucking feel it.

“Podcast,” I blurt.

“Huh?”

I tear my gaze away from Mal and look at our other partner, the one I’m not in danger of getting a boner for. “We need to think about scaling up. We’re not earning money on TikTok, and since that’s the goal?—”

“Right.” She stuffs a cracker in her mouth and flips through her phone. She tilts her head toward Malcolm. “Did you tell him about the Patreon idea?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’m gonna set that up tonight then, and I’ll add the link to your TikTok bios. We’ll also add subscribe links to your videos. So, we test run that for a week, see if it’s getting any interest, and if it does, I’ll start building a contact list for potential sponsors.”

“We can help with that,” Mal says.

She shakes her head. “I appreciate it, but I need you guys making content. For the Patreon, we’ll have to give people something they’re not getting on TikTok. Diving deeper into money making strategies, yeah, but also behind the scenes stuff. Day in the life maybe?”

“Like what? Pictures of our breakfast?” Mal asks.

“Or your closet—getting dressed in the morning, how you wind down after a day at the office—whatever. You in your glasses for sure, Ryan.”

I grimace. “No one needs to see that.”

Malcolm raises a brow. “They do, actually.”

“He’s right,” Bailey says.

“People say they like my eyes,” I argue.

“This isn’t a discussion,” she says with finality, so I shut my mouth. “It’s a lot, I know. I’ve been reading a bunch of articles, and I’ll put a good resource list together that’s exclusive to the Patreon.”

“I have a ton of essays from school I can give you,” I offer.

“Great!” She looks at Mal.

“I’m not much of a writer. Sorry.” He sounds genuinely regretful.

Bailey only shrugs. “Can you devote like an hour a night to interacting on the Discord, then? Answering questions? It doesn’t have to be literature or anything. Just bullet points if you want.”

“I mean, I’m not illiterate,” he snaps. “I can answer the questions.”

“Okay. Awesome. What do you think of the cheeseball?”

There’s her evil smile. He hasn’t touched it, but he does now, scooping a large wedge of congealed cheese and green onions onto a Wheat Thin and shoving it into his mouth.

“Mm…” He smiles and nods as he chews. He chases it with half the glass of water.

“It’s good, right?” Bailey asks. “It’s my mom’s recipe.”

“Delicious,” he says.

I can’t stop my smile from spreading. The way he takes her shit and asks for more is so fucking endearing, I don’t even know how to handle being a witness to it.

I finally let myself try the cheeseball as the conversation moves on to the theoretical podcast. In addition to onions and cream cheese, there are also pineapple pieces and pecans. It’s weirdly addictive.

There’s some argument as to whether our program should be contentious or collaborative. Then we table that and start running numbers on costs. After that, as we’re wrapping up, Bailey gives us some quotas to shoot for.

“I’d like to see at least five Patreon subscribers day one. If we get none, we’re doing something wrong, and we need to meet up and recalibrate.”

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