Page 63 of Finance Bros

“I’m going to bed.”

“It’s nine o’clock.”

He finally takes his hand off his face and looks at his watch. “Feels later.”

“No makeup, okay? You look good like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like you just kissed someone till you came.”

He shoves me in the chest. “Go.”

I zip up my shorts and struggle my way off the beanbag chair. I hate my life slightly more the second I’m not touching him, knowing what I’m going home to, which isn’t much.

“Come on, lady.” I scoop Stephanie off the floor and kiss the top of her head. She’s been very patient with me tonight. Suffering silently while I let someone else get up in my space.

I look down at Ryan, sprawled out and disheveled. Thirst trap? Fact check: true.

It’s not until I’m halfway home that I remember he used to be my stepbrother, and I’mnot supposed to be gay, and thatshouldn’t have happened.

What in the actual fuck is happening to me?

13

RYAN

I’ve been down this road before. I know all the twists and turns, the hills and the valleys—all the overgrown brush that can scratch the shit out of me if I don’t watch my head. And I don’t mean Malcolm’s curious experimentation last night. I mean his total indifference today.

He barely looks at me during the morning huddle.

Despite his supposed plans for when he got home, he didn’t make any content last night, and Bailey is annoyed. I watch them whisper argue across from me at the conference room table while I chew on my nauseating feelings—a mix of resentment and desire. Regret and wanting—longing. It’s a bone-deep, fucked up love that feels like a curse someone put on me a long time ago.

There’s a mark on his neck. It’s not big—and if I hadn’t known what he was up to last night, I might have mistaken it for a shadow, but it’s right beneath his left ear, and I remember that spot. How sweet it was. How I couldn’t help myself from taking just a little more. Tasting it just a little longer. I wanted it to be his mouth. I was imagining what it would be like to have his lips moving with mine.

But I took too much. I overstepped. I acted when I should have stayed still. He asked for a hug, and I gave him a fuckingblow job. He gave me a peck, and I shoved my tongue down his throat. Well done, Ryan. Way to fucking go. Why not tell him you’re still fucking in love with him while you’re at it? I might as well have.

An argument could be made that he started it by palming my crotch, but Malcolm is nothing if not impulsive. He was always in trouble in grade school and at home for playing with something until it broke, like the toaster or the DVD player. Once, he broke the gas grill on our deck because he couldn’t figure out how to light the burners, which looking back, was probably a good thing.

He’s always gotten bored easily—always wanted to try the next thing, play a different game, watch a new movie. He never finished anything, which is why the fact that he got two degrees from Stanford is stunning. I wonder if he’s on ADD meds. Maybe he forgot to take them yesterday, and that’s what all that experimentation was about—him totally going off the rails.

At lunch, I’m sitting by myself, eating my sandwich and scrolling my phone, trying not to relive my entire adolescence in a single hour when Bailey appears with Malcolm’s arm in her hand and an accusatory look on her face.

“Did you two fight after I left?”

“Yes,” I say.

“No,” he says at the same time.

I glare at him, and he responds with a slightly less harsh one.

“Was it about the challenge or some stupid stepbrother shit?” she asks.

He and I continue to stare stonily at each other. If all of a suddennowis when he’s gonna finally shut up, I’ll have to drive this narrative. “As usual, he can’t make up his mind.”

“About?” Bailey asks.

“Anything. But if you’re asking about last night?—”

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