Page 9 of Finance Bros

RYAN

After sixteen miles on the treadmill, I’m not nearly finished. Sweat is pouring off me, creating a mess of the machine. My body is screaming at me to stop. My lungs burn. My heart is begging me to give it a rest, but I can’t.

I can’t.

One hundred dollars. Malcolm. One hundred dollars. Malcolm. Malcolm.Malcolm.

Fuck.

I grunt with effort and increase the incline, charging forward, going nowhere.

The existence of him hurts like a twisting knife in my side. The sight of him was a swift slash to the gut from which I’ll likely bleed out slowly. How did that fucking asshole wind up in one of the best internships in the business? I’m still struggling with the fact that he graduated from Stanford, much less stuck around for an MBA. When did he manage to crack open a textbook in between fucking my ex-girlfriend and going to his fraternity parties? Color me fucking shocked.

It’s not like I wish bad things for him. I wish I could, but that’s not how I work when it comes to Malcolm Walsh. I merelyneed him to exist outside my sphere in order to pretend hedoesn’texist. Is that so much to ask? Because for the purposes of me being a functional human, Malcolm needs to have never happened—as a person or my stepbrother or an embryo even. He should have never been born. Then I’d have been fine. I wouldn’t be this sweaty fucking mess who can’t punish myself enough.

The most beautiful person to ever grace the earth steps up to my treadmill and strikes a seductive pose. Long, smooth legs, golden blonde beach waves and lips photographers pay to photograph in the Maldives all belong to my new gym friend Calyx. He always brings me up short just because how can he look like that and be real?

At first glance, he’s the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever seen, but Calyx is all boy. Sort of. I don’t know. He’s hard to describe. “An hour and a half is plenty,” he says over the noise of the machine.

“You’re not my trainer.”

“No, but this much cardio is gonna make you skinny.”

I glare at him and keep pounding the tread. He wipes a drop of my sweat off his face and examines his fingertips calmly, then levels his soft brown eyes at me. “You told me if I ever see you going for twenty miles again to save you from yourself.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

He presses some buttons, lowering my incline and pace.

“Hey!”

“You need a shower.”

Calyx and I know each other because he guest teaches yoga classes here, and I took one of them a couple of weeks ago. I was hopelessly inflexible, and he felt sorry for me. We sort of clicked, I guess, but we’re strictly gym friends. Our relationship has not reached beyond these walls, and I don’t know how wegot to this point where he feels comfortable enough to control my workout.

Calling him a friend might be a stretch. Really, he’s an extremely pretty person who sometimes interacts with me and tells me what I’m doing wrong. I consider that friendly. Over about a minute, I slow to a stop and step off the treadmill. That’s when the sweat really starts to pour.

I push my hair back, grab my towel, and wipe my face and chest. Calyx looks me up and down from his slightly shorter vantage point. He’s dressed in tight, gray gym shorts and a tank, revealing his boyishly feminine figure and every toned muscle he’s got. He confuses the fuck out of my sexuality. If he were a woman, I’d be all over it, but the straight guy in me can’t reconcile how beautiful he is with his flat chest and the fact of his dick. Still, he’s impossible not to stare at. He’s kinda mesmerizing.

“Training for Everest?” he asks.

“Maybe,” I mumble.

“What’s your problem?”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

“Which means you definitely won’t want to talk about it,” he surmises.

“So, youcantake a hint…”

He peeks at the numbers on the treadmill. “Seventeen point nine? Seriously? Who hurt you?”

Malcolm.

“No one,” I say. “Just didn’t feel like stopping.”

“What’s next? Hair shirt? You have a rack to stretch yourself out on at home? I could show you one of the Pilates reformers.”

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