Page 13 of Finance Bros
She perks up, loving the chance to play therapist. “Any guilt in there anywhere?”
I scowl. “Guilt? For what?”
“I don’t know. For being a douche to him every chance you got. Forme. For trying to out him in front of your stepmom?”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t realize it was some huge secret.”
“You said yourself you never saw him with a guy.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t off doing it with dudes.” Miguel immediately comes to mind, but I shove the thought away. “He’s close with his mom—why wouldn’t she know?”
“Because maybehe isn’t gay.”
I laugh. “I wasn’t the one out of my mind on cough medicine that day. I heard exactly what he said.”
“And you majorly over-reacted.”
Yes, I know that. I wasn’t exactly cool with the concept of mystepbrother—the guy who’d been my favorite person ever—who Itrusted—flipping the tables on me and making itsexual. Not that he tried anything. He had the flu. The cough syrup was strong, and he was running his mouth. Still, he never took it back. He tried to apologize, but he didn’t take back what he said.
After I shut down his apology, he tried to act like it never happened—like maybe I would forget about it. But how could I?It changedeverything. “I just didn’t want him to get the wrong idea—obviously he got it from somewhere.”
Jesus, shut the fuck up, Malcolm.The last thing I need is Kaylin asking questions about the why of everything, which would force me to think about it, too, and I amnotgoing there. I’ve moved on.
“I’m sure the message has been received by now,” she says. “Don’t you?”
“I should certainly fucking hope so.”
“God,” she groans. “I could really do with you being less of a classic homophobe.”
“I am not!”
“You completely are. I hear you and the guys talking. I’ve seen how you act when you see two men on a date.”
I genuinely don’t want to know what she sees in me when that happens.
Latching onto the rest of her statement about our friends, I say, “Look, Jake, Evan, and Henry are way worse than me. Sue us for being straight.”
“I’ve got no problem with you being straight, Mal, but do you have to be so disgusted by queer people?”
“I’mnot,” I say emphatically.
She gives me a glare, and I guess it withers a critical part of my guard.
“Okay—fine—when I see two guys together in public, and I start thinking about it too hard, it freaks me out a little, but that’s just because…”Whoa there, she doesn’t need to know everything.
“You don’t get how a man could find another man attractive?” she asks.
I amnotanswering that question. We’re not going there. I have an actual therapist if I ever want to talk aboutthat,which I don’t. Finally, I manage to gather myself and shut the fuck up. I get up and pull on my sweatpants. “You know, if you really wantto help me with something, think of how I can turn a hundred dollars into ten grand in three months. That would be useful.”
“Gambling?”
I snort. “Yeah?”
“Sure. Start off small, then increase your risk as your winnings improve. People make whole careers out of gambling.”
“I don’t know anything about gambling,” I say while I look for a clean t-shirt.
“YouTube knows all.”
