Ritual - Palm South University

I met his gaze then. “Do they count if they’re under the age of eighteen?”

Tyler’s eyes burned fierce over the fire, but I held my cocky smirk as best I could.

Tyler was a financial advisor — following his father’s footsteps just like we always knew he would. He’d had a fascination with money and investing ever since I first met him. But, where his dad made his fortune by working with the affluent in New England, Tyler was making a name for himself in more of the everyday common people realm. He’d started a YouTube channel in college, around the same time that I’d started my podcast, and in our own respects, we’d both taken off.

Of course, my podcast grew from content.

His channel grew because he quickly became known online as The Hot Money Guy.

It started slowly, with him dressed in a suit in his dim-lit office rattling off advice on budgeting and managing credit card debt. But the more videos he did, the more the comments started shifting from should I do a Roth IRA or a Traditional IRA to Oh my God, this guy is so hot I don’t even care that I understand nothing he’s talking about.

More and more, his videos got attention from the female crowd, and his videos got shared, and word spread that there was a hot money guy on YouTube taking the financial world by storm. He was invited to speak on other noteworthy channels, like one owned by a famous housewife from a reality TV show in the early 2000s, and though I was sure he really did help a lot of people struggling with finances, he was mostly famous for being sexy and rich — a double whammy.

To his credit, he didn’t fight the name. In fact, he embraced it, changing the name of his channel to The Hot Money Guy and even doing some episodes shirtless or while working out.

Not that I watched any, of course.

“I love that you two still bicker,” Morgan said fondly, her eyes wide as she looked from her brother to me. “I swear, it feels like high school, the three of us being together again. The Wagner Kids — Plus One.”

Tyler and I shared a somber look then, because we hadn’t been The Wagner Kids — Plus One since the night he and I crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.

Since he used me, then rejected me, and I left, and that was the end of that.

I cleared my throat, drawing Morgan’s attention back to the schedule by asking a question about flowers, and she was sufficiently distracted.

Somewhere around page six, I started to lose focus, my mind racing with how it felt to talk to Tyler after all these years. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but maybe that was because I never expected to ever see him again — period. And now, I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me the way he used to when we were younger, or if he hated me.

If he did, I had no idea why.

It was him who ignored me. It was him who said what happened between us was a mistake.

It was him who broke my heart.

He didn’t have a right to be pissed at me, and for some reason, it really bothered me that he seemed to think the opposite.

It was me who should hate him forever, not the other way around.

“… the cake tasting, which I’m not even sure I want a cake. I mean, yes, it’s tradition, but I love donuts. What if we did a donut truck, instead?” She gasped, snapping her fingers. “Could we do apple cider donuts?! I know that’s a fall thing but, I mean, it is a wedding. I think exceptions could be made. Oh,” Morgan continued, talking just as fast as she always had when we were growing up. “And we’ll head down to the Cape that Monday before the wedding, so we’ll have to wrap some of this up there… we can talk about who takes what regarding decorations and such. Oh, my God!”

Her sudden exclamation made me jump.

“Ty, is Azra flying in tomorrow?”

Morgan’s excitement at the mention of whoever the hell Azra was might as well have been a living, breathing thing for how it wafted off of her.

Tyler cleared his throat. “Um, not tomorrow. She’s got two back-to-back shoots this week, and a philanthropy event next weekend. I think she’s going to meet us on the Cape.”

Morgan pouted. “Aw, I was really hoping she’d be here for the bachelor and bachelorette party.”

Tyler swallowed, avoiding everyone’s eyes. “Sorry.”

“Well, it’ll make getting down to the Cape even more exciting,” Morgan decided. Then, she reached toward me with spirit fingers dancing. “Oh my God, Jaz. You will love Azra. She’s so much fun.”

I smiled, but already my chest was tight, a warning sign I should have heeded. “Who’s Azra?”