Brody leans forward and snaps my laptop shut. “What was the last question about? Get it right and I’ll leave you alone.”
I huff indignantly. Brody doesn’t even bother to smirk like he normally does. He just watches me intently.
“Was any of it sinking in before I arrived, or are you just using my presence as an excuse?”
“It’s not an excuse. And no, it wasn’t sinking in before you got here, but that was your fault too.”
“And why is that, Becky?”
“Because you’re in my head!” I whisper-shout, probably still too loudly. Maybe I’ll get lucky and one of the library attendants will come in and I can tell her that Brody is intruding on my study time. Maybe he’ll be banned from the library, and I’ll have one place on this fucking campus that is safe.
“So let me help you.”
I scoff, and yes, as I’m doing it, I realize how much I find myself scoffing at Brody Miller. Probably as much as he fucking smirks. But he’s infuriating, and sometimes there just aren’t words that can better intimate the overwhelming, all-encompassing frustration I feel when he’s being impossible. Which is always.
“You’re suddenly a finance major, then?”
“Hell no. That sounds boring as fuck, actually. But I bet I can make it fun. Maybe incentivize the study process a little?” He pumps his eyebrows.
I almost forget to be difficult and perk up. Finance is boring as fuck. And incentives do sound promising…
But no. I’m not letting him steadily turn everything in my life into yet another reminder of him. It’s bad enough that wrestling has been affected. Someday, years from now, I don’t want to be standing in a boardroom getting hard in front of shareholders because discussing terminal value unlocks some kind of subconscious Pavlovian kink.
“Stock analysis.”
Brody raises an eyebrow. “Sorry, what?”
“Stock analysis. The last question on the practice exam I was working on was about stock analysis.”
His eyes narrow as he comes around the table and sits on the chair next to me, dragging my laptop closer and opening it. He gestures at the screen for me to input my password to bypass the screensaver, then reads the question.
“Wrong.”
“What? No, it isn’t.”
“The question asks what the implied share price of a firm that has an enterprise value of $850 million dollars, with $120 million in cash, $300 million in debt, and 50 million shares outstanding.”
“It’s calculating equity value, which is used for stock analysis, to calculate the market value of what shareholders own.”
Brody hums thoughtfully, ignoring my reasoning for my answer being correct. “So what’s the answer to the actual question?”
I bend forward to scratch out some basic math to calculate the answer.
“$11 per share,” I answer.
He types in an answer on the screen and bites his lip. “Wrong,” he says, the word coming out like a low growl.
“No it’s not, it’s—” I look over my math and go over the question in my head, silently cursing myself. “I forgot to add the cash back. Equity value is the enterprise value, minus the debt plus cash. So the share price is six hundred and seventy million divided by fifty million, not five hundred fifty million divided by…”
My voice trails off, realizing that Brody is studying me the way he should be studying how to do jumping jacks or whatever Exercise Science majors learn.
“Good girl,” he says slowly. “But you still got it wrong the first time, so we’ll compromise on your reward.”
“Compromise?”
“Yeah, compromise. Like a shareholder accepting a moderate dividend rather than a full payout.”
I gape. “You’re equating corporate finance to getting off now?”
