“Three whole weeks,” she continued. “You know you have to tell me what his deal is at some point, right?”
We both paused at the sound of a knock at our front door. Objectively speaking, our reaction to a mere knock at the door was comical—something that only two anxious twenty-somethings living in a shitty slumlord building would ever do. But then again, more than half of the population of New York was programmed to have that reaction.
“Do you think that was intentional?” Bethany asked after a moment.
I shook my head. “Hell no. Who shows up unannounced these days? It’s probably a murderer.”
“Are you kidding?” she demanded.
“Bethany,yes.” I closed my laptop, just as the knock repeated.
“Well, you get it then.” She took a seat on my bed. “I’ll wait here until you’re sure it’s not a murderer.”
“It’s not a murderer,” I assured her as I motioned for her to follow me. “Just go make your pancakes. It’s probably just the landlord.”
“The landlord,” she was repeating as she followed me out of my room. “Not a murderer, just the landlord.”
I walked over to the front door with Bethany trailing me until she stopped off in our kitchen. When I got to the door, I glanced back and saw her peering around the corner past the divider wall that delineated the kitchen from the rest of our tiny living room. “I got this,” I assured her.
Bethany nodded, but she didn’t move from her spot behind the wall.
With a sigh, I looked through the peephole and I froze when I saw Marcus peering back at me.
“Cass?” he questioned before he knocked again. “Fucking hell, if this isn’t Cass Pierson’s apartment, can you let me know?”
I flung the door open and relief washed over Marcus’s face.
“Oh thank Kahn,” he said when he saw me. “I’ve been to, like, three other apartments already and I think the last guy recognized me.”
He launched himself forward and pulled me into a hug. It took me only a moment to register that he was absolutelyhammered.
“Are you in trouble?” I asked, bringing my hands up to cup his cheeks. “What are you doing here?”
“I was in the neighborhood,” he offered, his green eyes staring directly at me but not quite capable of locking on any spot for more than a few seconds. “And—pff—I’mfine.”
“Are you?”
He swayed where he stood, practically dazed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You have more alcohol in you than a distillery.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“No, Marcus, it’s not a challenge,” I replied. I glanced back at Bethany, who was watching the scene with a mix of fascination and abject confusion on her face. “Can he come in? He’s a friend of mine.”
“A friend of yours?” Marcus interjected, frowning. “How am I still just a friend of yours? How am I not your boyfriend at this point?”
“He canabsolutelycome in,” Bethany agreed, gleefully watching as Marcus threw a thumbs up sign in her direction. “It’s Marcus, right?”
“Marcus fucking Fitz,” he declared, only mildly aware of me attempting (and failing) to remove his jacket from his arms. “At your service.”
“Like the tech guy?” she asked, chuckling. I could tell she was kidding when she posed the question, but after a beat of prolonged silence from me (which Marcus nodded through nonstop), realization passed over her face. “No shit.”
“Marcus, this is my roommate Bethany. Bethany, this is in fact Marcus Fitz, one of the founders of Libra.”
“I love Libra,” Bethany said breathlessly. “I refinanced my federal debt at an interest rate three percent below what I was paying before, and I consolidated all my private debt into one loan. I’m so much happier now that I’m not paying tons of different accounts every month.”
“Amazing!” Marcus blurted out, turning his attention to me. “That’s amazing. Isn’t that amazing, Cass? Aren’t you and all your friends at Davenport-Ridgeway excited to spend half abilliondollars to buy me?”