Page 116 of Due Diligence

“Okay, let’s get you sitting,” I decided as I finally managed to tug Marcus’s arm out of his Patagonia fleece. “And let’s get you some water.”

“Hey, do you want pancakes?” Bethany asked. She walked back into the kitchen. “I’m already making some.”

“Pancakes on a Friday night? Fuck yeah. That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard,” Marcus responded, not a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

Bethany smiled. “No problem. Pancakes coming right up for the millionaire in my kitchen.”

Right then, Marcus teetered onto one of our mismatched chairs at the corner table and glanced from side to side like he wasn’t sure if he actually managed to make it into a chair. I placed a glass of water in front of him, took a seat in the other chair, and held his hand.

“Thanks,” he said before he chugged the water in one gulp with that unparalleled skill of his.

“Another?”

“Please.”

When I was in the kitchen and filling Marcus’s glass from the Brita, Bethany pulled on my arm and tugged me towards her.

“What?” I asked as I yanked my arm back. “Also, have you been working out?”

“Just Bikram.”

I rubbed my elbow. “Okay, are you sure? Because you just gripped my arm like you’re Thanos or something.”

“Oh my god, thank you,” she replied, beaming. Then she seemed to remember she was about to interrogate me, because she shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, but you mean to tell me you and I have been buying the Eggland’s Best brand eggs with the paper-thin shells when you’ve been dating a millionaire? We could have been buying thegood shit. You know, the eggs with the brown shells. Organic. Whole Foods, Cass!”

“Why are you talking about eggs?”

She nodded her head towards the counter. “Oh, I was just making the pancakes and thinking about how bad our eggs are…but that’s not the point. The point is, you’re dating a millionaire.”

“I’m not sure if we’re dating.”

“We’re dating!” Marcus called out from the table.

Startled, Bethany and I looked over at him and found that he was watching us with an amused, albeitwasted, look on his handsome face.

“You heard that?” I asked.

“I heard all of it. This apartment is, like, fifteen feet across. For the record, Whole Foods has pretty good eggs, but your best bet is to do a CSA box.” He grinned. “I know, I’m charmingly annoying.”

An hour and a half later, Marcus had consumed four pancakes, two cups of coffee, and was sober enough to look at Bethany and say, “Listen, this whole ordeal was probably equal parts amusing and obnoxious for you, so I hope we get a chance to meet again so I can prove to you that I’m a super normal guy who is fully worthy of being with your friend.”

Bethany laughed. “Okay, you’re clearly in the honest and emotional stage of this drunken journey, so that’s my cue to leave.” She rose from the table. “I’ll clean up. You two can go to bed.”

I directed Marcus to the shower and returned to the kitchen to help Bethany with the dishes and to tell her that she was the greatest friend and roommate the world had seen since Ron Weasley himself. By the time I got back to my bedroom, Marcus was lying in my bed in his underwear and reading a book—of all the things to be doing on the cusp of a blackout.

“How are you feeling?”

He glanced up with bloodshot eyes. “You’re spinning,” he said with a scratchy voice. “Fuck, I drank a lot…”

“And now you’re reading?” I inquired as I began to strip off my clothes. “What are you reading?”

“Jorge Luis Borges,” he responded, glancing at the cover of the book Ramon gave to me so many years ago.

I climbed into the bed next to him and pulled the bedspread over both of us. “Have you read it?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I’m a college dropout.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t read.”

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