Page 73 of The Chase

“I’m not trying on clothes for you,” I say stubbornly.

“I told you, this isn’t for me!” she grumbles in frustration. “It’s foryou. I’m doing you a huge solid right now, Fitz. Do you know how many thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes are in those bags?”

I scowl. “I don’t care how much they cost. I want to wear my own stuff.”

“What stuff?” She charges to my closet door and throws it open. “You mean this stuff? A bunch of T-shirts. Jeans and cargo pants. Some sweaters, a couple of button-downs, a whole lot of sports jerseys, and more wife-beaters than any man should ever need to own.”

“And the suit I wore to my Uncle Ned’s funeral,” I say helpfully. “I could wear that if you want.”

“I do not want.” She rifles through the hangers. “Everything you own is either black or gray. What do you have against colors, Colin? Did red bully you as a child? Did green steal your girlfriend? Black, gray, gray, black, black, oh look! More black! This is insanity. I’m literally going insane looking at your closet.” Summer spins around, glaring. “You’re going to let me dress you for the interview, you hear me? It’s my right, now that we’re best friends.”

“Best friends?” I sputter with laughter. “I agreed to no such thing.”

“If I decide something, then it’s the law.” She sticks out her tongue. “You have no say.”

Gone is the teary-eyed girl I’d comforted mere days ago, and I have to admit it’s nice seeing her smiling and beaming at me. Directing all her innate sunlight at me instead of eyeing me with dark caution and cloudy uncertainty.

“Come on, Fitz. Please? Just try on a few outfits. If you don’t like them, I’ll send them back.”

“Send them back to who?” My stomach churns. “Please don’t tell me you bought these.” I’m not good with accepting gifts, particularly expensive ones.

“Oh no. That would make a huge dent in my trust fund. My parents would murder me.” She shrugs. “A friend of mine sent them over as a favor. She’s the stylist for an actor.”

“Which actor?” I can’t help but ask, curiously eyeing the bags.

“Noah Billings.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s on a CW superhero show. He’s about your size, maybe a tad shorter. Most of these have been tailored to him, but we’ll see what we can do. Anyway, Mariah said you can borrow whatever you want, as long as we pay for it to be dry-cleaned before we give it back. So now shut up and strip, sweetie. I want you to look great tomorrow. I mean, this is huge.”

She’s right. Itishuge. A job at Orcus Games would be a dream come true.

“You’re right,” I concede. “I can’t look like a scrub.”

“I’m sorry, did you say I’m right? As in, you’re wrong?”

“Yes, Summer. You’re right. I need to make a good impression.” I sigh in defeat. “Let’s see what’s in those bags.”

She squeals loud enough to make me flinch. Man, that’s a seriously high pitch she’s got there. “You won’t regret this. This is going to be so much fun.”

Clapping happily, she does a few spins, her blonde hair whipping around her slender body. She punctuates the excited dance with a little jump where she kicks out both legs and then lands directly on the tips of her bare toes.

“Whoa,” I blurt, genuinely impressed. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I took six years of ballet.” She marches to the chair and picks up the first garment bag.

Right, I remember she’d mentioned ballet had been one of her interests. “Didn’t stick with it, eh?”

“I told you, I get bored easily.” She unzips the bag and extracts a hanger that holds a…

Gray sweater.

“It’s a fucking gray sweater,” I accuse. “You know, like the one hanging five feet away from us? The one you were just criticizing?”

“First of all, it’s not gray. It’s slate—”

“It’s gray.”

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