Chapter 31 Cass

"Hey, Cass, I'm going to make myself some midnight pancakes. Do you want any?" Bethany poked her head into my bedroom. "Oh no, please don't tell me you're watching Psycho again."

"‘ We all go a little mad sometimes .'" I grinned at her.

Bethany hesitated and her eyebrows began to knot together. "Sorry, what?"

"It's a line from the movie," I explained, gesturing at my laptop. "I'm quoting Norman Bates."

"On one hand, that's reassuring because otherwise, whatever you were saying was just plain creepy. But on the other hand, I would say most people would just pick therapy instead of watching movies about a guy who murders people in the shower."

I hit the spacebar so the movie resumed playing. "You know, if you just sat down and watched it with me one day, you would know the movie is so much more than that."

She chuckled. "Oh, so I'm being unfair? There's more to Norman Bates than just being a guy who peeps on women and kills them when they're vulnerable?"

"Honestly? Yeah."

"So…so, no midnight pancakes?"

"I'm good."

Bethany tilted her head to the side as she lingered in my doorway, a gentle smirk forming on her lips. Once again, I paused the movie and looked up at her.

"What? Why are you looking at me like I'm your kindergartener and I just learned to play ‘hot cross buns' on the recorder?" I asked.

"Haven't seen you here in a while. Just thought you might be at that new guy's place again tonight."

"Nope, I'm here."

"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 absolutely hammered .

"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'm fine ."

"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 can absolutely come 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 a billion dollars to buy me?"

"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 the good 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, albeit wasted , 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."

"I don't read as fast as you."

"That still doesn't mean you can't read."

Marcus let out an exhale and closed his eyes. "Read me something then."

Shaking my head, I took the book from him. His bare skin was warm against mine and he snuggled against me. "No way. I'm not reading you Borges while you're drunk."

"Read me your favorite one."

I leaned over and kissed his hair. "If you ask me again when you're sober, I'll do it."

"No, you know what? Tell me which one is your favorite. I'll read it on my own time."

"We both know you won't."

"I absolutely will. If there's anything to know about me, about this guy," he said, gesturing at himself again, "it's that when I say I'll do something, you better believe I'm going to do it."

"Fine." I lowered myself in the bed so I could turn to face him. "The story is called ‘Funes the Memorious.'"

Just like I knew he would, Marcus pulled his eyebrows together. "Were any of those real words?"

"The character is named Funes. And he's blessed and cursed with the ability to remember everything."

Even drunk off his ass, Marcus was perceptive enough to make the connection. He reached out and rested his hand on my cheek. For several seconds, I leaned into the warm caress of his hand and I felt at ease. "It's not a curse, Cass," he said.

I found myself drawing away from him, but he caught me and pulled me back into his arms. Part of me wanted to protest, but his skin felt so good against my cheek and his grip felt so commanding and protective.

"Nope," he said softly. "Don't you shut down on me. We don't do that with each other. Not anymore."

"Marcus—"

"Tell me the good parts," he continued. "Something about it, your memory—your fucking incredible mind—is worthwhile. Tell me."

"My childhood was horrible."

His arms wrapped more tightly around me. "So was mine. And we don't have to talk about our childhoods today, Cass. But tell me something good. Tell me what you like to remember. Do you like remembering me?"

I nodded. "I love it. I need something to overpower that memory I have of us ten years ago, when I said those horrible things."

Marcus kissed me, brief and sweet. "Why'd you say that to me?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

He was right. Deep down, I did know.

"Jealousy," I said after a beat. "I said that thing to you because I was jealous of you. I would have done anything to drop out of Princeton at that point in my life."

"To do what?"

I shrugged. "Who knows. Start a business? You did it and I envy you all the time. You work for yourself, you make a real difference…I know things have changed, but at some point you must have been so proud of what you accomplished."

Marcus was quiet. His hands stayed on my body, warm and gentle as he caressed my skin.

"Did something happen today?" I asked. "With the ledgers? You ran out of the office and then the next time I saw you, you were the drunkest I've ever seen you."

He nodded. "I know. It's just…" Marcus breathed out through his nostrils. "You know I've always cared about Libra, right? And I wasn't in it for anything but making a positive impact on other people's lives. That's what it was about for me—what everything was about for me. Everyone deserves a chance to make their life better, and debt can't be an insurmountable punishment."

Finally, I removed myself from his grasp and I sat up so I could stare at him. "Of course I know that—I know all this. Marcus, what the hell happened?"

"This is the only time I'm going to say this to you ever," he said gravely as he looked up at me. "And I need you to trust me, Cass. I can't tell you what happened. It's not because I don't want to or because you wouldn't be able to help me. I want to tell you so bad. So bad . But I can't. So just trust me when I say, I don't want to talk about it with you."

Wordlessly, I nodded before I pulled him into my arms, cradling his head against my chest. We stayed in that position for minutes—maybe much longer—until we both drifted off to sleep.