Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [87]
“Shop where?” Natty asks, barely pausing for a reply. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. What are you doing right now?”
“Right now?” Marcus asks, making his way over to the stacks of T-shirts lining the far wall of the store. “Right now I’m wearing a bathrobe, talking to you on my cell phone, browsing through a collection of New Jersey–themed T-shirts so I can buy one and put it on so I don’t have to wear this bathrobe anymore.”
“Are you alone?”
“There’s the salesclerk.”
“Dude, you know that’s not what I meant,” Natty says with growing impatience.
Marcus passes over a T-shirt that brays FUGEDDABOUDIT, and another that asks WHAT’S YOUR EXIT? Finally, he picks up one that has the Here logo in modest type across on the chest.
Marcus nudges the cell phone between his shoulder and his ear, then holds the men’s-size-large T-shirt up against his body. It fits his torso just fine, but there’s enough excess material widthwise to fit another person. He switches it for a medium, which skims his skinny frame but would ride high above his navel like a hoochie crop top. As he tries to decide between forms of unflattery, Natty’s voice jumps out at him by surprise, causing the phone to slip and clunk to the floor.
“Sorry, Nathanielsan,” Marcus says upon retrieving his cell. “I forgot I was talking to you. What did you say?”
Somewhere in Princeton, NJ, a pint-size Rhodes Scholar slams his cell phone against the closest tiger-striped foosball table.
“Oh, right. Am I still with Jessica Darling?” Marcus asks in mock innocence. “Not at the moment. She’s upstairs in our hotel room.”
Marcus chooses the men’s size L and then selects the same shirt in women’s size small.
“You got a hotel room together?!”
“Yes,” Marcus sighs, instantly regretting his candor. He doesn’t want to talk about Jessica with Natty, who just wouldn’t understand.
“Did you hit that shit already?”
“No,” Marcus says wearily, loosening the tie to his bathrobe. “I didn’t.” He looks over at the salesclerk, who is giving him his full attention. “Do you mind if I put this on now?” Marcus asks.
The salesclerk looks him up and down skeptically.
“Put what on?” Natty asks. “Who are you talking to?”
“I just feel sort of, er, awkward here, half dressed.”
“Who’s with you?” Natty asks. “And why are you half dressed?”
“No one,” Marcus says.
“No one my balls,” Natty says, getting amped. “You’ve got another girl with you. No wonder you couldn’t keep your mind on the conversation. Dude, you squander more ass than anyone I know. This is why you gotta man up and—”
Marcus shuts off his phone before his best friend can say another word. Until Natty allows himself to fall in love, he will never understand Marcus’s unwavering devotion to Jessica Darling. Ten years after he first fell for her, Marcus still doesn’t understand it himself. It is an alchemical attraction that transcends all reason, rationality, and—in the three years since she spurned him—reality.
“So the Hef look isn’t working for you, eh?” the salesclerk asks, letting his thumbs rest for the time being. His voice is stuck in the back of his throat like a loogie that needs dislodging. He strains to smile for the first time since Marcus entered the store, revealing a too-wide mouth full of teeth that are all exactly the same shape and size. He reminds Marcus of a sinister porpoise up to no good.
Marcus shakes his head.
“I’d ask what happened to your clothes,” the salesclerk continues tonelessly “But the truth is, I don’t really care.” He barely glances around before thrusting his elbow toward the back of the store. “Go ahead.”
“You sure?”
When the clerk nods in consent, Marcus