Page 97 of Clinically Bewitched
“Did it work?”
“NO!”
Gabriel was staring at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Who are you and what have you done with Julien?”
“I’m right here.”
“No.” Fitz set down his coffee cup very carefully, as if it might explode. “No, you’re not. Because Julien Darcy doesn’t show up late. Julien Darcy doesn’t—”
He stopped.
His eyes went wide.
His mouth fell open.
“What are youwearing?” he whispered.
I glanced down at myself.
Comfortable slate-gray slacks. A green Henley that Athena had pulled out of my closet this morning and declared that it “brought out my eyes,” along with white sneakers that I bought two years ago for a charity 5K and never worn again.
No tie. No jacket. No pristinely starched shirt.
“Clothes,” I said.
Fitz spit his coffee across the table.
Directly onto Nathan’s notes. A perfect arc of liquid projectile that would have made a ballistics expert proud.
“FITZ!” Nathan jumped up, grabbing his papers. “These are patient files!”
“HE’S WEARING SNEAKERS!” Fitz shouted, pointing at me with his dripping coffee cup. “JULIEN DARCY IS WEARINGSNEAKERS!”
“They’re quite comfortable,” I said mildly.
“Comfortable,” Fitz repeated, his voice strangled. “He said comfortable. Did everyone hear that? He used the wordcomfortablein relation to his clothing choices.”
“I heard it,” Gabriel said faintly.
“I’m documenting it,” Hayden added, actually writing it down.
“And a Henley,” Nathan said, still staring. “Is that... is that aHenley?”
“It is.”
“Not a button-down Oxford?”
“No.”
“Not even a polo?”
“Correct.”
“AHenley,” Gabriel repeated. “Like... like a graduate student. Or a person who enjoys comfort.”
“Both accurate descriptions.”
Fitz was shaking his head slowly. “Next you’ll tell us you’re wearingjeans.”
