The Voice from the

Marius grabbed his phone back, sending it tumbling to the floor. They sat in silence for a minute, then Marius practically leapt from the couch, hovering above Courfeyrac, his face still flushed, looking like someone in a cartoon with a light bulb lit above his head.

“That’s it!” he said, starting to pace back and forth without moving more than two feet away from (/Courfeyrac/) the couch; he stopped suddenly, facing Courfeyrac. “You can help me. You can..tell me what to say, listen in and I’ll have an earpiece and a mic or something…” He paused to gauge Courfeyrac’s reaction. Courfeyrac was pretty sure he’d seen this in a movie, and it hadn’t worked out so well. “You’re so good at all of this, no one can resist you, and it would only be one date and...please?”

It was an utterly ridiculous plan, and probably filled with holes, but Marius looked so hopeful and Courfeyrac had his vanities; Marius was looking at Courfeyrac like he was the only person in the world who could make everything okay, and they were friends, and the tiny pooling coil of hope in Courfeyrac’s stomach betrayed his better instincts.

Courfeyrac nodded, “But just this once.”