“You wouldn’t remember him. I never brought him around.”

“Oh, ok.”

North grunted.

“It’s just.”

A low rumble had started in North’s chest.

“Was he a time traveler?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Can we drop this anime shit? I already told you about the twink. Sophomore year.”

“Right, right. It’s just, I did a quick google. And this—” Shaw toed one of the shirts. “This one didn’t even come out until last year.”

North’s head came up slowly. He fixed Shaw with a look that was pure, frozen murder. And he bit off his words. “It was a lucky guess.”

After another look at North’s face, Shaw nodded frantically. Outside, a horn blared, and then came a peal of drunken laughter, with somebody yelling, “Get out of the fucking road.” Tires squealed, and an engine roared. More drunken laughter filtered through the noise as the car raced away.

Only then did North seem to think he had made his point, and he lowered his gaze to the clothing and asked, as though nothing had happened: “So. What does this tell us?”

“Sometimes people hide their nerdy obsessions because, well, they’re afraid that their best friends might think they’re nerdy. Only, their best friends would never think that because they already know they’re nerdy. Like their best friends remember the time they assigned everybody on the dorm floor the name of a Star Trek character, and that was—” Shaw swallowed at the look on North’s face. “—a purely hypothetical example.”

North waited.

A dog barked furiously on the street for fifteen seconds.

North was still waiting.

The dog yelped, the sound fading into the distance, and then the bell on the Kaldi’s door chirped.

North was still, still waiting.

“You know what?” Shaw said. “I think I remembered that wrong. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the name of a single Star Trek character. Ever.”

North grunted in approval and then squatted to examine the closest pile of clothes. “This is schizophrenic,” he said, touching first the cleats, then the snakeskin boots, then the wizard staff, then the flapper dress. “This is beyond schizo.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to say stuff like that anymore. Especially not schizo.”

“What do you call a guy with like fifteen different personalities in his closet? And don’t make a lame gay-in-the-closet joke, please.”

“Low hanging fruit,” Shaw said. He stepped back, and then back again until he could see everything—including the bulge of North’s powerful thighs, which the short shorts did nothing to conceal. “It’s like his Facebook page.”

North cocked his head.

“He went through phases. Finance bro.” Shaw pointed to the business casual clothes. “Fratty softball guy.” He nudged the jerseys. “Video games—Xbox, I think—and—”

“Wizard?” North said sourly, holding up the broken wand.

“Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Didn’t you play—”

“And drag, I guess.” Shaw held up the flapper dress. “It might fit me.”

“Of course it would fit you. You’ve got no hips.”