fic: the years they come and go (but today is here to stay) 1/4
fic: the years they come and go (but today is here to stay) (one/four)
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: from the tsn_kinkmeme AU prompt here about 'summer lovin'', or, basically, eduardo moves to new york for the summer after his senior year of high school to stay with his estranged father and meets mark. sexytimes ensue.
title is from matt and kim's "where you're coming from"
Eduardo carefully chooses the time to break the news, and decides on after dinner, when he's finished loading the dishwasher and the Florida air is humid with the early June sunset, crickets chirping furiously.
He puts the last plate in, pours in detergent, and says, "Guys? Can you- uh, come in here for a second?"
It goes about how he expected.
"Are you sure?" Jane asks, eyes wide.
"Of course he's not sure," Anne bursts in. "Eduardo, baby, it's your last summer home-"
"Mom. Please. I want- I really, really want to meet him," Eduardo says, and Jane puts an arm around his shoulder.
"Well, we'll just- we'll fly up there and meet him, then-"
"Annie, come on. He wants to get to know Ricardo. He deserves to."
"Three months at home," Anne says, pacing, a muscle in her jaw working. Eduardo knows she hates Ricardo.
"His last three months! What about Christy? She'll miss you-"
"Mom," Eduardo says, untangling himself from Jane and putting his arms around Anne. She rolls her eyes, but hugs him. "Please. I need to do this."
"Seen too many movies," Anne says into his hair. "That say you need to go on some stupid pilgrimage to discover yourself-"
Eduardo scoffs and grins. "I've discovered myself just fine so far," he says, and she smiles, he can feel the shape of it against his scalp.
"C'mon, hon," Jane says. "Eduardo'll be fine. Listen, we'll visit him in July or August, would that be good, Eduardo? And we'll help him move in-"
Anne sighs heavily.
"Just worry about you," she says, and Eduardo pulls away and hops onto the kitchen counter. Jane puts a hand on his knee, smiles at him.
"But- and I mean it, duardito, if anything happens, you call and we'll bring you home, right away, okay?"
"Of course," Jane says.
"I know," Eduardo says, and grins beseechingly, "So- I can go?"
"Yes," Anne says.
"Oh, it's going to be so nice-" Jane starts, clapping her hands, and Eduardo cuts in-
"- to not have me home? Thanks, madre."
"Oh, you know what I mean. I'm sure Ricardo'll be delighted-"
"-if he's ever home," Anne mutters.
"Oh, stop."
"He works a lot?" Eduardo asks, reaching backwards over the counter and grabbing a half empty bag of chocolate chips.
Anne snorts, rolling her eyes, and holds out her hand. Eduardo pours chocolate into her palm.
"Well, he's busy," Jane says diplomatically. "But I'm sure he'll be able to take some time off, from that office job of his-"
Eduardo nods around a mouthful of chocolate, consideringly.
"If he doesn't, I'll call," Anne says, and Eduardo laughs.
"Terrifying," he says, mouth full, and she shoves his knee.
"I already booked a flight," he says once he's swallowed, and Jane laughs.
"We could have easily said no," she says, and he hops down from the counter, pulls on a St. John's sweatshirt because there's still a chill at night, a mild breeze.
"Not possible," he says. She swats at him, and he dodges, laughing.
"Hey, duardo," she says quietly, and drags him into a hug.
"You graduate next week," she says, and grins. She's been saying that for the last month, pulling him aside at random times- you graduate in a month. you graduate in three weeks. you're graduating, eduardo, you.
"I'm aware," he says, like he always does, and she whispers in his ear, "And you're going to Harvard!"
"No!" he says, feigning surprise, though he's known since December. She just smiles and pulls away, turns on the kettle.
---
A week and three days later he is on a plane by himself to New York.
He is scared, and Christy texted him earlier-
baaaby your dad's going to love you. don't find a new best friend or i'll kill you.
He'd responded-
im kind of freaked out this summer is about to suck. miss you already
He sits back in the seat, hands on his thighs, staring out the window at familiar Miami.
He doesn't need his dad to like him, he keeps telling himself. It's just- just curiosity. He doesn't need anything from him.
His stomach hurts though, vaguely, in a worried way.
He really wants his father to like him.
Fuck.
---
It's not some grand moment, some moment of awakening, when he meets his dad.
Not that he expected it to be, or whatever.
But. There's a car waiting at the La Guardia, with Eduardo L. Saverin typed on a card held by an unfamiliar man in a fucking suit, and he carefully hoists his luggage into the trunk and gets into the back.
His phone buzzes once he's inside, and it's a number he doesn't recognize.
"Hello?"
"Eduardo?"
The voice is clipped, female, business-like but kind.
"Yeah, who- who is this?"
"Hello, Eduardo, I'm Lena, Ricardo Saverin's assistant. Mr. Saverin is deeply sorry he couldn't meet you at the airport, and he is looking forward to meeting you tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Mr. Saverin will be home around nine PM. In the meantime, please feel free to unpack. Your room is up the stairs and to the left. There is food in the refrigerator. Will you be needing anything else?"
"I- I guess not," Eduardo says slowly, a little freaked out.
"We're all looking forward to meeting you," she says, and her voice warms a little. "I'm sure Ricardo will want you to come by the office at some point."
"Okay," Eduardo says. "Um. Thanks."
---
No one comes home until eleven. Eduardo throws his suitcase onto the massive bed, eats the pre-packaged food in the fridge, and ends up on the couch, flipping idly through the channels, his ears attuned to any tiny noise or movement from outside.
He's thinking about calling back the number on his cell phone to see if Ricardo got in a car crash or was abducted or something when the door opens. He fumbles for the remote, flips off the TV, and stands up.
His father comes in, keys in one hand, suitcase in the other, and Eduardo fidgets, says finally, "Um, hi," and Ricardo jerks upward, nearly drops his things.
"Jesus," he says roughly, voice deep, and Eduardo goes hot all over. His stomach is flipping.
"Hi," he says again, and Ricardo flicks the kitchen light on.
"I thought you'd be asleep," he says. Eduardo shakes his head.
"I don't sleep till twelve, usually," he says inanely, and his father nods, clears his throat, steps closer to him.
"Ricardo Saverin," he says, and holds out his hand. Eduardo takes it.
"Eduardo," he says, and his father steps back. In the weak light of the kitchen he looks shadowed, strong-jawed. He's thin like Eduardo but more muscled, broader shoulders. His hair is graying.
"I hope everything was- was satisfactory," Ricardo says gruffly, and Eduardo nods quickly.
"Yeah, it's great," he says, and laughs nervously, then clamps his mouth shut.
"I have to do some work before I sleep," he says, and nods at him, goes upstairs.
Eduardo leans against the counter, chest tight, takes a couple deep breaths. Okay. Okay, he can totally do this.
---
That's kind of how it goes.
The next day his father stands awkwardly in the threshold of his room, raises an eyebrow at Eduardo's meticulously packed, color-coded suitcase, and Eduardo goes red and flips the top over it.
"Good morning," he says. "I have work in a half hour."
"Okay," Eduardo says, tongue-tied like he is with people he doesn't know well, and his father nods once and leaves.
He comes home at ten, that night. Eduardo knows he works in the city, in some kind of law. He's not sure.
But it goes like that, for a week, and Eduardo is really fucking bored. He knows practically every channel, even though his dad gets the weird ones in the 700s like the Sundance Channel and ESPN 8.
He doesn't know what to do.
---
He calls his madre, because she always knows what to do.
"Hey, sweetie," Jane says over the line. "How's it going?"
"Alright," Eduardo lies. "We, uh. He's-"
"What's he doing?" Anne cuts in on the other line, already angry.
"Nothing!" Eduardo says, curling his knees up to his chest on the bed. "I just didn't know he worked so much. I mean, it's fine."
"He was supposed to take some time off and take care of you," Anne hisses, and Jane says, "Oh, come on. He's living by himself, he needs to work. Have you seen how much this boy eats?"
"Thanks," Eduardo says dryly. "I'm actually still here, mom."
"That's no excuse," Anne says. "Eduardo hasn't seen him in eighteen years. He's supposed to be- be a little more attentive, don't you think-"
"- it's hard for him, you know that-"
"Can you please stop fighting?" Eduardo says, and puts his face in his knees. "I want at least one functional parent relationship."
"Such a drama queen," Anne says. Eduardo makes a vague noise of protest, but grins.
"Speaking of that, have you - uh,"
"No. I don't think I- I don't know. I just don't think he needs to know."
He doesn't tell them about what his father has said, how he muttered something rude when Eduardo mentioned Anne in a conversation the other night, something that sounded suspiciously like dyke.
If that's what his dad said about his mom's partner, he has no idea what he'd say if he knew about Eduardo.
He doesn't say that. He's not sure why. Probably because Anne would make him come home right away, and he's not. He's not ready to go home.
He can be straight for a summer. It's not a big deal. He was straight for like, all of eighth grade, and he even kissed Melissa Juarez at the spring junior high dance. He can do this.
"Fucker," Anne says.
"Oh, Annie. Relax. Whatever you think, Eduardito. But I'm sure he loves you."
Eduardo huffs out a laugh.
"If you really, really want to come home, you can," Anne says.
"Annie, we agreed he'd make an effort-"
"I don't need to come home," Eduardo says. "It's not that bad."
"Call if you need to."
"Try going out, doing something. Don't mope around all day."
"Thanks, madre," Eduardo says, rolling his eyes. "I- I miss you guys."
"We miss you too, hon," Anne says, voice worried and fond.
"Love you," Jane says. "It's going to get better."
Eduardo closes his eyes, nods.
"Okay," he says weakly. "Love you."
He hangs up and leans his head against the window, sighs.
--
The next day he walks a couple blocks to the local Starbucks, plugs in his new MacBook and instant messages Christy for three hours. She's just as bored as him.
He does it again two days later, brings a book and curls up in a window seat, then again the next day, and it only takes a week before he notices the kid.
The kid is in that Starbucks every fucking day. Like Eduardo.
Eduardo is trying not to be intrigued, because he's only here for a summer and he's supposed to be straight-ish so his dad won't flip the fuck out, and the boy's probably straight anyway.
Also, he seems kind of like an asshole. He's always typing on his laptop and when one of the dreadlocked baristas asked him to move because he hadn't bought anything in four hours, he'd frowned and waved him away silently.
The next week they finally kick him out, and he grabs his laptop under one arm and blinks around at the store.
It's pretty full. Eduardo's got his legs kicked out on the other chair of his table, and when the kid looks around for a seat he scrambles out of the chair and nearly falls.
"Hey!" he says, too loud, and the kid doesn't look.
"Hey," he says again. "I - uh, you can sit here. If you want."
The boy furrows his brow and walks over to him.
"I mean, I saw you got kicked out. Again," Eduardo stammers, and grins.
The boy nods decisively. "You're leaving?" he says in a flat voice.
Shit.
"Um, yeah, I can," Eduardo says, going red, stomach sinking, grabbing his backpack.
"You weren't going to leave," the kid says.
"No! No, it's fine."
"Okay," he says, and sits down.
After a minute Eduardo sits down too, cautiously.
The kid plugs his laptop in and starts typing.
Eduardo looks at him for a second, then back down at his book, smiling to himself.
---
"Freakonomics," the kid says, five minutes later, and Eduardo looks up.
"What?"
"That's what you're reading."
Eduardo looks down, and back up. "Yeah," he says, and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
The boy goes slightly pink, right along his cheekbones.
"A lot of their findings are flawed," he says stiffly, and Eduardo grins.
"I mean, I think it's a shaky model to base economic research on," the kid says. "If you look at the sample size on a lot of their studies. Uh."
"Yeah, but don't you think it serves a greater purpose, you know, both in terms of increasing interest in economics, and bringing a lot of new ideas out to be discussed?"
"Why increase interest in economics?" the boy says sourly. "We'll have every half-educated dumbass running around saying they know how the market's going to move."
Eduardo laughs. The boy looks surprised, then half-smiles for a second.
"You're an elitist," Eduardo says.
"I prefer Hamiltonian theorist," Mark says, and Eduardo laughs again.
"I'm Eduardo," he says, and ducks his head. "I mean. Yeah. I'm Eduardo."
"Mark," the kid says.
Eduardo nods.
"You live, uh, around here?"
"Yeah," Mark says. "A few minutes."
"Cool, cool. I'm - uh, I'm from Florida. But. I'm staying with my dad this summer, and he lives here, so, yeah."
Mark looks away from him and Eduardo goes bright red. Usually he is tongue-tied. Why can he not be tongue-tied right now? Goddamnit.
"Um, yeah, my dad is- I haven't seen him in eighteen years. I mean, I hadn't, obviously, now I have."
Mark nods.
Eduardo needs to shut up now.
"Sorry," he says, coughing, looking away. Mark's mouth twitches at the edges.
"I'm just like- really fucking bored," Eduardo says.
Mark nods slightly. "Yeah," he says. "And I sit in this Starbucks all day for my health."
Eduardo snorts.
"I'm, uh. Coming up to the East Coast for good next year, though. For college."
"Me too," Mark says. "Harvard."
"Me too!" Eduardo says, and grins hugely. Mark smiles, a little bit.
"That's so weird. Small world, right?" Eduardo says, and Mark shrugs, starts typing again.
"So, you're like- always on your computer," Eduardo says after a minute of silence, and then backtracks, stuttering- "I mean, I've only seen you once or twice or whatever but just you've been typing for a while, right, I mean-"
"Yeah," Mark cuts him off, taking his fingers off the keys. "I'm a CS major, probably. I write websites."
Eduardo nods. "That's so cool," he says enthusiastically, though he has close to no idea what that means, really.
Mark looks up at him, like he knows Eduardo has no clue what he's talking about.
"It's fun," he says. Eduardo nods eagerly. He has a feeling Mark throws very few conversational 'bones', so to speak.
It's just nice to talk to someone.
Even if the someone seems a little bit like he'd rather converse with a robot than Eduardo.
Mark doesn't say anything else, though, and Eduardo eventually settles back in his seat, keeps reading.
The cheesy indie-folk music switches to an actual good song, and Eduardo lets himself relax, soothed by the music and the cadence of Mark's typing and the filtered, soft sunlight.
It's better than watching MTV Cuatro all day, anyway.
--
After an hour of peaceful silence, Mark's phone buzzes on the table.
He picks it up and puts it back down, face reddening. Eduardo looks up.
"You going to answer that?" he says, and Mark looks at him jerkily and picks up the phone.
"Hey," he says quietly, and there's a loud blast of girlish noise.
"Yeah. I'm- are you on meth or something? I'm at Starbucks."
More talking, more listening, and Eduardo is pretty obviously eavesdropping now.
"No!" Mark says suddenly. "I'll just-"
He pauses, and rolls his eyes. "Thanks. No, you don't- damnit- okay. But I'm leaving soon. Yes, I have other things to do in my life."
He listens for a second, then hangs up and shoots a quick look at Eduardo before staring back down at his computer.
Eduardo shrugs inwardly.
Ten minutes later Mark looks up over Eduardo's shoulder, jaw setting in a grimace, and Eduardo turns around and sees a girl in denim shorts, waving excitedly.
"Hey, asshole," she says as she somehow manages to simultaneously throw down her purse, extract a chair from under a man's briefcase, and sit down in one smooth movement.
"Such a good friend," Mark mumbles.
"Mark, what have we said about normal human interaction?" she says, rolling her eyes. "Who's your friend?"
"He's not my- I mean. He just-"
"Eduardo," Eduardo cuts in, and the girl holds out a hand, grinning wide and friendly.
"Erica," she says. "Mark's neighbor. And put-upon best friend."
"Debatable," Mark says quietly, and half-grins at her.
"So, Eduardo, what's your deal? Why are you hanging around with Robocop here?"
"You think that's a hilarious joke, and it's really, really not," Mark says, still typing, cheeks flushed.
"Robocop," Eduardo repeats quietly, and laughs. Erica is punching Mark in the shoulder repeatedly, chanting what sounds like binary. Mark is steadfastly ignoring her.
"Um," Eduardo says, interrupting her 0 1 0 0 1. "I was just sitting here. Before, uh, he did."
"Mark, did you make a friend all by yourself? Without even consulting me?" Erica asks, mock-outraged.
"Your wit astounds me," Mark mutters. Erica nods.
Eduardo laughs. "So, are you going to Harvard too?" he asks, and Mark snorts.
"No I am not, Mark's new friend."
"She wishes," Mark says, and Erica punches him again.
"So I do not wish. I didn't even apply, assface. I'm going to BU. Not that it matters. Little secret-" she says, pointing at Eduardo. "I'm actually eight thousand times smarter than Mark, I just don't know how to write fucking perl script or whatever."
"Art history," Mark says, and she sticks out her tongue, sits back in her chair. Eduardo feels a little like he's watching some kind of ping-pong game.
"I'm proud of my major, Mark. At least it doesn't involve Red Bull and carpal tunnel."
"Monet had carpal tunnel," Mark says, looking up, with a straight face. He glances at Eduardo and Eduardo goes hot, smiles reasonlessly. Mark looks away.
"So full of shit," Erica says. "I'm getting a Frappucino."
She stands up and storms off to the counter. She's tall, thin, full of energy. Eduardo watches her leave and looks back at the table just to see Mark look down at his computer again, mouth curled into a frown.
"She's cool," Eduardo says, and Mark doesn't look up.
"She's just my neighbor," Mark says, and starts typing furiously.
Eduardo looks down, grins.
"So," Erica says, slamming down in the chair, drawing out the word. "Eduardo of the mysterious exotic name, you have to come to this party tonight."
"Erica," Mark says, in a tight little voice, and she leans closer to Eduardo. She smells sweet, like sunscreen and flowery perfume.
"You're coming," she whispers, nodding authoritatively, and Eduardo nods back, un-bored for the first time in a week.
She pats him on the arm and pulls away.
"Oh, you're coming too, Mark," she says. "I need a wingman."
Mark makes a little noise of disgust in his throat.
"Joking, he's the worst wingman of all time. He told this guy about my retainer one time."
"Dental health is important," Mark says, eyes and mouth shifting into something resembling a smile, private and small.
Eduardo laughs again, says, "It really is," and Mark looks up at him, still with that smile.
Eduardo holds his eyes for as long as he dares.
---
Erica makes them all exchange phone numbers, and Eduardo goes back to his father's house alone, promising Erica he'll come to her house an hour before the party.
He bums around the house for a few hours until seven, and Mapquests Erica's house. She (and, Eduardo's assuming, Mark) only live a couple blocks from Eduardo.
He knocks on the door, rings the doorbell when no one answers, and is about to call Erica when the door opens and a tall, friendly-looking woman with an oven mitt on one hand stands in front of him.
"Hi!" she says brightly. "How can I help you?"
"Uh," Eduardo says. "Sorry, Erica told me to-"
"Oh, you know, she's upstairs with Mark. Why don't you just run up there? I'm Jane, Erica's mother, and you are?"
"Eduardo," Eduardo says, shaking her non-oven-mitted hand. "My mom's name is Jane too, actually."
Jane laughs brightly. She seems relentlessly cheerful. "How nice!" she says. "Erica's room is first on the left."
Eduardo nods, and Jane waves him up the stairs, bends over to pull something out of the oven.
Erica's door is closed, but Eduardo knows it's her room. There's a cutesy little sign, block letters spelling out her name, something she's obviously had since she was little. Underneath, there's a hand-scrawled sign on notebook paper- I swear to God Ethan if you come into my room one more time I'm going to rip your face off. SERIOUSLY.
Eduardo grins, and is about to knock when he hears Mark's short reedy laugh from inside. He holds his breath automatically. They're not- like, hooking up? Eduardo's pretty sure they're not, but they could be one of those sneaky best-friend couples who don't talk about it because it's just inevitable that they'll get married and have 2.4 children and live in suburbia.
He listens. Just a little.
"He's cute," Erica's saying, and Mark doesn't say anything. Eduardo bites his lip to keep from making any noise.
"Looks kind of like Bambi," Erica says. "Hot little deer-baby." She giggles.
"You're into bestiality, now?" Mark says, voice flat, and Erica snorts at the same time Eduardo does, silently, outside the door.
"Fuck off," she says. "You know what I mean. I wonder if he has a significant other back home in Miami."
Eduardo's eyes go wide. Okay, he was assuming from the Bambi thing, he may or may not have heard that before, but this is just awkward.
"Probably," Mark says, and Eduardo can't find any trace of any kind of emotion in his voice. He pulls away from the door, worries his lip between his teeth, and knocks carefully.
"Come in!" Erica calls, and Eduardo pushes the door open. Mark's cheeks are red; he's looking down at the ground, sitting in one of those scoop-chairs that's shaped like a bird's nest. Erica's lying on the floor with her feet up on her bed.
"Hey, Eduardo," she says. "My mom let you in?"
Eduardo nods.
"Good ol' Jane," Mark says quietly.
"That's my mom's name too," Eduardo says, and goes pink because who gives a shit, really?
"So," Erica says, flipping herself upright and shaking her hair out of her face. "Want to help me pick out an outfit?"
Mark groans. Eduardo shrugs in assent.
--
An hour later, they're at some kid Chris' house. Erica had driven them, in her mom's Toyota Highlander. There's a handle of spiced rum between Eduardo's legs in the backseat, and Mark was talked out of the t-shirt he had apparently been wearing for three days into one of Erica's brother's long-sleeved, at least mildly clean shirts.
They park in the street outside Chris' house and Mark opens the backseat door, and there's an awkward moment where he tries to reach past Eduardo to grab the handle and Eduardo tries to get out and they nearly collide and Mark backs away, muttering an apology.
Eduardo nods, hands him the bottle, and Erica bounces around to their side of the car and pulls them inside.
Mark's friends are pretty cool. Chris is nice, though they only meet briefly because someone breaks something and Chris' face goes white and he rushes away. Dustin's kind of an idiot, in a lovable way. He claps Eduardo drunkenly on the shoulder and says, "What's up, bro? You're Mark's friend? Good luck, man."
"Thanks," Eduardo says, laughing, and Mark shoves Dustin.
"Sorry," he says to Eduardo as they sit down on the couch, drinks in hand. "My friends are stupid."
"I like them," Eduardo says, grinning because Mark cares what Eduardo thinks of his friends.
Oh God they met six hours ago.
Mark nods, and says, "So, Florida."
"Yeah," Eduardo says.
"I hate Florida," Mark says. Eduardo snorts, taking a sip of his too-strong rum and coke.
"Thanks," he says wryly. "May I ask why?"
"The insects. The crime. Miami. The weather."
"The weather? You have a personal vendetta against sunlight?"
"Humidity," Mark says, and Eduardo laughs again. Actually, from the sight of Mark's pale skinny arm, he might actually have that vendetta.
"Well, I hope we can still be friends," Eduardo says, mock-sadly, patting Mark's leg. Mark stiffens and looks away.
There's an uncomfortable silence, inadequately filled by an extremely loud Nelly song.
Eduardo is about to say something inane when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out. Anne is calling. He sighs.
Mark looks down at the screen.
"Anne," he reads quietly, almost to himself, and Eduardo looks up.
"It's my mom," he says. "I probably shouldn't answer, right? I'm, like, kind of tipsy, plus we're having such scintillating conversation."
Mark mumbles something.
"What?"
"I thought your mom's name was Jane," he says, and Eduardo exhales. Okay. That came faster than he thought.
"Yeah," he says, and is about to explain when Dustin flops on the couch between them, puts his head on Mark's shoulder.
"I'm tired," he whines."Can you ask Erica to take me home?"
"Ask her yourself."
"I'm scared of her, Mark. She slapped me on graduation night."
Eduardo laughs, and Dustin turns to him.
"How about you ask her, new friend? Use the Bambi eyes. Did you know you have Bambi eyes?"
"I did not know that," Eduardo says, and Dustin nods authoritatively. Mark is flushed again.
"Doesn't he, Marky? Doesn't he have baby-deer eyes?"
"Shut up, Dustin," Mark says tightly. Eduardo bats his eyelashes and Dustin squeals, touches his cheek with one finger. Eduardo laughs.
"Maybe we should all go," Mark says. "Dustin, get the fuck off me and I'll get Erica."
"Erica!" Dustin calls happily, and falls against Eduardo as Mark stands up. His breath smells like OJ and vodka.
"I know Mark seems like an asshole," he says very seriously. "He kind of is. But he's also... not. He is a mystery. An enigma."
"Thanks," Eduardo says, holding Dustin off him with one hand.
"And Erica is awesome. And hot. But she hates me. Which is so sad." He pouts.
"And Chris is really cool too. He's like, gay. Which is so cool."
Eduardo laughs. "Thanks for the intro," he says. "Um, are- Mark and Erica, like, you know-"
"Together?" Dustin says in an exaggerated whisper. "No no no. That's. Ew. Mark is like a robot. He probably gets a hard-on for his laptop."
And then Eduardo is picturing Mark turned on and hard and oh fuck it's really counterproductive. He shakes his head to clear it, and Erica and Mark appear in front of them. Erica rolls her eyes at Dustin.
"Let's go, idiot," she says. Dustin nods adoringly.
Erica drops Eduardo off at his house, and Eduardo unlocks the door carefully. It's a little after one.
His father is sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of amber liquid and flipping through a stack of papers.
"Hey," Eduardo says cautiously.
"Hello," his father says.
"Sorry I didn't, uh, tell you where I was, if you were-"
"You're eighteen, I assume you can take care of yourself," his father says, voice blank, frowning slightly. Eduardo nods.
"Well, I'm just gonna-" He motions up the stairs. His father nods dismissively.
Eduardo flops down on his bed and grins. This might not be that bad.
---
The next day Erica texts him- hi eduardo! movie night at mark's house if you're up for it! 8pm BRING FOOD. and its 134 west place, across from mine.
Eduardo raids the cupboards of his house. There's not much. Eduardo has no idea what his dad eats.
He ends up with a couple paltry handfuls of pretzel bags and an old bottle of Coke he found in the back of the fridge. It doesn't matter anyway, because Erica's mom made three pans of cookies and forced them onto Erica and within half an hour Eduardo's stuffed himself with, like, eight of them because they're ridiculously delicious.
It's just him and Mark and Erica, and they decide (after a ten minute long argument) to watch The Matrix. Mark gets up to put the DVD in and considers the couch and the chair for a second, deciding where to sit.
After a minute he plops down next to Eduardo on the couch. Eduardo has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling like an idiot.
He can't focus, really, he's too hyperaware of Mark next to him, this weird, sort of assholeish, insanely smart kid who is so fucking interesting it's making Eduardo a little crazy.
Erica curls up in the armchair opposite them with a homemade fleece tie-blanket and commandeers one of the pretzel bags to herself.
Mark is warm.
Which is a stupid thought to have. But even when Mark is very carefully not touching him (or not careful because Eduardo is sure he doesn't care why would he care) Eduardo can feel it.
During one scene he looks over at Mark's profile, discreetly. Studies the jut of his jaw, his lips, the way his sweatshirt is yanked down to reveal a slice of collarbone.
He coughs and looks away, shoves another cookie into his mouth.
"So, Eduardo," Erica says once the movie is over. There's one light on, in the other side of Mark's basement, and it's dim and warm. Eduardo looks at her, head back against the couch.
"What's, uh- what's the deal with your dad?" Erica asks, putting her chin on her hands and beaming at him.
"You're so nosy," Mark says, and Erica huffs with indignation.
"It's not a big deal!" she says. "I mean, if you don't want to talk about, it's cool-"
"No, it's fine," Eduardo says. Mark is very still, next to him.
"Just, um. So, I have two moms. And Ricardo- my mom and Ricardo were married and then they got divorced and he moved up East and my mom met my, uh, my other mom, and I didn't really, you know, care about my father, but then this summer I really- I really wanted to meet him."
He stops, licks his lips, puts his hands on his knees. Mark is looking at him, cautiously, out of the side of his eyes.
"Wow!" Erica says. "What made you want to meet him now?"
She doesn't say anything about the little lesbian bombshell Eduardo just dropped, and he's kind of grateful.
"I don't know, I just-" Eduardo shrugs with his palms up. "That's something we should all do, right? Know our dads? Not that it matters, we've barely even talked." His voice approaches bitterness so he stops talking, because it's fine.
"He just works a lot," Eduardo says, a little defensively, which is weird because Erica didn't even say anything.
"Oh," Erica says.
"It's not a big deal. It's been pretty good so far."
Erica nods, and Mark says, "I'm gonna grab some- um, water."
---
And, well, that's kind of how it goes.
Erica and Mark are basically bored as fuck. As is Eduardo. They're all just killing time until college, and Eduardo doesn't know them too well yet, but he bets Mark and Erica are going to be in each other's dorms every other weekend anyway, so it's not even sad, or like anything is ending.
It's just a lot of boredom.
And a lot of movies. And driving with them to pick up Erica's little brother at camp, or to get Taco Bell, or just to drive until Erica's mom needs the car back.
Eduardo likes them a lot. And he's pretty sure it's not just, oh I have no one else to hang out with like. Mark and Erica are really cool. Eduardo is glad he has them as friends.
He is trying to force himself to think of Mark that way, as a friend. Because he is not going to fuck up the entire summer by doing something stupid with Mark. Mark probably doesn't want him anyway.
They are friends, really. They meet at Starbucks when Erica has lifeguarding and Mark actually closes his laptop sometimes, and they sit and talk about random shit like Harvard and Florida and irrational hatred of innocent states and the obvious inferiority of the South and Mark can be infuriating, stubborn and misanthropic and withdrawn, but he's also hilarious. And hot, in a sneaky way. With his mouth. His fucking mouth, and his stupid cheekbones and his stupid curly hair Eduardo wants to put his hands in.
Eduardo is trying really, really, hard to think of Mark as a friend.
Three weeks later, Erica's at some BU New York people meet-up thing in the city, and Mark comes over to Eduardo's because his dad has been coming home later and later and Eduardo doesn't care what he thinks anyway.
"When's your dad getting home?" Mark asks, chewing on the end of a Red Vine and kicking his bare feet up onto the ottoman.
"Eh," Eduardo shrugs. "Probably late. I think he might be banging his secretary."
"How tawdry," Mark says, mouth tugging up into a grin.
Eduardo snorts.
"You wanna watch a movie?" Eduardo says, sitting down in front of his dad's DVD collection.
"Sure," Mark says absentmindedly, typing.
"Put your stupid computer away," Eduardo says, flopping back down on the couch, closer to Mark, and pushing at the laptop. Mark makes a noise of protest, still staring at the screen, and Eduardo starts to close the top of it.
"Hey," Mark says, and shuts the computer himself, rolls his eyes at Eduardo.
Eduardo nudges him with his shoulder. Mark returns it, and leaves it there, warmth sinking into Eduardo's arm.
Eduardo grins at the screen.
Half an hour later he yawns and forgets himself and puts his head on Mark's shoulder.
He freezes after he does it, wonders if Mark is going to say anything or oh God, this is normal bro behavior, right? Dustin gropes Mark more than he does.
Mark doesn't push him off, so Eduardo leaves it there, relaxes after a minute.
He is not trying very hard, on his quest to keep his feelings strictly platonic.
He is failing, really.
Mark is breathing steadily beneath him and Eduardo wants to lift his head and scoot away before he does something incredibly stupid like try to kiss Mark like some insane horny dog in heat, but before he can, he feels Mark put his head on top of Eduardo's.
He draws in a breath but doesn't say anything. Neither does Mark.
A minute later, Mark moves his head slightly, nudges his chin into Eduardo's hair, and Eduardo hears the garage door open.
"Fuck," he mutters, jerking away from Mark, and Mark stands bolt upright, grabs his laptop off the ottoman, hands clenching nervously at his sides.
His dad comes in, throwing his briefcase on the table.
"Oh, hello, Eduardo," he says. Eduardo scratches the back of his head.
"Hi, Ricardo," he says.
"Oh, uh. This is Mark," he says, and motions vaguely at him. Mark nods in greeting.
His father looks steadily at them, then turns away.
"I'm going to bed," he says. "Turn the lights off, soon, Eduardo."
"Yeah," Eduardo says, and his father goes upstairs.
Eduardo exhales when he leaves, and turns to Mark, who's staring at him with a curious expression.
"Sorry," he says, and Mark shakes his head.
"It's cool," he says quietly, face shadowed, and Eduardo really wants to be cautiously close to him again, smelling his scent. They do not talk about it they can not talk about it, but Eduardo wasn't- he's not alone in this, he thinks, and that sort of scares the shit out of him and sort of makes him want to do a ridiculous dance of victory.
"Do you wanna, uh, hang tomorrow?" he says, and Mark nods.
"Meet at Starbucks?" Mark says, and grabs his Coke, drains it, and picks his laptop under one arm.
"Eleven," Eduardo says, and Mark turns and leaves.
---
It's a routine now, how they sit pressed thigh-to-thigh on Eduardo's or Mark's sofa a couple nights a week. Without Erica, without anyone. Just them.
Eduardo knows it's going somewhere, and he's pretty sure Mark does too.
He really hopes Mark does, at least.
They don't talk about it, though. With Erica they're the same, still Mark and Erica trading barbs while Eduardo laughs along.
Just, sometimes, he catches Mark's eye in the rearview mirror when they're driving to the beach and Erica is singing out the window along to some stupid Destiny's Child song and Mark holds his gaze for half a beat too long and Eduardo sits back in the seat, skin sparking all over, and not from day-old sunburn.
---
Two weeks later they're watching some stupid show on MTV, and Mark snorts out a huff of laughter and Eduardo puts an arm around his shoulder.
Mark stiffens briefly and then relaxes, and they sit like that for a while. They've done that, a couple times, casual and normal except how it's not, not at all.
After two hours, Eduardo lets himself run his hand through Mark's hair, scratch gently at his scalp with his fingernails, and Mark shivers, Eduardo can feel it.
"You okay?" he murmurs quietly, and Mark turns his face to him.
"What are you doing?" he says stubbornly, flatly, but his voice cracks a little. Eduardo considers him, his face, shrouded in shadow.
"Have you ever- uh, have you ever kissed a guy?" he says, in a weird weak voice, like he's been punched in the stomach, because this is happening, and a hot tingle runs through him. Mark stiffens.
"No," he says, unsteadily, swallowing, Adam's apple bobbing.
Eduardo nods, and Mark swallows again, licks his lips, tilts his head up slightly.
Eduardo can't not kiss him.
He leans in slow and presses his lips softly against Mark's and Mark doesn't move, exhales shakily.
Eduardo draws Mark's lower lip into his mouth, and lets go with a soft wet sound.
And Mark does move then, because he follows Eduardo's mouth as Eduardo pulls away, lips parted, eyes closed, and Eduardo grins, hand still planted in Mark's hair.
"Shit," Mark says breathlessly, eyes still shut. Eduardo's other hand slips down to Mark's waist, and his fingers work up under Mark's thin T-shirt.
"Hi," he says, and grins again, and leans in.
Mark is tentative and sweet, in a way, keeping his lips shyly closed and his hands off Eduardo until Eduardo makes a sound in his throat and takes Mark's hand, places it flat on his hip. Mark's fingers go limp, and then flex on Eduardo's skin, and he pushes his head forward with a bit more urgency.
Eduardo's stomach quivers and he opens Mark's mouth slowly with his tongue, licks at his teeth, at his tongue until Mark moves, shifts minutely, and Eduardo sucks his tongue into his mouth.
Mark is breathing unsteadily and his eyes are closed and it only takes him a minute to get the hang of it, to start curling his tongue around Eduardo's, start making sweet soft noises into his mouth, little pants.
He's a fast learner.
Eduardo moves his hand from Mark's waist to his lap, his thigh, and Mark shudders, moves his hips up hesitantly.
"Eduardo," he whispers, disbelieving, and Eduardo smiles against his mouth, kisses him again.
They end up with Mark on his back, legs splayed, Eduardo between them.
Making out with him is so good. Eduardo knew it would be.
He could probably do it forever, kiss Mark's wet full mouth, listen to him groan and gasp when Eduardo tries out everything on him, biting, nipping at his jaw, moving his hips slowly down against Mark's.
Mark is pliant and inviting and his chest is so hot, flushed with a fierce heat below his thin T-shirt. Eduardo puts his hands up under his shirt, spreads them over Mark's belly, laughs when the muscles tense under his palms.
"Wardo," Mark says again, eyes wider than Eduardo's ever seen them, licking his lips, and Eduardo pulls away, sits with his legs on either side of Mark's hips, sits on his thighs.
Mark is hard.
He's wearing sweatpants and Eduardo can see the bulge, the line of his cock, obvious under the fabric, and it makes his stomach drop dizzily.
He really wants to pull his sweatpants down, lean down and lick a shaky line up Mark's cock, bury his face in Mark's crotch. Eduardo bets he has curls, down there.
He really, really wants to but Mark looks unsure, nervous, licking his lips, and Eduardo remembers- he's never even kissed another guy before.
And even though it is really really tempting.
Like so tempting.
He really shouldn't.
"I should go home," he says."Your parents will be back from Jersey, soon."
Mark looks- a mix of things, a bit frustrated, maybe relieved, but like he'd never admit it.
"Yeah, maybe," he says, and Eduardo has to lean down and kiss him again, suck that heavy bottom lip into his mouth.
He pulls away eventually and Mark is panting shallowly, eyelashes fanned out in long shadows on his cheeks and Eduardo is so goddamn attracted to him.
Mark opens his eyes and smiles at him, a wry, nervous half-grin, and Eduardo stands up with difficulty.
"Can we- I'll text you tomorrow," he says. Mark nods, sitting up, and he's still so obviously hard. He pulls a pillow over his lap, and Eduardo laughs giddily in his throat.
"Sorry about that," he says, motioning at him, voice choky with laughter, and Mark kicks his ankle.
"Leave so I can jerk off," he says, and goes bright red at his own audacity, and Eduardo shudders at that image- Mark with his legs open, lip caught between his teeth, thrusting frantically into his own hand.
"You're so- Jesus, Mark," he says appreciatively. Mark looks down and then up at him, eyes still wide.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Eduardo says determinedly, and walks the five blocks home grinning into the collar of his sweatshirt.
He lets himself in. The house is quiet, his father asleep.
He curls up on the couch, turns the TV on mute, and texts Christy.
hi baby girl
HAYYY. did u just get some?
kind of?
DETAILS NOW. can i call?
my dad's sleeping
ok. what happened
we kissed . for an hour
!!!!!! AHHH. i still cant believe he's going to harvard. TRUE LOVEEE
:)
im so jealous. everyone is boring here. adam hookedup w/ alyce at that party last week
adam's an idiot and u r a babe.
o i kno. ;) ok go to sleep lucky bitch. I CANT WAIT TO MEET HIM IN AUGUST
buenas noches baby
His lips actually kind of hurt, and he touches them with one hand, grins. It's been a while since he kissed someone for that long.
Oh fuck he kissed Mark.
He puts his hands over his face and grins wetly, hugely into his palms.
He has no idea how the rest of the summer is about to go, but if he gets to kiss Mark, like, a lot more times, it'll be fine.
----
It actually takes Erica a week to find out. Which is weird, because she's usually pretty on top of stuff.
They're sitting in Erica's basement and they just finished watching a movie and Eduardo pulls a plastic bag out of his pocket.
"Is that weed?" Erica asks, peering at it.
"Yeah, is that cool? Dustin gave it to me at that thing a couple days ago," Eduardo says. Mark looks up.
Erica shrugs. "I don't smoke, but whatever. Do it outside, though."
"Totally," Eduardo says, and Mark shifts on the couch, uncomfortably. Eduardo nudges him with one shoulder.
"You want?" he says. Mark shrugs, shoulders hunched.
"Do it, Marky. Then describe it to me so I can get my vicarious kicks," Erica says, and pops in another DVD.
"You don't have to," Eduardo says. "I'm not like, a pothead. I'll just save it, if you don't-"
"No, I want to," Mark says, setting his jaw.
---
Outside, in the glow of Erica's porch light, Eduardo rolls a joint.
"Have you smoked before?" he says, and Mark shakes his head.
"Just- here, I'll show you," Eduardo says, and takes a long drag. He holds it in, feeling that prickly warm burn, and blows it out.
Mark exhales open-mouthed, watching his cheeks hollow. Eduardo grins after, and hands him the joint.
"Just- breathe it in and keep it in," he says. "But not too hard, you'll choke."
"I'm not an idiot, Wardo," Mark says, and sucks on the joint.
Fuck, he looks obscene when he does that. His pink mouth curling around the wet paper, bones of his cheekbones thrown into sharp relief. Eduardo stares at him, fascinated.
He coughs and Eduardo snaps out of it.
"You okay?"
"I'm- fine-" Mark says between coughs and blinks suddenly, heavy-lidded, several times. Eduardo grins. He's gonna feel it soon.
"Here," he says, and Mark yanks it away from him, takes another drag, holds it in for longer this time.
"You're fine," Eduardo says, and takes it delicately out of Mark's hand.
"Smells like shit," Mark says, and grins suddenly. Eduardo laughs out a mouthful of smoke.
"Yeah," he says. "But it's so fucking good, right?"
Mark nods and they pass the joint back and forth for a couple of minutes until, yeah, Eduardo's really damn high. His skin is thrumming pleasantly.
Mark is leaning against the white stucco wall of Erica's porch, grinning at his feet.
Eduardo pinches the joint out with his fingers, puts it back in the bag, and takes Mark's hand.
Mark lets him.
"Inside?" he says, and Mark nods slowly, lets Eduardo pull him back into the basement.
Erica's asleep, or pretending to be, on the floor, head pillowed face-down on her arms.
So Eduardo sits down on the couch and pulls Mark on top of him and lets Mark sit like that, get to know what that feels like.
Mark likes it a lot, Eduardo can tell.
Mark is so tactile when he's high. He keeps murmuring against Eduardo's neck, his lips, hands running restlessly over his hips and the tops of his thighs and skittering across his belly, making Eduardo's stomach jump.
He kisses different, slower, more open-mouthed and sensual and uninhibited.
He's not embarrassed.
Eduardo groans into his mouth and Mark moves his hips in a circle against Eduardo's, still perched on his lap with his knees tight on either side of Eduardo's legs.
Eduardo's hands slip dizzily from Mark's back to his ass, cups it, and Mark presses down against him with a shuddery little moan, a sound he'd never make sober.
Oh God, he likes that.
Eduardo keeps his hands there and kisses him again, and Mark's tongue is heavy in his mouth, and he hears shifting from behind Mark and he peers past his shoulder and sees Erica, bleary-eyed, lifting her head from her arms.
"Fuck," he says, laughing giddily, keeping Mark away with an arm, and Mark rolls off of him, lays his head on Eduardo's thigh, nuzzles his nose into his leg.
"Okay," Erica says, nodding appraisingly, waking up fully. "Is this, uh- just, uh, a we're so high and whoa let's just make out thing? Or like, a real thing?"
Mark crinkles his face up, turns away from her. Eduardo looks down at him, biting his lip to keep from laughing.
"It's like," he starts, and gestures expansively with his hands. "We're all things. Erica. And Mark is a thing, and I am a thing."
"Oh God," Erica says. "Never mind, Mark, I don't think I need a vicarious experience of this."
Eduardo snorts and buries a hand in Mark's curls. Mark looks up at him, licks his lips slowly like Erica's not even there.
Eduardo grins at him and moves his hand from Mark's hair to his chest, spreads his palm over Mark's nipple. Mark makes a determined little sound and moves up into Eduardo's hand.
"Okay!" Erica says, and Eduardo looks dazedly up at her.
"I love you and I support you," she says. "But I am also still in the room."
She looks the slightest bit flushed.
Which Eduardo would totally analyze if he were not so fucking high.
He just nods.
"Mark," he says in a loud whisper. Mark doesn't move. "Let's go back to mine."
"Dad," Mark says.
"What time is it, Erica?" Eduardo asks innocently.
"Twelve fifteen."
"Oh fuck, babe, you're right," Eduardo says, and Mark laughs in his throat.
Erica is staring at Mark like she's never seen him before.
"Stop looking at me," Mark says without looking up. "Erica."
Erica rolls her eyes, like they're back on familiar ground. Except Mark's head is still nuzzled into Eduardo's thigh.
Eduardo is the variable. Mark and Erica are the constant. Eduardo is the experimental element.
Oh fuck he's high.
"I'll just go home," he says decisively, all proud of himself for making a good decision, and Mark makes a little noise of protest, and shoves himself up by the palms till he's sitting next to Eduardo.
"I'll text tomorrow," he says.
"I wasn't kicking you out," Erica says, and she looks embarrassed.
"I know, I know," Eduardo says, nodding emphatically at her. "I should just totally go home anyway."
"You smell like weed," Mark says, sniffing his shoulder.
"My dad would flip the fuck out if he smelled it," Eduardo says.
"Just chill here for a while more," Erica says, because she's an unnaturally fervent supporter of a healthy Eduardo/Eduardo's dad relationship.
Mark nods, and grins, and puts his mouth against Eduardo's neck, right below his ear. Eduardo slings an arm around his shoulder.
"Okay," he says. Mark's practically in his lap. God, he must be really high.
"This is weird, but I really, really approve," Erica says, pushing herself off the floor, and collapsing in an armchair.
"I don't care," Mark says pettily into Eduardo's skin. Eduardo shoots Erica a secret sweet grin over Mark's head and she gives him a small smile, nods approvingly.
Eduardo is high but he is normal enough to realize the magnitude of this, of Erica finding out. Whether it's because it's him or it's Mark being gay-ish or whatever. He holds her gaze for a second longer and tries to say it in his head, thank you, and Erica nods again.
PART TWO
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: from the tsn_kinkmeme AU prompt here about 'summer lovin'', or, basically, eduardo moves to new york for the summer after his senior year of high school to stay with his estranged father and meets mark. sexytimes ensue.
title is from matt and kim's "where you're coming from"
Eduardo carefully chooses the time to break the news, and decides on after dinner, when he's finished loading the dishwasher and the Florida air is humid with the early June sunset, crickets chirping furiously.
He puts the last plate in, pours in detergent, and says, "Guys? Can you- uh, come in here for a second?"
It goes about how he expected.
"Are you sure?" Jane asks, eyes wide.
"Of course he's not sure," Anne bursts in. "Eduardo, baby, it's your last summer home-"
"Mom. Please. I want- I really, really want to meet him," Eduardo says, and Jane puts an arm around his shoulder.
"Well, we'll just- we'll fly up there and meet him, then-"
"Annie, come on. He wants to get to know Ricardo. He deserves to."
"Three months at home," Anne says, pacing, a muscle in her jaw working. Eduardo knows she hates Ricardo.
"His last three months! What about Christy? She'll miss you-"
"Mom," Eduardo says, untangling himself from Jane and putting his arms around Anne. She rolls her eyes, but hugs him. "Please. I need to do this."
"Seen too many movies," Anne says into his hair. "That say you need to go on some stupid pilgrimage to discover yourself-"
Eduardo scoffs and grins. "I've discovered myself just fine so far," he says, and she smiles, he can feel the shape of it against his scalp.
"C'mon, hon," Jane says. "Eduardo'll be fine. Listen, we'll visit him in July or August, would that be good, Eduardo? And we'll help him move in-"
Anne sighs heavily.
"Just worry about you," she says, and Eduardo pulls away and hops onto the kitchen counter. Jane puts a hand on his knee, smiles at him.
"But- and I mean it, duardito, if anything happens, you call and we'll bring you home, right away, okay?"
"Of course," Jane says.
"I know," Eduardo says, and grins beseechingly, "So- I can go?"
"Yes," Anne says.
"Oh, it's going to be so nice-" Jane starts, clapping her hands, and Eduardo cuts in-
"- to not have me home? Thanks, madre."
"Oh, you know what I mean. I'm sure Ricardo'll be delighted-"
"-if he's ever home," Anne mutters.
"Oh, stop."
"He works a lot?" Eduardo asks, reaching backwards over the counter and grabbing a half empty bag of chocolate chips.
Anne snorts, rolling her eyes, and holds out her hand. Eduardo pours chocolate into her palm.
"Well, he's busy," Jane says diplomatically. "But I'm sure he'll be able to take some time off, from that office job of his-"
Eduardo nods around a mouthful of chocolate, consideringly.
"If he doesn't, I'll call," Anne says, and Eduardo laughs.
"Terrifying," he says, mouth full, and she shoves his knee.
"I already booked a flight," he says once he's swallowed, and Jane laughs.
"We could have easily said no," she says, and he hops down from the counter, pulls on a St. John's sweatshirt because there's still a chill at night, a mild breeze.
"Not possible," he says. She swats at him, and he dodges, laughing.
"Hey, duardo," she says quietly, and drags him into a hug.
"You graduate next week," she says, and grins. She's been saying that for the last month, pulling him aside at random times- you graduate in a month. you graduate in three weeks. you're graduating, eduardo, you.
"I'm aware," he says, like he always does, and she whispers in his ear, "And you're going to Harvard!"
"No!" he says, feigning surprise, though he's known since December. She just smiles and pulls away, turns on the kettle.
---
A week and three days later he is on a plane by himself to New York.
He is scared, and Christy texted him earlier-
baaaby your dad's going to love you. don't find a new best friend or i'll kill you.
He'd responded-
im kind of freaked out this summer is about to suck. miss you already
He sits back in the seat, hands on his thighs, staring out the window at familiar Miami.
He doesn't need his dad to like him, he keeps telling himself. It's just- just curiosity. He doesn't need anything from him.
His stomach hurts though, vaguely, in a worried way.
He really wants his father to like him.
Fuck.
---
It's not some grand moment, some moment of awakening, when he meets his dad.
Not that he expected it to be, or whatever.
But. There's a car waiting at the La Guardia, with Eduardo L. Saverin typed on a card held by an unfamiliar man in a fucking suit, and he carefully hoists his luggage into the trunk and gets into the back.
His phone buzzes once he's inside, and it's a number he doesn't recognize.
"Hello?"
"Eduardo?"
The voice is clipped, female, business-like but kind.
"Yeah, who- who is this?"
"Hello, Eduardo, I'm Lena, Ricardo Saverin's assistant. Mr. Saverin is deeply sorry he couldn't meet you at the airport, and he is looking forward to meeting you tonight."
"Tonight?"
"Mr. Saverin will be home around nine PM. In the meantime, please feel free to unpack. Your room is up the stairs and to the left. There is food in the refrigerator. Will you be needing anything else?"
"I- I guess not," Eduardo says slowly, a little freaked out.
"We're all looking forward to meeting you," she says, and her voice warms a little. "I'm sure Ricardo will want you to come by the office at some point."
"Okay," Eduardo says. "Um. Thanks."
---
No one comes home until eleven. Eduardo throws his suitcase onto the massive bed, eats the pre-packaged food in the fridge, and ends up on the couch, flipping idly through the channels, his ears attuned to any tiny noise or movement from outside.
He's thinking about calling back the number on his cell phone to see if Ricardo got in a car crash or was abducted or something when the door opens. He fumbles for the remote, flips off the TV, and stands up.
His father comes in, keys in one hand, suitcase in the other, and Eduardo fidgets, says finally, "Um, hi," and Ricardo jerks upward, nearly drops his things.
"Jesus," he says roughly, voice deep, and Eduardo goes hot all over. His stomach is flipping.
"Hi," he says again, and Ricardo flicks the kitchen light on.
"I thought you'd be asleep," he says. Eduardo shakes his head.
"I don't sleep till twelve, usually," he says inanely, and his father nods, clears his throat, steps closer to him.
"Ricardo Saverin," he says, and holds out his hand. Eduardo takes it.
"Eduardo," he says, and his father steps back. In the weak light of the kitchen he looks shadowed, strong-jawed. He's thin like Eduardo but more muscled, broader shoulders. His hair is graying.
"I hope everything was- was satisfactory," Ricardo says gruffly, and Eduardo nods quickly.
"Yeah, it's great," he says, and laughs nervously, then clamps his mouth shut.
"I have to do some work before I sleep," he says, and nods at him, goes upstairs.
Eduardo leans against the counter, chest tight, takes a couple deep breaths. Okay. Okay, he can totally do this.
---
That's kind of how it goes.
The next day his father stands awkwardly in the threshold of his room, raises an eyebrow at Eduardo's meticulously packed, color-coded suitcase, and Eduardo goes red and flips the top over it.
"Good morning," he says. "I have work in a half hour."
"Okay," Eduardo says, tongue-tied like he is with people he doesn't know well, and his father nods once and leaves.
He comes home at ten, that night. Eduardo knows he works in the city, in some kind of law. He's not sure.
But it goes like that, for a week, and Eduardo is really fucking bored. He knows practically every channel, even though his dad gets the weird ones in the 700s like the Sundance Channel and ESPN 8.
He doesn't know what to do.
---
He calls his madre, because she always knows what to do.
"Hey, sweetie," Jane says over the line. "How's it going?"
"Alright," Eduardo lies. "We, uh. He's-"
"What's he doing?" Anne cuts in on the other line, already angry.
"Nothing!" Eduardo says, curling his knees up to his chest on the bed. "I just didn't know he worked so much. I mean, it's fine."
"He was supposed to take some time off and take care of you," Anne hisses, and Jane says, "Oh, come on. He's living by himself, he needs to work. Have you seen how much this boy eats?"
"Thanks," Eduardo says dryly. "I'm actually still here, mom."
"That's no excuse," Anne says. "Eduardo hasn't seen him in eighteen years. He's supposed to be- be a little more attentive, don't you think-"
"- it's hard for him, you know that-"
"Can you please stop fighting?" Eduardo says, and puts his face in his knees. "I want at least one functional parent relationship."
"Such a drama queen," Anne says. Eduardo makes a vague noise of protest, but grins.
"Speaking of that, have you - uh,"
"No. I don't think I- I don't know. I just don't think he needs to know."
He doesn't tell them about what his father has said, how he muttered something rude when Eduardo mentioned Anne in a conversation the other night, something that sounded suspiciously like dyke.
If that's what his dad said about his mom's partner, he has no idea what he'd say if he knew about Eduardo.
He doesn't say that. He's not sure why. Probably because Anne would make him come home right away, and he's not. He's not ready to go home.
He can be straight for a summer. It's not a big deal. He was straight for like, all of eighth grade, and he even kissed Melissa Juarez at the spring junior high dance. He can do this.
"Fucker," Anne says.
"Oh, Annie. Relax. Whatever you think, Eduardito. But I'm sure he loves you."
Eduardo huffs out a laugh.
"If you really, really want to come home, you can," Anne says.
"Annie, we agreed he'd make an effort-"
"I don't need to come home," Eduardo says. "It's not that bad."
"Call if you need to."
"Try going out, doing something. Don't mope around all day."
"Thanks, madre," Eduardo says, rolling his eyes. "I- I miss you guys."
"We miss you too, hon," Anne says, voice worried and fond.
"Love you," Jane says. "It's going to get better."
Eduardo closes his eyes, nods.
"Okay," he says weakly. "Love you."
He hangs up and leans his head against the window, sighs.
--
The next day he walks a couple blocks to the local Starbucks, plugs in his new MacBook and instant messages Christy for three hours. She's just as bored as him.
He does it again two days later, brings a book and curls up in a window seat, then again the next day, and it only takes a week before he notices the kid.
The kid is in that Starbucks every fucking day. Like Eduardo.
Eduardo is trying not to be intrigued, because he's only here for a summer and he's supposed to be straight-ish so his dad won't flip the fuck out, and the boy's probably straight anyway.
Also, he seems kind of like an asshole. He's always typing on his laptop and when one of the dreadlocked baristas asked him to move because he hadn't bought anything in four hours, he'd frowned and waved him away silently.
The next week they finally kick him out, and he grabs his laptop under one arm and blinks around at the store.
It's pretty full. Eduardo's got his legs kicked out on the other chair of his table, and when the kid looks around for a seat he scrambles out of the chair and nearly falls.
"Hey!" he says, too loud, and the kid doesn't look.
"Hey," he says again. "I - uh, you can sit here. If you want."
The boy furrows his brow and walks over to him.
"I mean, I saw you got kicked out. Again," Eduardo stammers, and grins.
The boy nods decisively. "You're leaving?" he says in a flat voice.
Shit.
"Um, yeah, I can," Eduardo says, going red, stomach sinking, grabbing his backpack.
"You weren't going to leave," the kid says.
"No! No, it's fine."
"Okay," he says, and sits down.
After a minute Eduardo sits down too, cautiously.
The kid plugs his laptop in and starts typing.
Eduardo looks at him for a second, then back down at his book, smiling to himself.
---
"Freakonomics," the kid says, five minutes later, and Eduardo looks up.
"What?"
"That's what you're reading."
Eduardo looks down, and back up. "Yeah," he says, and raises his eyebrows questioningly.
The boy goes slightly pink, right along his cheekbones.
"A lot of their findings are flawed," he says stiffly, and Eduardo grins.
"I mean, I think it's a shaky model to base economic research on," the kid says. "If you look at the sample size on a lot of their studies. Uh."
"Yeah, but don't you think it serves a greater purpose, you know, both in terms of increasing interest in economics, and bringing a lot of new ideas out to be discussed?"
"Why increase interest in economics?" the boy says sourly. "We'll have every half-educated dumbass running around saying they know how the market's going to move."
Eduardo laughs. The boy looks surprised, then half-smiles for a second.
"You're an elitist," Eduardo says.
"I prefer Hamiltonian theorist," Mark says, and Eduardo laughs again.
"I'm Eduardo," he says, and ducks his head. "I mean. Yeah. I'm Eduardo."
"Mark," the kid says.
Eduardo nods.
"You live, uh, around here?"
"Yeah," Mark says. "A few minutes."
"Cool, cool. I'm - uh, I'm from Florida. But. I'm staying with my dad this summer, and he lives here, so, yeah."
Mark looks away from him and Eduardo goes bright red. Usually he is tongue-tied. Why can he not be tongue-tied right now? Goddamnit.
"Um, yeah, my dad is- I haven't seen him in eighteen years. I mean, I hadn't, obviously, now I have."
Mark nods.
Eduardo needs to shut up now.
"Sorry," he says, coughing, looking away. Mark's mouth twitches at the edges.
"I'm just like- really fucking bored," Eduardo says.
Mark nods slightly. "Yeah," he says. "And I sit in this Starbucks all day for my health."
Eduardo snorts.
"I'm, uh. Coming up to the East Coast for good next year, though. For college."
"Me too," Mark says. "Harvard."
"Me too!" Eduardo says, and grins hugely. Mark smiles, a little bit.
"That's so weird. Small world, right?" Eduardo says, and Mark shrugs, starts typing again.
"So, you're like- always on your computer," Eduardo says after a minute of silence, and then backtracks, stuttering- "I mean, I've only seen you once or twice or whatever but just you've been typing for a while, right, I mean-"
"Yeah," Mark cuts him off, taking his fingers off the keys. "I'm a CS major, probably. I write websites."
Eduardo nods. "That's so cool," he says enthusiastically, though he has close to no idea what that means, really.
Mark looks up at him, like he knows Eduardo has no clue what he's talking about.
"It's fun," he says. Eduardo nods eagerly. He has a feeling Mark throws very few conversational 'bones', so to speak.
It's just nice to talk to someone.
Even if the someone seems a little bit like he'd rather converse with a robot than Eduardo.
Mark doesn't say anything else, though, and Eduardo eventually settles back in his seat, keeps reading.
The cheesy indie-folk music switches to an actual good song, and Eduardo lets himself relax, soothed by the music and the cadence of Mark's typing and the filtered, soft sunlight.
It's better than watching MTV Cuatro all day, anyway.
--
After an hour of peaceful silence, Mark's phone buzzes on the table.
He picks it up and puts it back down, face reddening. Eduardo looks up.
"You going to answer that?" he says, and Mark looks at him jerkily and picks up the phone.
"Hey," he says quietly, and there's a loud blast of girlish noise.
"Yeah. I'm- are you on meth or something? I'm at Starbucks."
More talking, more listening, and Eduardo is pretty obviously eavesdropping now.
"No!" Mark says suddenly. "I'll just-"
He pauses, and rolls his eyes. "Thanks. No, you don't- damnit- okay. But I'm leaving soon. Yes, I have other things to do in my life."
He listens for a second, then hangs up and shoots a quick look at Eduardo before staring back down at his computer.
Eduardo shrugs inwardly.
Ten minutes later Mark looks up over Eduardo's shoulder, jaw setting in a grimace, and Eduardo turns around and sees a girl in denim shorts, waving excitedly.
"Hey, asshole," she says as she somehow manages to simultaneously throw down her purse, extract a chair from under a man's briefcase, and sit down in one smooth movement.
"Such a good friend," Mark mumbles.
"Mark, what have we said about normal human interaction?" she says, rolling her eyes. "Who's your friend?"
"He's not my- I mean. He just-"
"Eduardo," Eduardo cuts in, and the girl holds out a hand, grinning wide and friendly.
"Erica," she says. "Mark's neighbor. And put-upon best friend."
"Debatable," Mark says quietly, and half-grins at her.
"So, Eduardo, what's your deal? Why are you hanging around with Robocop here?"
"You think that's a hilarious joke, and it's really, really not," Mark says, still typing, cheeks flushed.
"Robocop," Eduardo repeats quietly, and laughs. Erica is punching Mark in the shoulder repeatedly, chanting what sounds like binary. Mark is steadfastly ignoring her.
"Um," Eduardo says, interrupting her 0 1 0 0 1. "I was just sitting here. Before, uh, he did."
"Mark, did you make a friend all by yourself? Without even consulting me?" Erica asks, mock-outraged.
"Your wit astounds me," Mark mutters. Erica nods.
Eduardo laughs. "So, are you going to Harvard too?" he asks, and Mark snorts.
"No I am not, Mark's new friend."
"She wishes," Mark says, and Erica punches him again.
"So I do not wish. I didn't even apply, assface. I'm going to BU. Not that it matters. Little secret-" she says, pointing at Eduardo. "I'm actually eight thousand times smarter than Mark, I just don't know how to write fucking perl script or whatever."
"Art history," Mark says, and she sticks out her tongue, sits back in her chair. Eduardo feels a little like he's watching some kind of ping-pong game.
"I'm proud of my major, Mark. At least it doesn't involve Red Bull and carpal tunnel."
"Monet had carpal tunnel," Mark says, looking up, with a straight face. He glances at Eduardo and Eduardo goes hot, smiles reasonlessly. Mark looks away.
"So full of shit," Erica says. "I'm getting a Frappucino."
She stands up and storms off to the counter. She's tall, thin, full of energy. Eduardo watches her leave and looks back at the table just to see Mark look down at his computer again, mouth curled into a frown.
"She's cool," Eduardo says, and Mark doesn't look up.
"She's just my neighbor," Mark says, and starts typing furiously.
Eduardo looks down, grins.
"So," Erica says, slamming down in the chair, drawing out the word. "Eduardo of the mysterious exotic name, you have to come to this party tonight."
"Erica," Mark says, in a tight little voice, and she leans closer to Eduardo. She smells sweet, like sunscreen and flowery perfume.
"You're coming," she whispers, nodding authoritatively, and Eduardo nods back, un-bored for the first time in a week.
She pats him on the arm and pulls away.
"Oh, you're coming too, Mark," she says. "I need a wingman."
Mark makes a little noise of disgust in his throat.
"Joking, he's the worst wingman of all time. He told this guy about my retainer one time."
"Dental health is important," Mark says, eyes and mouth shifting into something resembling a smile, private and small.
Eduardo laughs again, says, "It really is," and Mark looks up at him, still with that smile.
Eduardo holds his eyes for as long as he dares.
---
Erica makes them all exchange phone numbers, and Eduardo goes back to his father's house alone, promising Erica he'll come to her house an hour before the party.
He bums around the house for a few hours until seven, and Mapquests Erica's house. She (and, Eduardo's assuming, Mark) only live a couple blocks from Eduardo.
He knocks on the door, rings the doorbell when no one answers, and is about to call Erica when the door opens and a tall, friendly-looking woman with an oven mitt on one hand stands in front of him.
"Hi!" she says brightly. "How can I help you?"
"Uh," Eduardo says. "Sorry, Erica told me to-"
"Oh, you know, she's upstairs with Mark. Why don't you just run up there? I'm Jane, Erica's mother, and you are?"
"Eduardo," Eduardo says, shaking her non-oven-mitted hand. "My mom's name is Jane too, actually."
Jane laughs brightly. She seems relentlessly cheerful. "How nice!" she says. "Erica's room is first on the left."
Eduardo nods, and Jane waves him up the stairs, bends over to pull something out of the oven.
Erica's door is closed, but Eduardo knows it's her room. There's a cutesy little sign, block letters spelling out her name, something she's obviously had since she was little. Underneath, there's a hand-scrawled sign on notebook paper- I swear to God Ethan if you come into my room one more time I'm going to rip your face off. SERIOUSLY.
Eduardo grins, and is about to knock when he hears Mark's short reedy laugh from inside. He holds his breath automatically. They're not- like, hooking up? Eduardo's pretty sure they're not, but they could be one of those sneaky best-friend couples who don't talk about it because it's just inevitable that they'll get married and have 2.4 children and live in suburbia.
He listens. Just a little.
"He's cute," Erica's saying, and Mark doesn't say anything. Eduardo bites his lip to keep from making any noise.
"Looks kind of like Bambi," Erica says. "Hot little deer-baby." She giggles.
"You're into bestiality, now?" Mark says, voice flat, and Erica snorts at the same time Eduardo does, silently, outside the door.
"Fuck off," she says. "You know what I mean. I wonder if he has a significant other back home in Miami."
Eduardo's eyes go wide. Okay, he was assuming from the Bambi thing, he may or may not have heard that before, but this is just awkward.
"Probably," Mark says, and Eduardo can't find any trace of any kind of emotion in his voice. He pulls away from the door, worries his lip between his teeth, and knocks carefully.
"Come in!" Erica calls, and Eduardo pushes the door open. Mark's cheeks are red; he's looking down at the ground, sitting in one of those scoop-chairs that's shaped like a bird's nest. Erica's lying on the floor with her feet up on her bed.
"Hey, Eduardo," she says. "My mom let you in?"
Eduardo nods.
"Good ol' Jane," Mark says quietly.
"That's my mom's name too," Eduardo says, and goes pink because who gives a shit, really?
"So," Erica says, flipping herself upright and shaking her hair out of her face. "Want to help me pick out an outfit?"
Mark groans. Eduardo shrugs in assent.
--
An hour later, they're at some kid Chris' house. Erica had driven them, in her mom's Toyota Highlander. There's a handle of spiced rum between Eduardo's legs in the backseat, and Mark was talked out of the t-shirt he had apparently been wearing for three days into one of Erica's brother's long-sleeved, at least mildly clean shirts.
They park in the street outside Chris' house and Mark opens the backseat door, and there's an awkward moment where he tries to reach past Eduardo to grab the handle and Eduardo tries to get out and they nearly collide and Mark backs away, muttering an apology.
Eduardo nods, hands him the bottle, and Erica bounces around to their side of the car and pulls them inside.
Mark's friends are pretty cool. Chris is nice, though they only meet briefly because someone breaks something and Chris' face goes white and he rushes away. Dustin's kind of an idiot, in a lovable way. He claps Eduardo drunkenly on the shoulder and says, "What's up, bro? You're Mark's friend? Good luck, man."
"Thanks," Eduardo says, laughing, and Mark shoves Dustin.
"Sorry," he says to Eduardo as they sit down on the couch, drinks in hand. "My friends are stupid."
"I like them," Eduardo says, grinning because Mark cares what Eduardo thinks of his friends.
Oh God they met six hours ago.
Mark nods, and says, "So, Florida."
"Yeah," Eduardo says.
"I hate Florida," Mark says. Eduardo snorts, taking a sip of his too-strong rum and coke.
"Thanks," he says wryly. "May I ask why?"
"The insects. The crime. Miami. The weather."
"The weather? You have a personal vendetta against sunlight?"
"Humidity," Mark says, and Eduardo laughs again. Actually, from the sight of Mark's pale skinny arm, he might actually have that vendetta.
"Well, I hope we can still be friends," Eduardo says, mock-sadly, patting Mark's leg. Mark stiffens and looks away.
There's an uncomfortable silence, inadequately filled by an extremely loud Nelly song.
Eduardo is about to say something inane when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out. Anne is calling. He sighs.
Mark looks down at the screen.
"Anne," he reads quietly, almost to himself, and Eduardo looks up.
"It's my mom," he says. "I probably shouldn't answer, right? I'm, like, kind of tipsy, plus we're having such scintillating conversation."
Mark mumbles something.
"What?"
"I thought your mom's name was Jane," he says, and Eduardo exhales. Okay. That came faster than he thought.
"Yeah," he says, and is about to explain when Dustin flops on the couch between them, puts his head on Mark's shoulder.
"I'm tired," he whines."Can you ask Erica to take me home?"
"Ask her yourself."
"I'm scared of her, Mark. She slapped me on graduation night."
Eduardo laughs, and Dustin turns to him.
"How about you ask her, new friend? Use the Bambi eyes. Did you know you have Bambi eyes?"
"I did not know that," Eduardo says, and Dustin nods authoritatively. Mark is flushed again.
"Doesn't he, Marky? Doesn't he have baby-deer eyes?"
"Shut up, Dustin," Mark says tightly. Eduardo bats his eyelashes and Dustin squeals, touches his cheek with one finger. Eduardo laughs.
"Maybe we should all go," Mark says. "Dustin, get the fuck off me and I'll get Erica."
"Erica!" Dustin calls happily, and falls against Eduardo as Mark stands up. His breath smells like OJ and vodka.
"I know Mark seems like an asshole," he says very seriously. "He kind of is. But he's also... not. He is a mystery. An enigma."
"Thanks," Eduardo says, holding Dustin off him with one hand.
"And Erica is awesome. And hot. But she hates me. Which is so sad." He pouts.
"And Chris is really cool too. He's like, gay. Which is so cool."
Eduardo laughs. "Thanks for the intro," he says. "Um, are- Mark and Erica, like, you know-"
"Together?" Dustin says in an exaggerated whisper. "No no no. That's. Ew. Mark is like a robot. He probably gets a hard-on for his laptop."
And then Eduardo is picturing Mark turned on and hard and oh fuck it's really counterproductive. He shakes his head to clear it, and Erica and Mark appear in front of them. Erica rolls her eyes at Dustin.
"Let's go, idiot," she says. Dustin nods adoringly.
Erica drops Eduardo off at his house, and Eduardo unlocks the door carefully. It's a little after one.
His father is sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of amber liquid and flipping through a stack of papers.
"Hey," Eduardo says cautiously.
"Hello," his father says.
"Sorry I didn't, uh, tell you where I was, if you were-"
"You're eighteen, I assume you can take care of yourself," his father says, voice blank, frowning slightly. Eduardo nods.
"Well, I'm just gonna-" He motions up the stairs. His father nods dismissively.
Eduardo flops down on his bed and grins. This might not be that bad.
---
The next day Erica texts him- hi eduardo! movie night at mark's house if you're up for it! 8pm BRING FOOD. and its 134 west place, across from mine.
Eduardo raids the cupboards of his house. There's not much. Eduardo has no idea what his dad eats.
He ends up with a couple paltry handfuls of pretzel bags and an old bottle of Coke he found in the back of the fridge. It doesn't matter anyway, because Erica's mom made three pans of cookies and forced them onto Erica and within half an hour Eduardo's stuffed himself with, like, eight of them because they're ridiculously delicious.
It's just him and Mark and Erica, and they decide (after a ten minute long argument) to watch The Matrix. Mark gets up to put the DVD in and considers the couch and the chair for a second, deciding where to sit.
After a minute he plops down next to Eduardo on the couch. Eduardo has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling like an idiot.
He can't focus, really, he's too hyperaware of Mark next to him, this weird, sort of assholeish, insanely smart kid who is so fucking interesting it's making Eduardo a little crazy.
Erica curls up in the armchair opposite them with a homemade fleece tie-blanket and commandeers one of the pretzel bags to herself.
Mark is warm.
Which is a stupid thought to have. But even when Mark is very carefully not touching him (or not careful because Eduardo is sure he doesn't care why would he care) Eduardo can feel it.
During one scene he looks over at Mark's profile, discreetly. Studies the jut of his jaw, his lips, the way his sweatshirt is yanked down to reveal a slice of collarbone.
He coughs and looks away, shoves another cookie into his mouth.
"So, Eduardo," Erica says once the movie is over. There's one light on, in the other side of Mark's basement, and it's dim and warm. Eduardo looks at her, head back against the couch.
"What's, uh- what's the deal with your dad?" Erica asks, putting her chin on her hands and beaming at him.
"You're so nosy," Mark says, and Erica huffs with indignation.
"It's not a big deal!" she says. "I mean, if you don't want to talk about, it's cool-"
"No, it's fine," Eduardo says. Mark is very still, next to him.
"Just, um. So, I have two moms. And Ricardo- my mom and Ricardo were married and then they got divorced and he moved up East and my mom met my, uh, my other mom, and I didn't really, you know, care about my father, but then this summer I really- I really wanted to meet him."
He stops, licks his lips, puts his hands on his knees. Mark is looking at him, cautiously, out of the side of his eyes.
"Wow!" Erica says. "What made you want to meet him now?"
She doesn't say anything about the little lesbian bombshell Eduardo just dropped, and he's kind of grateful.
"I don't know, I just-" Eduardo shrugs with his palms up. "That's something we should all do, right? Know our dads? Not that it matters, we've barely even talked." His voice approaches bitterness so he stops talking, because it's fine.
"He just works a lot," Eduardo says, a little defensively, which is weird because Erica didn't even say anything.
"Oh," Erica says.
"It's not a big deal. It's been pretty good so far."
Erica nods, and Mark says, "I'm gonna grab some- um, water."
---
And, well, that's kind of how it goes.
Erica and Mark are basically bored as fuck. As is Eduardo. They're all just killing time until college, and Eduardo doesn't know them too well yet, but he bets Mark and Erica are going to be in each other's dorms every other weekend anyway, so it's not even sad, or like anything is ending.
It's just a lot of boredom.
And a lot of movies. And driving with them to pick up Erica's little brother at camp, or to get Taco Bell, or just to drive until Erica's mom needs the car back.
Eduardo likes them a lot. And he's pretty sure it's not just, oh I have no one else to hang out with like. Mark and Erica are really cool. Eduardo is glad he has them as friends.
He is trying to force himself to think of Mark that way, as a friend. Because he is not going to fuck up the entire summer by doing something stupid with Mark. Mark probably doesn't want him anyway.
They are friends, really. They meet at Starbucks when Erica has lifeguarding and Mark actually closes his laptop sometimes, and they sit and talk about random shit like Harvard and Florida and irrational hatred of innocent states and the obvious inferiority of the South and Mark can be infuriating, stubborn and misanthropic and withdrawn, but he's also hilarious. And hot, in a sneaky way. With his mouth. His fucking mouth, and his stupid cheekbones and his stupid curly hair Eduardo wants to put his hands in.
Eduardo is trying really, really, hard to think of Mark as a friend.
Three weeks later, Erica's at some BU New York people meet-up thing in the city, and Mark comes over to Eduardo's because his dad has been coming home later and later and Eduardo doesn't care what he thinks anyway.
"When's your dad getting home?" Mark asks, chewing on the end of a Red Vine and kicking his bare feet up onto the ottoman.
"Eh," Eduardo shrugs. "Probably late. I think he might be banging his secretary."
"How tawdry," Mark says, mouth tugging up into a grin.
Eduardo snorts.
"You wanna watch a movie?" Eduardo says, sitting down in front of his dad's DVD collection.
"Sure," Mark says absentmindedly, typing.
"Put your stupid computer away," Eduardo says, flopping back down on the couch, closer to Mark, and pushing at the laptop. Mark makes a noise of protest, still staring at the screen, and Eduardo starts to close the top of it.
"Hey," Mark says, and shuts the computer himself, rolls his eyes at Eduardo.
Eduardo nudges him with his shoulder. Mark returns it, and leaves it there, warmth sinking into Eduardo's arm.
Eduardo grins at the screen.
Half an hour later he yawns and forgets himself and puts his head on Mark's shoulder.
He freezes after he does it, wonders if Mark is going to say anything or oh God, this is normal bro behavior, right? Dustin gropes Mark more than he does.
Mark doesn't push him off, so Eduardo leaves it there, relaxes after a minute.
He is not trying very hard, on his quest to keep his feelings strictly platonic.
He is failing, really.
Mark is breathing steadily beneath him and Eduardo wants to lift his head and scoot away before he does something incredibly stupid like try to kiss Mark like some insane horny dog in heat, but before he can, he feels Mark put his head on top of Eduardo's.
He draws in a breath but doesn't say anything. Neither does Mark.
A minute later, Mark moves his head slightly, nudges his chin into Eduardo's hair, and Eduardo hears the garage door open.
"Fuck," he mutters, jerking away from Mark, and Mark stands bolt upright, grabs his laptop off the ottoman, hands clenching nervously at his sides.
His dad comes in, throwing his briefcase on the table.
"Oh, hello, Eduardo," he says. Eduardo scratches the back of his head.
"Hi, Ricardo," he says.
"Oh, uh. This is Mark," he says, and motions vaguely at him. Mark nods in greeting.
His father looks steadily at them, then turns away.
"I'm going to bed," he says. "Turn the lights off, soon, Eduardo."
"Yeah," Eduardo says, and his father goes upstairs.
Eduardo exhales when he leaves, and turns to Mark, who's staring at him with a curious expression.
"Sorry," he says, and Mark shakes his head.
"It's cool," he says quietly, face shadowed, and Eduardo really wants to be cautiously close to him again, smelling his scent. They do not talk about it they can not talk about it, but Eduardo wasn't- he's not alone in this, he thinks, and that sort of scares the shit out of him and sort of makes him want to do a ridiculous dance of victory.
"Do you wanna, uh, hang tomorrow?" he says, and Mark nods.
"Meet at Starbucks?" Mark says, and grabs his Coke, drains it, and picks his laptop under one arm.
"Eleven," Eduardo says, and Mark turns and leaves.
---
It's a routine now, how they sit pressed thigh-to-thigh on Eduardo's or Mark's sofa a couple nights a week. Without Erica, without anyone. Just them.
Eduardo knows it's going somewhere, and he's pretty sure Mark does too.
He really hopes Mark does, at least.
They don't talk about it, though. With Erica they're the same, still Mark and Erica trading barbs while Eduardo laughs along.
Just, sometimes, he catches Mark's eye in the rearview mirror when they're driving to the beach and Erica is singing out the window along to some stupid Destiny's Child song and Mark holds his gaze for half a beat too long and Eduardo sits back in the seat, skin sparking all over, and not from day-old sunburn.
---
Two weeks later they're watching some stupid show on MTV, and Mark snorts out a huff of laughter and Eduardo puts an arm around his shoulder.
Mark stiffens briefly and then relaxes, and they sit like that for a while. They've done that, a couple times, casual and normal except how it's not, not at all.
After two hours, Eduardo lets himself run his hand through Mark's hair, scratch gently at his scalp with his fingernails, and Mark shivers, Eduardo can feel it.
"You okay?" he murmurs quietly, and Mark turns his face to him.
"What are you doing?" he says stubbornly, flatly, but his voice cracks a little. Eduardo considers him, his face, shrouded in shadow.
"Have you ever- uh, have you ever kissed a guy?" he says, in a weird weak voice, like he's been punched in the stomach, because this is happening, and a hot tingle runs through him. Mark stiffens.
"No," he says, unsteadily, swallowing, Adam's apple bobbing.
Eduardo nods, and Mark swallows again, licks his lips, tilts his head up slightly.
Eduardo can't not kiss him.
He leans in slow and presses his lips softly against Mark's and Mark doesn't move, exhales shakily.
Eduardo draws Mark's lower lip into his mouth, and lets go with a soft wet sound.
And Mark does move then, because he follows Eduardo's mouth as Eduardo pulls away, lips parted, eyes closed, and Eduardo grins, hand still planted in Mark's hair.
"Shit," Mark says breathlessly, eyes still shut. Eduardo's other hand slips down to Mark's waist, and his fingers work up under Mark's thin T-shirt.
"Hi," he says, and grins again, and leans in.
Mark is tentative and sweet, in a way, keeping his lips shyly closed and his hands off Eduardo until Eduardo makes a sound in his throat and takes Mark's hand, places it flat on his hip. Mark's fingers go limp, and then flex on Eduardo's skin, and he pushes his head forward with a bit more urgency.
Eduardo's stomach quivers and he opens Mark's mouth slowly with his tongue, licks at his teeth, at his tongue until Mark moves, shifts minutely, and Eduardo sucks his tongue into his mouth.
Mark is breathing unsteadily and his eyes are closed and it only takes him a minute to get the hang of it, to start curling his tongue around Eduardo's, start making sweet soft noises into his mouth, little pants.
He's a fast learner.
Eduardo moves his hand from Mark's waist to his lap, his thigh, and Mark shudders, moves his hips up hesitantly.
"Eduardo," he whispers, disbelieving, and Eduardo smiles against his mouth, kisses him again.
They end up with Mark on his back, legs splayed, Eduardo between them.
Making out with him is so good. Eduardo knew it would be.
He could probably do it forever, kiss Mark's wet full mouth, listen to him groan and gasp when Eduardo tries out everything on him, biting, nipping at his jaw, moving his hips slowly down against Mark's.
Mark is pliant and inviting and his chest is so hot, flushed with a fierce heat below his thin T-shirt. Eduardo puts his hands up under his shirt, spreads them over Mark's belly, laughs when the muscles tense under his palms.
"Wardo," Mark says again, eyes wider than Eduardo's ever seen them, licking his lips, and Eduardo pulls away, sits with his legs on either side of Mark's hips, sits on his thighs.
Mark is hard.
He's wearing sweatpants and Eduardo can see the bulge, the line of his cock, obvious under the fabric, and it makes his stomach drop dizzily.
He really wants to pull his sweatpants down, lean down and lick a shaky line up Mark's cock, bury his face in Mark's crotch. Eduardo bets he has curls, down there.
He really, really wants to but Mark looks unsure, nervous, licking his lips, and Eduardo remembers- he's never even kissed another guy before.
And even though it is really really tempting.
Like so tempting.
He really shouldn't.
"I should go home," he says."Your parents will be back from Jersey, soon."
Mark looks- a mix of things, a bit frustrated, maybe relieved, but like he'd never admit it.
"Yeah, maybe," he says, and Eduardo has to lean down and kiss him again, suck that heavy bottom lip into his mouth.
He pulls away eventually and Mark is panting shallowly, eyelashes fanned out in long shadows on his cheeks and Eduardo is so goddamn attracted to him.
Mark opens his eyes and smiles at him, a wry, nervous half-grin, and Eduardo stands up with difficulty.
"Can we- I'll text you tomorrow," he says. Mark nods, sitting up, and he's still so obviously hard. He pulls a pillow over his lap, and Eduardo laughs giddily in his throat.
"Sorry about that," he says, motioning at him, voice choky with laughter, and Mark kicks his ankle.
"Leave so I can jerk off," he says, and goes bright red at his own audacity, and Eduardo shudders at that image- Mark with his legs open, lip caught between his teeth, thrusting frantically into his own hand.
"You're so- Jesus, Mark," he says appreciatively. Mark looks down and then up at him, eyes still wide.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Eduardo says determinedly, and walks the five blocks home grinning into the collar of his sweatshirt.
He lets himself in. The house is quiet, his father asleep.
He curls up on the couch, turns the TV on mute, and texts Christy.
hi baby girl
HAYYY. did u just get some?
kind of?
DETAILS NOW. can i call?
my dad's sleeping
ok. what happened
we kissed . for an hour
!!!!!! AHHH. i still cant believe he's going to harvard. TRUE LOVEEE
:)
im so jealous. everyone is boring here. adam hookedup w/ alyce at that party last week
adam's an idiot and u r a babe.
o i kno. ;) ok go to sleep lucky bitch. I CANT WAIT TO MEET HIM IN AUGUST
buenas noches baby
His lips actually kind of hurt, and he touches them with one hand, grins. It's been a while since he kissed someone for that long.
Oh fuck he kissed Mark.
He puts his hands over his face and grins wetly, hugely into his palms.
He has no idea how the rest of the summer is about to go, but if he gets to kiss Mark, like, a lot more times, it'll be fine.
----
It actually takes Erica a week to find out. Which is weird, because she's usually pretty on top of stuff.
They're sitting in Erica's basement and they just finished watching a movie and Eduardo pulls a plastic bag out of his pocket.
"Is that weed?" Erica asks, peering at it.
"Yeah, is that cool? Dustin gave it to me at that thing a couple days ago," Eduardo says. Mark looks up.
Erica shrugs. "I don't smoke, but whatever. Do it outside, though."
"Totally," Eduardo says, and Mark shifts on the couch, uncomfortably. Eduardo nudges him with one shoulder.
"You want?" he says. Mark shrugs, shoulders hunched.
"Do it, Marky. Then describe it to me so I can get my vicarious kicks," Erica says, and pops in another DVD.
"You don't have to," Eduardo says. "I'm not like, a pothead. I'll just save it, if you don't-"
"No, I want to," Mark says, setting his jaw.
---
Outside, in the glow of Erica's porch light, Eduardo rolls a joint.
"Have you smoked before?" he says, and Mark shakes his head.
"Just- here, I'll show you," Eduardo says, and takes a long drag. He holds it in, feeling that prickly warm burn, and blows it out.
Mark exhales open-mouthed, watching his cheeks hollow. Eduardo grins after, and hands him the joint.
"Just- breathe it in and keep it in," he says. "But not too hard, you'll choke."
"I'm not an idiot, Wardo," Mark says, and sucks on the joint.
Fuck, he looks obscene when he does that. His pink mouth curling around the wet paper, bones of his cheekbones thrown into sharp relief. Eduardo stares at him, fascinated.
He coughs and Eduardo snaps out of it.
"You okay?"
"I'm- fine-" Mark says between coughs and blinks suddenly, heavy-lidded, several times. Eduardo grins. He's gonna feel it soon.
"Here," he says, and Mark yanks it away from him, takes another drag, holds it in for longer this time.
"You're fine," Eduardo says, and takes it delicately out of Mark's hand.
"Smells like shit," Mark says, and grins suddenly. Eduardo laughs out a mouthful of smoke.
"Yeah," he says. "But it's so fucking good, right?"
Mark nods and they pass the joint back and forth for a couple of minutes until, yeah, Eduardo's really damn high. His skin is thrumming pleasantly.
Mark is leaning against the white stucco wall of Erica's porch, grinning at his feet.
Eduardo pinches the joint out with his fingers, puts it back in the bag, and takes Mark's hand.
Mark lets him.
"Inside?" he says, and Mark nods slowly, lets Eduardo pull him back into the basement.
Erica's asleep, or pretending to be, on the floor, head pillowed face-down on her arms.
So Eduardo sits down on the couch and pulls Mark on top of him and lets Mark sit like that, get to know what that feels like.
Mark likes it a lot, Eduardo can tell.
Mark is so tactile when he's high. He keeps murmuring against Eduardo's neck, his lips, hands running restlessly over his hips and the tops of his thighs and skittering across his belly, making Eduardo's stomach jump.
He kisses different, slower, more open-mouthed and sensual and uninhibited.
He's not embarrassed.
Eduardo groans into his mouth and Mark moves his hips in a circle against Eduardo's, still perched on his lap with his knees tight on either side of Eduardo's legs.
Eduardo's hands slip dizzily from Mark's back to his ass, cups it, and Mark presses down against him with a shuddery little moan, a sound he'd never make sober.
Oh God, he likes that.
Eduardo keeps his hands there and kisses him again, and Mark's tongue is heavy in his mouth, and he hears shifting from behind Mark and he peers past his shoulder and sees Erica, bleary-eyed, lifting her head from her arms.
"Fuck," he says, laughing giddily, keeping Mark away with an arm, and Mark rolls off of him, lays his head on Eduardo's thigh, nuzzles his nose into his leg.
"Okay," Erica says, nodding appraisingly, waking up fully. "Is this, uh- just, uh, a we're so high and whoa let's just make out thing? Or like, a real thing?"
Mark crinkles his face up, turns away from her. Eduardo looks down at him, biting his lip to keep from laughing.
"It's like," he starts, and gestures expansively with his hands. "We're all things. Erica. And Mark is a thing, and I am a thing."
"Oh God," Erica says. "Never mind, Mark, I don't think I need a vicarious experience of this."
Eduardo snorts and buries a hand in Mark's curls. Mark looks up at him, licks his lips slowly like Erica's not even there.
Eduardo grins at him and moves his hand from Mark's hair to his chest, spreads his palm over Mark's nipple. Mark makes a determined little sound and moves up into Eduardo's hand.
"Okay!" Erica says, and Eduardo looks dazedly up at her.
"I love you and I support you," she says. "But I am also still in the room."
She looks the slightest bit flushed.
Which Eduardo would totally analyze if he were not so fucking high.
He just nods.
"Mark," he says in a loud whisper. Mark doesn't move. "Let's go back to mine."
"Dad," Mark says.
"What time is it, Erica?" Eduardo asks innocently.
"Twelve fifteen."
"Oh fuck, babe, you're right," Eduardo says, and Mark laughs in his throat.
Erica is staring at Mark like she's never seen him before.
"Stop looking at me," Mark says without looking up. "Erica."
Erica rolls her eyes, like they're back on familiar ground. Except Mark's head is still nuzzled into Eduardo's thigh.
Eduardo is the variable. Mark and Erica are the constant. Eduardo is the experimental element.
Oh fuck he's high.
"I'll just go home," he says decisively, all proud of himself for making a good decision, and Mark makes a little noise of protest, and shoves himself up by the palms till he's sitting next to Eduardo.
"I'll text tomorrow," he says.
"I wasn't kicking you out," Erica says, and she looks embarrassed.
"I know, I know," Eduardo says, nodding emphatically at her. "I should just totally go home anyway."
"You smell like weed," Mark says, sniffing his shoulder.
"My dad would flip the fuck out if he smelled it," Eduardo says.
"Just chill here for a while more," Erica says, because she's an unnaturally fervent supporter of a healthy Eduardo/Eduardo's dad relationship.
Mark nods, and grins, and puts his mouth against Eduardo's neck, right below his ear. Eduardo slings an arm around his shoulder.
"Okay," he says. Mark's practically in his lap. God, he must be really high.
"This is weird, but I really, really approve," Erica says, pushing herself off the floor, and collapsing in an armchair.
"I don't care," Mark says pettily into Eduardo's skin. Eduardo shoots Erica a secret sweet grin over Mark's head and she gives him a small smile, nods approvingly.
Eduardo is high but he is normal enough to realize the magnitude of this, of Erica finding out. Whether it's because it's him or it's Mark being gay-ish or whatever. He holds her gaze for a second longer and tries to say it in his head, thank you, and Erica nods again.
PART TWO