Fic: Pleased To Meet You (TSN, Mark/Eduardo) [1/2]
Title: Pleased To Meet You
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~11,500
Summary: Eduardo works for a bank. Mark works for City Hall. They meet and fall in love. But really, that's just the beginning of the story.
Notes: Much love to merisunshine36 for being a horrible enabler, co-creator, and the beta. A prequel in the Sympathy For The Devil-verse. Set a few years before Street Fighting Man. P.S. LJ length limits suck.
Eduardo doesn't see them when they first come in, the two young men in business suits who say they're here from Mayor Winklevoss's office.
His assistant assures him that she's vetted their credentials with City Hall before she lets them in. They're both about the same age as Eduardo, maybe a year or two younger than him, but a lot younger than most of the people Eduardo deals with on a regular basis. They can't be out of college yet, not that Eduardo is in any position to judge, considering that he just graduated last year. The taller one has red hair and a friendly smile. He gives Eduardo's hand a firm squeeze when he introduces himself. It's a good handshake, the kind Eduardo's father would have admired. He didn't have a theory about handshakes, per se, but he did have a theory about how you handle your business relationships -- Show no weakness.
The shorter one is curly-haired and distracted. His handshake is perfunctory at best, like he can't be bothered to put any effort into it. He's cute, in that nerdy sort of way that Eduardo's always had a weakness for, sharp cheekbones and wiry limbs. He doesn't slouch, but his body language is still uncomfortable, with his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes looking past Eduardo's head.
"We'll need to look over Mayor Winklevosses accounts," the red-haired one, Mr. Moskovitz, says.
Eduardo nods, "I can get you set up on my computer . I'll have to supervise, of course." It's been emphasized to the entire staff how important it is that they cooperate with any requests that Mayor Winklevoss may make (within reason), and that Eduardo should be the one to handle any such business personally.
"Of course," Mr. Moskovitz says.
The shorter one, Mr. Zuckerberg, just nods.
---
Mr. Zuckerberg is the one who does most of the work. Mr. Moskovitz has disappeared to take care of some other business elsewhere in the bank, leaving the two of them alone in Eduardo's office. Eduardo offers Mr. Zuckerberg his desk while Eduardo sits across from him, which is a bit of a strange and disorienting experience. Mr. Zuckerberg flicks his eyes over the pages and pages of bank statements, squinting occasionally, nodding, tilting his head the side. He's focused, completely consumed by the work.
"How does it look?' Eduardo says, trying to make small talk. It seems only polite.
Zuckerberg doesn't respond, though he may grunt a little, eyes never leaving the screen. Sarah had mentioned that he was Mayor Winklevoss's resident computer expert, and Eduardo has known a few computer science majors in his lifetime. Maybe he's lucky that he's getting any acknowledgement at all.
Well, either way that was a complete waste of effort. Eduardo sighs and opens up this morning's paper.
---
"You like gambling?" Zuckerberg says eventually, while Eduardo is reading up on the latest changes in the stock market.
"What?' Eduardo says, which isn't entirely professional of him, but Zuckerberg doesn't seem to believe in politeness, and Eduardo feels the need to return to favor.
"According to your newspaper, you like to read up on stock markets, so I'm asking you, do you like to gamble?" Zuckerberg says. He's looking at Eduardo directly for the first time all morning, head turned away from the computer even if his hands are still poised over the keyboard. Zuckerberg's attention is surprisingly pleasant, if also a little odd. He has lovely eyes, dark and blue, and Eduardo can practically see the sharpness of the mind behind them.
The problem is that Eduardo can't figure out where this came from or why Zuckerberg even cares. "I don't got to Foxwoods on my days off, if that's what you're asking." he says, folding his newspaper closed. "I guess the question really is, do you like to gamble, Mr. Zuckerberg?"
"Mark," he says. "My name is Mark. And yeah, I guess you could say that I am a fan of gambling." The left corner of his lips curls up into a smile, showing off one of his dimples. It's the first expression that Eduardo has seen cross his face all day.
It's a habit from dealing clients day in and day out, but Eduardo feels his own lips curl up in response. "Okay," he says. "Mark. What sort of gambling do you enjoy?" He resists the urge to lean forward. It feels like he'd be giving too much away, but he's not even sure what he'd be giving away in the first place.
"Horse racing, sometimes," Mark says. "Sports. I like figuring out what the bookmakers are thinking."
"So you like betting against the house?" Eduardo says. "That sounds risky."
Mark shrugs. "You only get rewarded when you take the big risks. That's how it always is."
Eduardo laughs. "And you like taking the big risks?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" Mark says with a shrug, and if Eduardo didn't know better, he would think that Mark is flirting with him.
"That's not exactly a risky activity," Eduardo says, and yeah, he's flirting back. "I'm kind of a sure thing when it comes to talking."
Mark's eyes focus again on the computer screen, like he's already checked out of this conversation, but then he says, "You probably know a better way to sort these records. This program is ancient and I can't find any of the options."
Eduardo circles around the desk so that he can get a better look at the screen, leaning over so that he can get a better look at what Mark's seeing. He puts a hand on Mark's shoulder for balance before he realizes he's doing it, but Mark doesn't flinch away from his touch. He listens as Mark explains what he wants to do, and Eduardo leads him through the five badly labeled menu options to get to the search filters. And then Mark goes back to work, but Eduardo figures, hey, he might as well... watch. He's here to supervise Mark as he works, and he likes the uneven rhythm of Mark's fingers on the keys of the keyboard, the furrow of Mark's brow as he studies his work.
They're interrupted by the sound of opening the door to Eduardo's office. "Hey, how's it going? The boss needs us back as soon as possible," Moskovitz says, sticking his head into the doorway. An eyebrow goes up when he sees Eduardo's proximity to Mark, and Eduardo does his best not to jerk back, stand up straight, straighten his tie. He doesn't have anything to be embarrassed of. It's not like Moskovitz caught the two of them making out.
Mark hums under his breath. "Almost done," he says. "Just give me a second." His typing speeds up, and Eduardo realizes this is the do-or-die moment. It's a big city. He might never see Mark again if he doesn't make his move now.
He tears a corner off the front page of the finance section and scribbles his name and cell phone number on it. "I like coffee," he says.
Mark smiles again, wider this time, in a way that seems to shed years from his face. "Okay," he says, taking the piece of paper from Eduardo's hand. "I can work with that."
---
Mark calls a few days later.
"Coffee, right?" he says quickly. "There's this place that, well-- Dustin really likes it. I thought maybe we could go there."
"Sounds good," Eduardo says, trying not to laugh, a warm, fluttery feeling already taking up residence in his chest. "When and where?"
They make arrangements for Saturday afternoon, at a coffee shop just outside of Harvard's campus.
Eduardo gets there before Mark, and he ends up staring at the menu, which is written on a chalkboard that hangs over the cash registers. All of the drinks have cutesy names. It's obvious that it's a shop that caters to the Harvard crowd. The place is filled small square tables covered in textbooks and empty cups, and there are plenty of students with headphones on and dark bags underneath their eyes. Eduardo doesn't pull all-nighters anymore, but he still winces in sympathy.
Mark shows up a few minutes late, and it takes a few moments for Eduardo to recognize him. He's dressed in a hoodie and jeans, and he so perfectly blends in with the surrounding crowd that Eduardo's eyes flick past him five times before he notices the familiar curly head of hair.
"Hey," Eduardo says, smiling as he approaches.
Mark looks up from his phone, and his lips quirk upwards, not an entire smile, but something warm and pleased all the same. "Hey," he says back.
They make some small talk as they're waiting for their drinks. Eduardo's not entirely sure Mark is even listening to Eduardo as he goes off on a small rant about dealing with his landlord, but then Mark asks about small claims court, his eyes focused and clear. He had been paying attention after all.
Mark orders mulled apple cider, and he holds the mug with both hands like it will help keep his fingers warm. Eduardo gets his usual black coffee and dumps as much sugar into it as he thinks he can get away with without seeming disgusting. They grab a seat in the back, far away from the noisy counter and the chattier students. Mark got his hands on a red plastic coffee stirrer somewhere, and he chews on the end of it, distracted, like it's an old habit. Eduardo tries really hard not to find it distracting.
As a conversationalist, Mark isn't so much dazzling as he is confusing. He'll jump several tracks every few sentences with an internal logic that only he can follow. Eduardo didn't really get a chance to notice this while they were at the bank, but Mark can chew through sentences faster than anyone else Eduardo has ever known. It's like he thinks that if he slows down for just one moment, he won't be able to get all of the words out of his mouth in time. Eduardo is left scrambling to catch up, but it's kind of thrilling in its own way, trying to match the pace at which Mark's mind switches between topics. Eduardo has always loved a good challenge. They cover annoying neighbors and previous romantic history and then something about specially engineered airplane food all within the space of ten minutes.
"Yeah," Mark says, when Eduardo asks him about his living arrangements. "I live with Dustin a few blocks away from Central Square."
Eduardo laughs. "Really? I'm surprised you didn't decide to live closer to work."
Mark shrugs. "We were already living there when we got the job. It didn't seem worth it to move."
"So, Cambridge, huh? How'd you end up here?" Eduardo ended up here because he was planning on going to Harvard Business School after finishing up an undergrad degree at the University of Chicago. But then the bank offered him a chance to do something a lot more interesting. Eduardo had decided that business school could wait.
"I used to go to Harvard. Did CS mostly. I left after a couple of years, though," Mark says. He's not quite meeting Eduardo's eyes, like he's maybe not proud of that fact.
Eduardo has seen other people drop out or wash out before. His time at U of C was not a cakewalk. He can't quite understand why Mark did, though, because Mark doesn't remind Eduardo of those other kids at all. Eduardo's seen Mark when he gets caught up in work, completely focused, and Mark doesn't carry around that aimless air of some of the liberal arts majors Eduardo has met, the ones who don't know what they want to do with their lives and are just drifting from class to class. "But you're paving your way to bigger and better things?" Eduardo asks, lightening the mood. He's sure that making friends with people in City Hall is at least a good stopgap measure, though he doesn't have any idea how Mark decided to go from CS to politics.
Mark's lips curl up into a smile, and Eduardo is pleased to see that he can put that expression on Mark's face. He wants to do it again. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," Mark says.
---
It's a bright sunny day outside, cold and brisk with the October air. Eduardo offers to walk Mark back to his apartment, and Mark shrugs and says sure.
Eduardo is not exactly reticent to talk most days, but Mark makes it easy. He listens and he doesn't react, and Eduardo wants to make him react, wants to see if he can make Mark smirk or shrug or almost-frown. "I'm not sure why I stuck around this city either," Eduardo says, "but it gets underneath your skin, you know?"
Mark shrugs. "I'm still here, aren't it?"
Eduardo laughs. "I'm glad you are," he says, "or I wouldn't have met you otherwise." He nudges Mark's shoulder with his own, studies Mark's face for a reaction. It's not quite a smile, but it's close enough. Eduardo counts it as a win.
Mark lives on the second floor of an old house, chipped white paint and a grubby lawn, and Eduardo goes with him right up to the front porch. "I'd invite you in," Mark says, "but my roommates haven't cleaned in three weeks. There's shit all over the place."
"Okay," Eduardo says. He's been an undergraduate student before -- he can take a little mess -- but he can tell when he's being fed an excuse. If Mark doesn't want Eduardo to follow him inside, Eduardo won't push it.
"I really liked this," Mark says, chewing on his lower lip, though there's that same lack of inflection in his voice as always, and Eduardo's not sure how to take that. "I'm just going to--" Mark leans in, wrapping a hand around the back of Eduardo's neck, and Eduardo's so thrilled that he closes the gap between their lips. It's good for a first kiss, slightly awkward, cold from the autumn air and warm from Mark's skin.
"Hey, Mark!" someone yells from the second floor, and Mark jerks back like he's been burned. At first, Eduardo thinks it's Dustin, but it's another guy sticking his head out of the window. He has blond curly hair and a twitchy, nervous air about him. "Do you know where the... wait. Never mind. I found it." He ducks his head back inside for a second, before he sticks his head out of the window again. "You can go back to making out with your new boyfriend." That sounds a little more nasty than teasing, but Eduardo doesn't want to ask about it.
"Don't mind Sean," Mark says with a roll of his eyes. "He's an asshole."
"Okay," Eduardo says, because if Mark's not going to worry about it, Eduardo isn't either. "We should do this again sometime," he says, not even bothering to try to play it cool.
"Yeah, we should," Mark says, raising his eyebrows slightly, lips curling up at the edges.
Eduardo kisses him again, just because he thinks Mark will let him get away with it, and he wants to try it without interruptions this time.
Mark kisses back. His fingers are warm against Eduardo's neck.
---
"You're in a good mood," Eduardo's assistant, Sarah, says on Monday morning. Eduardo knows he's been humming jaunty pop songs all morning, but he can't seem to stop himself.
Eduardo says, "I had a good date this weekend."
"Oh?" she says with an arched eyebrow. "Do tell. And I do mean everything."
"It was just coffee," Eduardo says with a shrug. "but it was really good."
Sarah just laughs. She's a couple years older than Eduardo, and she's lived in Boston her whole life, so she's taken it upon herself to act like Eduardo's older sister, never mind that Eduardo already has a sister. Eduardo didn't know anyone when he first moved here, and she's the one who helped him find a place to live, who taught him the best hole-in-the-wall places to eat, who likes to spout trivia about the T. Eduardo will always be thankful to her for that."It's that guy from the mayor's office, isn't it?" she says with a knowing smirk. "He's cute. You could do much worse."
Eduardo thinks back to the way Mark's lips had tasted like apple and cinnamon from the cider, sugary sweet. "I know," he says, and he can't stop the smile from breaking out across his face.
---
Their next date is at an actual restaurant in the North End. Mark is wearing a nicer suit than the last one Eduardo saw him in the first time around. "It was Chris's idea," Mark says with a shrug, though he doesn't bother to explain who Chris is.
Mark, it also turns out, is really just an asshole. Eduardo kind of finds it cute, right along with the arrogance, self-centeredness, and the casual dismissal of anything that doesn't measure up to his standards.
He can make Eduardo laugh, really laugh, so hard Eduardo's sides hurt. He has an opinion on pretty much everyone in local politics, mostly that he thinks they're incompetent, and he can list every single one of their faults from top to bottom. "You see things when you work for the mayor," he says, his lips turned up into a smirk.
On anyone else, Eduardo might find that something of a turn-off, but despite surface-level impressions, Mark actually listens when Eduardo talks. He puts thought into his responses to things that Eduardo says, even if he's trying to tear Eduardo's arguments to shreds. Eduardo enjoys being something that Mark gives a shit about. He's beginning to see how rare that actually is.
Mark picks up the bill before Eduardo can even look at it, much to to Eduardo's surprise. Eduardo says, "You don't have to do that." He's seen where Mark lives, after all, and he can't imagine that being a lowly civil servant pays all that well.
"I've been saving up," Mark says with a shrug, and Eduardo figures that Mark can manage his own money if it comes to that.
They're headed in the same direction on the T, so they walk into the station together. Mark carries on a mostly one-sided conversation with himself about the transformative power of the internet, and Eduardo can't stop watching him, can't stop listening to him, can't stop admiring the lightening speed of his brain. Right before it looks like Mark's about to get off the orange line train at Downtown Crossing, Eduardo says, "If your place is still disgusting, you could come back to mine. I don't have any roommates." Eduardo lives in the South End, in a brownstone that makes Eduardo feel like he's part of the city, like he's living deep inside the history of it.
"Okay," Mark says. He stays on the train.
They get off together at Back Bay without saying anything. Their shoulders brush together as they walk.
On Eduardo's doorstep, Mark says, "I'm surprised you're willing to put out on the second date." His face is as blank as always.
"If you count your visit to the bank as the first date, it's really the third," Eduardo says. He leans forward and kisses Mark again, lips against lips, and Mark kisses back like it matters to him, careful and precise.
---
Inside, Mark isn't so careful. As soon as they get through the front door, his hands are eager on Eduardo's neck and shoulders, on the buttons of Eduardo's shirt. He's got his complete focus on Eduardo, and he's determined to get Eduardo's clothes off, and Eduardo approves of this plan.
Eduardo does his best to take things slow, but all he wants to do is taste Mark's skin. Mark gets to him first, pulling Eduardo's shirt open and latching his teeth onto Eduardo's collarbone, and Eduardo's eyes fall closed of their own volition at the first wet swipe of Mark's tongue. He slides a hand into Mark's hair, letting his fingers tangle in Mark's curls.
Mark kisses his way down Eduardo's chest, steady and deliberate, like he's got a plan and he's carrying it out step-by-step. Eduardo's other hand settles on Mark's cheek, just so that he can trace the sharp jut of Mark's cheekbone with his thumb.
"I was going to be a gentleman about this," Eduardo says, breathless, "and at least get you onto the bed first."
Mark laughs against Eduardo bellybutton. Eduardo's never seen him laugh before. It seems like something Mark avoids, like facial expressions and hugs. But he's laughing right now at something Eduardo just said, and his eyes are bright, intent. Eduardo knows that he's falling too hard too fast, but he can't quite help it. Mark does everything a five times the speed of normal people, and Eduardo feels caught up in it, like he doesn't want to slow down either. "This is okay," Mark says, the corner of his lips quirked up into a grin. "This is actually more than okay."
His hands are clumsy on Eduardo's belt and fly, but he pulls down Eduardo's pants and boxers in one smooth motion. Then his mouth is on Eduardo's cock, and it's hot, wet, intense. Eduardo moans as Mark's tongue draws lazy patterns on the head, loud in the quiet of the room. "Mark," Eduardo says, because he really did want to make it to the bed, even if it's really tempting to let Mark suck him off right here, against the front door of his apartment. He tugs on Mark's hair, not hard, but enough to get his point across.
Or maybe not, because Mark hums, the feel of it traveling up Eduardo's dick, and Eduardo shudders. "Mark," he says again, more desperate this time, and maybe it comes out a little garbled because Eduardo's tongue isn't working right.
"What?" Mark says, pulling back. He's smirking, all smug satisfaction.
"Come on," Eduardo says after he gets his pants and boxers all the way off, tugging Mark up by his elbow and leading him into the bedroom.
Mark follows.
---
In the morning, Eduardo wakes up to Mark's drool on his pillow, Mark's feet tangled with his own. The morning sun is filtering through the window, haloing his curls. He looks his age like this, asleep and stripped of his protective suits and hoodies. He looks like a kid who hasn't quite graduated college, who hasn't quite grown into himself. He's got a spark, though. Eduardo thinks that he's going to do amazing things with his life, that one day, he's going to make Eduardo feel unaccomplished by comparison.
"Hey," Eduardo says, as Mark blearily stumbles into wakefulness. He puts a hand on Mark's hip, feels the warmth of Mark's skin underneath his fingers.
Mark blinks once, twice, before a faint smile appears on his face. "Hey," he says back.
---
They settle into a pattern. Eduardo doesn't need to be impressed, despite whatever Mark may have thought, and so their dates end up being pizza and takeout on Eduardo's couch followed by sex, really good sex, the kind of sex that makes Eduardo uncomfortable in meetings because he can't stop remembering all the filthy things that Mark can do with his mouth.
Eduardo hasn't always had the best track record with boyfriends (or girlfriends, for that matter). He usually ends up with emotionally distant assholes or emotionally needy assholes with no real in between. He can tell Mark's more of the former than the latter, but he shows up for dates and he returns Eduardo's calls and he can at least fake like he's paying attention when Eduardo's talking. He'll hum and nod at the right times when Eduardo's feels the need to rant for more than five minutes at a time, and he can even repeat the salient points that Eduardo made back to him at a later point.
Eventually, Eduardo gets to see the inside of Mark's apartment, which is nowhere near as bad as advertised. ("I made them clean it up," Mark says with a snort.) Calling the place "neat" or "clean" would be a stretch, but Eduardo can imagine living there, which is a huge step up from some of the apartments he's seen.
It feels more comfortable, lived-in than his own place. The furniture is old, worn down from years and years of college students, and the walls have strange, mysterious holes in them, and the fridge has more beer than food inside it. There's a couch that's seen better days in their kitchen, and there's even something that almost resembles a yard behind the house. Mark's room is as empty, bare, utilitarian as Eduardo expected. He has a desk, a bed, and a chair, and that's about it. The walls are painted a faded blue, and there's exactly one poster hanging behind the desk that seems to be a prolonged computer joke that Eduardo doesn't understand. It's still comforting, how Mark the place feels, the way it feels like Mark has left pieces of himself here in a way that Eduardo can't quite define.
Eduardo also meets Sean, Mark's other roommate, who is the kind of asshole who makes Mark seem sweet and friendly and personable by comparison. Mark introduces them one night while Mark is trying to demonstrate that cooking pasta is, in fact, a skill he's managed to acquire sometime in his lifetime. Dustin mocks the both of them from the kitchen table and reads a dog-eared, spine-broken copy of The Godfather. Sean's high on something on something when he comes in. Eduardo doesn't know enough about drugs to pinpoint which one, but it's definitely stronger than weed.
Not that it really matters. Sean barely gives a Eduardo a second glance before he's regaling Mark with his latest anecdote about how he scored with this one pair of hot college girls.
"He's always like that," Dustin says, without even looking up from the book. "I wouldn't take it personally."
Mark's attention is on Sean, eyes a tick wider than normal, nodding after every other word and biting his lower lip. Eduardo tries not to imagine punching him in the face.
Even with Sean being an annoyance, Eduardo ends up spending more and more time at Mark's apartment. Chris, it turns out, is a guy who Dustin and Mark knew while they were still at Harvard. ("We used to consort with literature majors," Dustin says with a shudder. "You still do, asshole," Chris says.) Eduardo gets into an argument with him about the importance of the New Deal, and Chris mutters something about supply-side economists, which is really just unfair.
Mark's happier around his roommates and in his own room than he does at Eduardo's apartment, and it's easier for him to get work done there, and Eduardo is happy when Mark's happy. Sean does stuff that takes him out of the apartment more often than not, and Dustin's a cool guy, even if he does keep telling them to keep the noise level down whenever Eduardo spends the night in Mark's room. That usually makes Eduardo blush, but Mark just smirks like the smug asshole he is.
---
"You watch a lot of the Weather Channel," Mark says as he sits in front of Eduardo's TV, flipping back and forth between whatever's on. The forecaster had been talking about a high pressure system moving into the northeastern US, and Eduardo is looking forward to the clear days. It's been raining nonstop for the past week, and he could do with a little sun.
Eduardo shrugs. "You'd be amazed at how much the weather can tell you." He took a class on meteorology in college, mostly because one of his friends had tempted him with the statistics he'd get to do, and Eduardo had fallen in love with it, not just the science behind it, but the math, too. He's always loved seeing the way messy data can be transformed into elegant, structured conclusions, and there's something even more amazing about being able to feel the results all around you. There's something beautiful about the uncertainty in the weather, the way the chaos of the atmosphere can disrupt even the best statistical models.
And beyond that, Eduardo hadn't realized just how quickly weather could change until he moved north. He'd never think he'd get the sweltering hot summers or the cold snowy winters right up against each other, and he finds that beautiful, too. He thinks about the sudden rains in the summer and the brilliant colors of the leaves in the fall and the first budding green of the spring. His freshman roommate laughed at him when Eduardo had run outside to celebrate the first snow of the winter. Sure, Eduardo had seen snow plenty of times before, whenever his family decided to go on a ski trip to Switzerland or Colorado or wherever, but Eduardo had never lived in a place where it fell from the sky on a regular basis. The excitement of that wore off after the second year of trying not to fall on his ass while walking on icy sidewalks, but there are still times when he will stand outside on the Boston sidewalks as light flurries are coming down, and he'll see the way the snow gets caught in the orange glow of a street light, and the sight of it will take his breath away.
Mark snorts. "Especially here," he says. "The forcasters must pull their predictions out of their ass." Eduardo has never lived in a place that complained more about their weather than Boston. It's kind of impressive, really.
That makes Eduardo laugh. Sometimes, Mark is so fucking smart and well-read that Eduardo forgets that there are entire areas that he doesn't know about, like statistics and weather forecasting. "You're not so far off," Eduardo says before he launches into an explanation of Monte Carlo methods and fluid dynamic simulations.
Mark follows and nods along, keeping up as well as someone without any sort of formal training could be expected to. He asks some sharp questions that Eduardo struggles to explain without getting too much into the math of it. He thinks Mark must understand on some level. He's seen Mark watching horse races and sports games, eyes flicking over the numbers, typing furiously into his computer all the while. Mark understands what it means to draw conclusions from a series of data points.
"Oil futures, huh?" Mark says after Eduardo tries to explain the latest mathematical model he's using to predict stock prices, and he looks impressed, genuinely impressed. That makes Eduardo feel warmed up all over. Mark isn't even impressed by flash videos about badgers or the way Dustin can solve a Rubik's cube in under thirty seconds, but he is impressed by Eduardo and Eduardo's math.
"Yeah," Eduardo says, and he's still smiling when Mark kisses him.
Part 2
Fandom: The Social Network
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Rating: NC-17
Word count: ~11,500
Summary: Eduardo works for a bank. Mark works for City Hall. They meet and fall in love. But really, that's just the beginning of the story.
Notes: Much love to merisunshine36 for being a horrible enabler, co-creator, and the beta. A prequel in the Sympathy For The Devil-verse. Set a few years before Street Fighting Man. P.S. LJ length limits suck.
Eduardo doesn't see them when they first come in, the two young men in business suits who say they're here from Mayor Winklevoss's office.
His assistant assures him that she's vetted their credentials with City Hall before she lets them in. They're both about the same age as Eduardo, maybe a year or two younger than him, but a lot younger than most of the people Eduardo deals with on a regular basis. They can't be out of college yet, not that Eduardo is in any position to judge, considering that he just graduated last year. The taller one has red hair and a friendly smile. He gives Eduardo's hand a firm squeeze when he introduces himself. It's a good handshake, the kind Eduardo's father would have admired. He didn't have a theory about handshakes, per se, but he did have a theory about how you handle your business relationships -- Show no weakness.
The shorter one is curly-haired and distracted. His handshake is perfunctory at best, like he can't be bothered to put any effort into it. He's cute, in that nerdy sort of way that Eduardo's always had a weakness for, sharp cheekbones and wiry limbs. He doesn't slouch, but his body language is still uncomfortable, with his hands shoved into his pockets, his eyes looking past Eduardo's head.
"We'll need to look over Mayor Winklevosses accounts," the red-haired one, Mr. Moskovitz, says.
Eduardo nods, "I can get you set up on my computer . I'll have to supervise, of course." It's been emphasized to the entire staff how important it is that they cooperate with any requests that Mayor Winklevoss may make (within reason), and that Eduardo should be the one to handle any such business personally.
"Of course," Mr. Moskovitz says.
The shorter one, Mr. Zuckerberg, just nods.
---
Mr. Zuckerberg is the one who does most of the work. Mr. Moskovitz has disappeared to take care of some other business elsewhere in the bank, leaving the two of them alone in Eduardo's office. Eduardo offers Mr. Zuckerberg his desk while Eduardo sits across from him, which is a bit of a strange and disorienting experience. Mr. Zuckerberg flicks his eyes over the pages and pages of bank statements, squinting occasionally, nodding, tilting his head the side. He's focused, completely consumed by the work.
"How does it look?' Eduardo says, trying to make small talk. It seems only polite.
Zuckerberg doesn't respond, though he may grunt a little, eyes never leaving the screen. Sarah had mentioned that he was Mayor Winklevoss's resident computer expert, and Eduardo has known a few computer science majors in his lifetime. Maybe he's lucky that he's getting any acknowledgement at all.
Well, either way that was a complete waste of effort. Eduardo sighs and opens up this morning's paper.
---
"You like gambling?" Zuckerberg says eventually, while Eduardo is reading up on the latest changes in the stock market.
"What?' Eduardo says, which isn't entirely professional of him, but Zuckerberg doesn't seem to believe in politeness, and Eduardo feels the need to return to favor.
"According to your newspaper, you like to read up on stock markets, so I'm asking you, do you like to gamble?" Zuckerberg says. He's looking at Eduardo directly for the first time all morning, head turned away from the computer even if his hands are still poised over the keyboard. Zuckerberg's attention is surprisingly pleasant, if also a little odd. He has lovely eyes, dark and blue, and Eduardo can practically see the sharpness of the mind behind them.
The problem is that Eduardo can't figure out where this came from or why Zuckerberg even cares. "I don't got to Foxwoods on my days off, if that's what you're asking." he says, folding his newspaper closed. "I guess the question really is, do you like to gamble, Mr. Zuckerberg?"
"Mark," he says. "My name is Mark. And yeah, I guess you could say that I am a fan of gambling." The left corner of his lips curls up into a smile, showing off one of his dimples. It's the first expression that Eduardo has seen cross his face all day.
It's a habit from dealing clients day in and day out, but Eduardo feels his own lips curl up in response. "Okay," he says. "Mark. What sort of gambling do you enjoy?" He resists the urge to lean forward. It feels like he'd be giving too much away, but he's not even sure what he'd be giving away in the first place.
"Horse racing, sometimes," Mark says. "Sports. I like figuring out what the bookmakers are thinking."
"So you like betting against the house?" Eduardo says. "That sounds risky."
Mark shrugs. "You only get rewarded when you take the big risks. That's how it always is."
Eduardo laughs. "And you like taking the big risks?"
"I'm talking to you, aren't I?" Mark says with a shrug, and if Eduardo didn't know better, he would think that Mark is flirting with him.
"That's not exactly a risky activity," Eduardo says, and yeah, he's flirting back. "I'm kind of a sure thing when it comes to talking."
Mark's eyes focus again on the computer screen, like he's already checked out of this conversation, but then he says, "You probably know a better way to sort these records. This program is ancient and I can't find any of the options."
Eduardo circles around the desk so that he can get a better look at the screen, leaning over so that he can get a better look at what Mark's seeing. He puts a hand on Mark's shoulder for balance before he realizes he's doing it, but Mark doesn't flinch away from his touch. He listens as Mark explains what he wants to do, and Eduardo leads him through the five badly labeled menu options to get to the search filters. And then Mark goes back to work, but Eduardo figures, hey, he might as well... watch. He's here to supervise Mark as he works, and he likes the uneven rhythm of Mark's fingers on the keys of the keyboard, the furrow of Mark's brow as he studies his work.
They're interrupted by the sound of opening the door to Eduardo's office. "Hey, how's it going? The boss needs us back as soon as possible," Moskovitz says, sticking his head into the doorway. An eyebrow goes up when he sees Eduardo's proximity to Mark, and Eduardo does his best not to jerk back, stand up straight, straighten his tie. He doesn't have anything to be embarrassed of. It's not like Moskovitz caught the two of them making out.
Mark hums under his breath. "Almost done," he says. "Just give me a second." His typing speeds up, and Eduardo realizes this is the do-or-die moment. It's a big city. He might never see Mark again if he doesn't make his move now.
He tears a corner off the front page of the finance section and scribbles his name and cell phone number on it. "I like coffee," he says.
Mark smiles again, wider this time, in a way that seems to shed years from his face. "Okay," he says, taking the piece of paper from Eduardo's hand. "I can work with that."
---
Mark calls a few days later.
"Coffee, right?" he says quickly. "There's this place that, well-- Dustin really likes it. I thought maybe we could go there."
"Sounds good," Eduardo says, trying not to laugh, a warm, fluttery feeling already taking up residence in his chest. "When and where?"
They make arrangements for Saturday afternoon, at a coffee shop just outside of Harvard's campus.
Eduardo gets there before Mark, and he ends up staring at the menu, which is written on a chalkboard that hangs over the cash registers. All of the drinks have cutesy names. It's obvious that it's a shop that caters to the Harvard crowd. The place is filled small square tables covered in textbooks and empty cups, and there are plenty of students with headphones on and dark bags underneath their eyes. Eduardo doesn't pull all-nighters anymore, but he still winces in sympathy.
Mark shows up a few minutes late, and it takes a few moments for Eduardo to recognize him. He's dressed in a hoodie and jeans, and he so perfectly blends in with the surrounding crowd that Eduardo's eyes flick past him five times before he notices the familiar curly head of hair.
"Hey," Eduardo says, smiling as he approaches.
Mark looks up from his phone, and his lips quirk upwards, not an entire smile, but something warm and pleased all the same. "Hey," he says back.
They make some small talk as they're waiting for their drinks. Eduardo's not entirely sure Mark is even listening to Eduardo as he goes off on a small rant about dealing with his landlord, but then Mark asks about small claims court, his eyes focused and clear. He had been paying attention after all.
Mark orders mulled apple cider, and he holds the mug with both hands like it will help keep his fingers warm. Eduardo gets his usual black coffee and dumps as much sugar into it as he thinks he can get away with without seeming disgusting. They grab a seat in the back, far away from the noisy counter and the chattier students. Mark got his hands on a red plastic coffee stirrer somewhere, and he chews on the end of it, distracted, like it's an old habit. Eduardo tries really hard not to find it distracting.
As a conversationalist, Mark isn't so much dazzling as he is confusing. He'll jump several tracks every few sentences with an internal logic that only he can follow. Eduardo didn't really get a chance to notice this while they were at the bank, but Mark can chew through sentences faster than anyone else Eduardo has ever known. It's like he thinks that if he slows down for just one moment, he won't be able to get all of the words out of his mouth in time. Eduardo is left scrambling to catch up, but it's kind of thrilling in its own way, trying to match the pace at which Mark's mind switches between topics. Eduardo has always loved a good challenge. They cover annoying neighbors and previous romantic history and then something about specially engineered airplane food all within the space of ten minutes.
"Yeah," Mark says, when Eduardo asks him about his living arrangements. "I live with Dustin a few blocks away from Central Square."
Eduardo laughs. "Really? I'm surprised you didn't decide to live closer to work."
Mark shrugs. "We were already living there when we got the job. It didn't seem worth it to move."
"So, Cambridge, huh? How'd you end up here?" Eduardo ended up here because he was planning on going to Harvard Business School after finishing up an undergrad degree at the University of Chicago. But then the bank offered him a chance to do something a lot more interesting. Eduardo had decided that business school could wait.
"I used to go to Harvard. Did CS mostly. I left after a couple of years, though," Mark says. He's not quite meeting Eduardo's eyes, like he's maybe not proud of that fact.
Eduardo has seen other people drop out or wash out before. His time at U of C was not a cakewalk. He can't quite understand why Mark did, though, because Mark doesn't remind Eduardo of those other kids at all. Eduardo's seen Mark when he gets caught up in work, completely focused, and Mark doesn't carry around that aimless air of some of the liberal arts majors Eduardo has met, the ones who don't know what they want to do with their lives and are just drifting from class to class. "But you're paving your way to bigger and better things?" Eduardo asks, lightening the mood. He's sure that making friends with people in City Hall is at least a good stopgap measure, though he doesn't have any idea how Mark decided to go from CS to politics.
Mark's lips curl up into a smile, and Eduardo is pleased to see that he can put that expression on Mark's face. He wants to do it again. "Yeah, I guess you could say that," Mark says.
---
It's a bright sunny day outside, cold and brisk with the October air. Eduardo offers to walk Mark back to his apartment, and Mark shrugs and says sure.
Eduardo is not exactly reticent to talk most days, but Mark makes it easy. He listens and he doesn't react, and Eduardo wants to make him react, wants to see if he can make Mark smirk or shrug or almost-frown. "I'm not sure why I stuck around this city either," Eduardo says, "but it gets underneath your skin, you know?"
Mark shrugs. "I'm still here, aren't it?"
Eduardo laughs. "I'm glad you are," he says, "or I wouldn't have met you otherwise." He nudges Mark's shoulder with his own, studies Mark's face for a reaction. It's not quite a smile, but it's close enough. Eduardo counts it as a win.
Mark lives on the second floor of an old house, chipped white paint and a grubby lawn, and Eduardo goes with him right up to the front porch. "I'd invite you in," Mark says, "but my roommates haven't cleaned in three weeks. There's shit all over the place."
"Okay," Eduardo says. He's been an undergraduate student before -- he can take a little mess -- but he can tell when he's being fed an excuse. If Mark doesn't want Eduardo to follow him inside, Eduardo won't push it.
"I really liked this," Mark says, chewing on his lower lip, though there's that same lack of inflection in his voice as always, and Eduardo's not sure how to take that. "I'm just going to--" Mark leans in, wrapping a hand around the back of Eduardo's neck, and Eduardo's so thrilled that he closes the gap between their lips. It's good for a first kiss, slightly awkward, cold from the autumn air and warm from Mark's skin.
"Hey, Mark!" someone yells from the second floor, and Mark jerks back like he's been burned. At first, Eduardo thinks it's Dustin, but it's another guy sticking his head out of the window. He has blond curly hair and a twitchy, nervous air about him. "Do you know where the... wait. Never mind. I found it." He ducks his head back inside for a second, before he sticks his head out of the window again. "You can go back to making out with your new boyfriend." That sounds a little more nasty than teasing, but Eduardo doesn't want to ask about it.
"Don't mind Sean," Mark says with a roll of his eyes. "He's an asshole."
"Okay," Eduardo says, because if Mark's not going to worry about it, Eduardo isn't either. "We should do this again sometime," he says, not even bothering to try to play it cool.
"Yeah, we should," Mark says, raising his eyebrows slightly, lips curling up at the edges.
Eduardo kisses him again, just because he thinks Mark will let him get away with it, and he wants to try it without interruptions this time.
Mark kisses back. His fingers are warm against Eduardo's neck.
---
"You're in a good mood," Eduardo's assistant, Sarah, says on Monday morning. Eduardo knows he's been humming jaunty pop songs all morning, but he can't seem to stop himself.
Eduardo says, "I had a good date this weekend."
"Oh?" she says with an arched eyebrow. "Do tell. And I do mean everything."
"It was just coffee," Eduardo says with a shrug. "but it was really good."
Sarah just laughs. She's a couple years older than Eduardo, and she's lived in Boston her whole life, so she's taken it upon herself to act like Eduardo's older sister, never mind that Eduardo already has a sister. Eduardo didn't know anyone when he first moved here, and she's the one who helped him find a place to live, who taught him the best hole-in-the-wall places to eat, who likes to spout trivia about the T. Eduardo will always be thankful to her for that."It's that guy from the mayor's office, isn't it?" she says with a knowing smirk. "He's cute. You could do much worse."
Eduardo thinks back to the way Mark's lips had tasted like apple and cinnamon from the cider, sugary sweet. "I know," he says, and he can't stop the smile from breaking out across his face.
---
Their next date is at an actual restaurant in the North End. Mark is wearing a nicer suit than the last one Eduardo saw him in the first time around. "It was Chris's idea," Mark says with a shrug, though he doesn't bother to explain who Chris is.
Mark, it also turns out, is really just an asshole. Eduardo kind of finds it cute, right along with the arrogance, self-centeredness, and the casual dismissal of anything that doesn't measure up to his standards.
He can make Eduardo laugh, really laugh, so hard Eduardo's sides hurt. He has an opinion on pretty much everyone in local politics, mostly that he thinks they're incompetent, and he can list every single one of their faults from top to bottom. "You see things when you work for the mayor," he says, his lips turned up into a smirk.
On anyone else, Eduardo might find that something of a turn-off, but despite surface-level impressions, Mark actually listens when Eduardo talks. He puts thought into his responses to things that Eduardo says, even if he's trying to tear Eduardo's arguments to shreds. Eduardo enjoys being something that Mark gives a shit about. He's beginning to see how rare that actually is.
Mark picks up the bill before Eduardo can even look at it, much to to Eduardo's surprise. Eduardo says, "You don't have to do that." He's seen where Mark lives, after all, and he can't imagine that being a lowly civil servant pays all that well.
"I've been saving up," Mark says with a shrug, and Eduardo figures that Mark can manage his own money if it comes to that.
They're headed in the same direction on the T, so they walk into the station together. Mark carries on a mostly one-sided conversation with himself about the transformative power of the internet, and Eduardo can't stop watching him, can't stop listening to him, can't stop admiring the lightening speed of his brain. Right before it looks like Mark's about to get off the orange line train at Downtown Crossing, Eduardo says, "If your place is still disgusting, you could come back to mine. I don't have any roommates." Eduardo lives in the South End, in a brownstone that makes Eduardo feel like he's part of the city, like he's living deep inside the history of it.
"Okay," Mark says. He stays on the train.
They get off together at Back Bay without saying anything. Their shoulders brush together as they walk.
On Eduardo's doorstep, Mark says, "I'm surprised you're willing to put out on the second date." His face is as blank as always.
"If you count your visit to the bank as the first date, it's really the third," Eduardo says. He leans forward and kisses Mark again, lips against lips, and Mark kisses back like it matters to him, careful and precise.
---
Inside, Mark isn't so careful. As soon as they get through the front door, his hands are eager on Eduardo's neck and shoulders, on the buttons of Eduardo's shirt. He's got his complete focus on Eduardo, and he's determined to get Eduardo's clothes off, and Eduardo approves of this plan.
Eduardo does his best to take things slow, but all he wants to do is taste Mark's skin. Mark gets to him first, pulling Eduardo's shirt open and latching his teeth onto Eduardo's collarbone, and Eduardo's eyes fall closed of their own volition at the first wet swipe of Mark's tongue. He slides a hand into Mark's hair, letting his fingers tangle in Mark's curls.
Mark kisses his way down Eduardo's chest, steady and deliberate, like he's got a plan and he's carrying it out step-by-step. Eduardo's other hand settles on Mark's cheek, just so that he can trace the sharp jut of Mark's cheekbone with his thumb.
"I was going to be a gentleman about this," Eduardo says, breathless, "and at least get you onto the bed first."
Mark laughs against Eduardo bellybutton. Eduardo's never seen him laugh before. It seems like something Mark avoids, like facial expressions and hugs. But he's laughing right now at something Eduardo just said, and his eyes are bright, intent. Eduardo knows that he's falling too hard too fast, but he can't quite help it. Mark does everything a five times the speed of normal people, and Eduardo feels caught up in it, like he doesn't want to slow down either. "This is okay," Mark says, the corner of his lips quirked up into a grin. "This is actually more than okay."
His hands are clumsy on Eduardo's belt and fly, but he pulls down Eduardo's pants and boxers in one smooth motion. Then his mouth is on Eduardo's cock, and it's hot, wet, intense. Eduardo moans as Mark's tongue draws lazy patterns on the head, loud in the quiet of the room. "Mark," Eduardo says, because he really did want to make it to the bed, even if it's really tempting to let Mark suck him off right here, against the front door of his apartment. He tugs on Mark's hair, not hard, but enough to get his point across.
Or maybe not, because Mark hums, the feel of it traveling up Eduardo's dick, and Eduardo shudders. "Mark," he says again, more desperate this time, and maybe it comes out a little garbled because Eduardo's tongue isn't working right.
"What?" Mark says, pulling back. He's smirking, all smug satisfaction.
"Come on," Eduardo says after he gets his pants and boxers all the way off, tugging Mark up by his elbow and leading him into the bedroom.
Mark follows.
---
In the morning, Eduardo wakes up to Mark's drool on his pillow, Mark's feet tangled with his own. The morning sun is filtering through the window, haloing his curls. He looks his age like this, asleep and stripped of his protective suits and hoodies. He looks like a kid who hasn't quite graduated college, who hasn't quite grown into himself. He's got a spark, though. Eduardo thinks that he's going to do amazing things with his life, that one day, he's going to make Eduardo feel unaccomplished by comparison.
"Hey," Eduardo says, as Mark blearily stumbles into wakefulness. He puts a hand on Mark's hip, feels the warmth of Mark's skin underneath his fingers.
Mark blinks once, twice, before a faint smile appears on his face. "Hey," he says back.
---
They settle into a pattern. Eduardo doesn't need to be impressed, despite whatever Mark may have thought, and so their dates end up being pizza and takeout on Eduardo's couch followed by sex, really good sex, the kind of sex that makes Eduardo uncomfortable in meetings because he can't stop remembering all the filthy things that Mark can do with his mouth.
Eduardo hasn't always had the best track record with boyfriends (or girlfriends, for that matter). He usually ends up with emotionally distant assholes or emotionally needy assholes with no real in between. He can tell Mark's more of the former than the latter, but he shows up for dates and he returns Eduardo's calls and he can at least fake like he's paying attention when Eduardo's talking. He'll hum and nod at the right times when Eduardo's feels the need to rant for more than five minutes at a time, and he can even repeat the salient points that Eduardo made back to him at a later point.
Eventually, Eduardo gets to see the inside of Mark's apartment, which is nowhere near as bad as advertised. ("I made them clean it up," Mark says with a snort.) Calling the place "neat" or "clean" would be a stretch, but Eduardo can imagine living there, which is a huge step up from some of the apartments he's seen.
It feels more comfortable, lived-in than his own place. The furniture is old, worn down from years and years of college students, and the walls have strange, mysterious holes in them, and the fridge has more beer than food inside it. There's a couch that's seen better days in their kitchen, and there's even something that almost resembles a yard behind the house. Mark's room is as empty, bare, utilitarian as Eduardo expected. He has a desk, a bed, and a chair, and that's about it. The walls are painted a faded blue, and there's exactly one poster hanging behind the desk that seems to be a prolonged computer joke that Eduardo doesn't understand. It's still comforting, how Mark the place feels, the way it feels like Mark has left pieces of himself here in a way that Eduardo can't quite define.
Eduardo also meets Sean, Mark's other roommate, who is the kind of asshole who makes Mark seem sweet and friendly and personable by comparison. Mark introduces them one night while Mark is trying to demonstrate that cooking pasta is, in fact, a skill he's managed to acquire sometime in his lifetime. Dustin mocks the both of them from the kitchen table and reads a dog-eared, spine-broken copy of The Godfather. Sean's high on something on something when he comes in. Eduardo doesn't know enough about drugs to pinpoint which one, but it's definitely stronger than weed.
Not that it really matters. Sean barely gives a Eduardo a second glance before he's regaling Mark with his latest anecdote about how he scored with this one pair of hot college girls.
"He's always like that," Dustin says, without even looking up from the book. "I wouldn't take it personally."
Mark's attention is on Sean, eyes a tick wider than normal, nodding after every other word and biting his lower lip. Eduardo tries not to imagine punching him in the face.
Even with Sean being an annoyance, Eduardo ends up spending more and more time at Mark's apartment. Chris, it turns out, is a guy who Dustin and Mark knew while they were still at Harvard. ("We used to consort with literature majors," Dustin says with a shudder. "You still do, asshole," Chris says.) Eduardo gets into an argument with him about the importance of the New Deal, and Chris mutters something about supply-side economists, which is really just unfair.
Mark's happier around his roommates and in his own room than he does at Eduardo's apartment, and it's easier for him to get work done there, and Eduardo is happy when Mark's happy. Sean does stuff that takes him out of the apartment more often than not, and Dustin's a cool guy, even if he does keep telling them to keep the noise level down whenever Eduardo spends the night in Mark's room. That usually makes Eduardo blush, but Mark just smirks like the smug asshole he is.
---
"You watch a lot of the Weather Channel," Mark says as he sits in front of Eduardo's TV, flipping back and forth between whatever's on. The forecaster had been talking about a high pressure system moving into the northeastern US, and Eduardo is looking forward to the clear days. It's been raining nonstop for the past week, and he could do with a little sun.
Eduardo shrugs. "You'd be amazed at how much the weather can tell you." He took a class on meteorology in college, mostly because one of his friends had tempted him with the statistics he'd get to do, and Eduardo had fallen in love with it, not just the science behind it, but the math, too. He's always loved seeing the way messy data can be transformed into elegant, structured conclusions, and there's something even more amazing about being able to feel the results all around you. There's something beautiful about the uncertainty in the weather, the way the chaos of the atmosphere can disrupt even the best statistical models.
And beyond that, Eduardo hadn't realized just how quickly weather could change until he moved north. He'd never think he'd get the sweltering hot summers or the cold snowy winters right up against each other, and he finds that beautiful, too. He thinks about the sudden rains in the summer and the brilliant colors of the leaves in the fall and the first budding green of the spring. His freshman roommate laughed at him when Eduardo had run outside to celebrate the first snow of the winter. Sure, Eduardo had seen snow plenty of times before, whenever his family decided to go on a ski trip to Switzerland or Colorado or wherever, but Eduardo had never lived in a place where it fell from the sky on a regular basis. The excitement of that wore off after the second year of trying not to fall on his ass while walking on icy sidewalks, but there are still times when he will stand outside on the Boston sidewalks as light flurries are coming down, and he'll see the way the snow gets caught in the orange glow of a street light, and the sight of it will take his breath away.
Mark snorts. "Especially here," he says. "The forcasters must pull their predictions out of their ass." Eduardo has never lived in a place that complained more about their weather than Boston. It's kind of impressive, really.
That makes Eduardo laugh. Sometimes, Mark is so fucking smart and well-read that Eduardo forgets that there are entire areas that he doesn't know about, like statistics and weather forecasting. "You're not so far off," Eduardo says before he launches into an explanation of Monte Carlo methods and fluid dynamic simulations.
Mark follows and nods along, keeping up as well as someone without any sort of formal training could be expected to. He asks some sharp questions that Eduardo struggles to explain without getting too much into the math of it. He thinks Mark must understand on some level. He's seen Mark watching horse races and sports games, eyes flicking over the numbers, typing furiously into his computer all the while. Mark understands what it means to draw conclusions from a series of data points.
"Oil futures, huh?" Mark says after Eduardo tries to explain the latest mathematical model he's using to predict stock prices, and he looks impressed, genuinely impressed. That makes Eduardo feel warmed up all over. Mark isn't even impressed by flash videos about badgers or the way Dustin can solve a Rubik's cube in under thirty seconds, but he is impressed by Eduardo and Eduardo's math.
"Yeah," Eduardo says, and he's still smiling when Mark kisses him.
Part 2