Fic: Just Gonna Get My Feet Wet Until I Drown - Part 3

[justbreathe80]

Eduardo waited. He waited through Mark’s smile, less guarded each time they met, through saag paneer and chicken korma, through a heated discussion of which superhero would be most likely to be elected president (“Batman, hands down,” Mark said firmly, around a mouthful of naan, “you need that kind of cash to be elected president.” Eduardo shook his head. “Mark, that’s a really depressingly cynical point of view. And besides, you know that Captain America is the only one that can wear the ubiquitous flag pin unironically.” Mark laughed. “Yeah, he’d probably be in the Tea Party too.”). He waited through Mark’s heated eyes, predatory as he pressed his palms against Eduardo’s chest and practically pushed him down the hallway to Mark’s bedroom, and folded Eduardo’s hands around the rungs of the headboard.

He waited until they were laying next to each other, Eduardo still trying to catch his breath, his ass sore and clenching, Mark’s arm brushing hot against his. He wanted to turn his head, take in the sight of Mark’s doubtless self-satisfied smirk, like he always had after sex. It was one of his favorites, in a long list of favorites he definitely shouldn’t have.

Instead, he said, “I have to cancel our appointments for the next three weeks.”

He felt Mark shift beside him, but he kept his eyes trained straight ahead on the blank, off-white wall opposite the bed. He didn’t look. He was pretty sure he couldn’t.

Then, Mark was leaning over him, hands bracketed around Eduardo’s head. “Why?” he demanded, but Eduardo could hear what was behind the harsh tone. The tiny bit of worry, of hurt. Jesus.

Eduardo closed his eyes. “A client asked me to accompany him on a trip for a few weeks. I’m leaving on Sunday.”

“Oh,” Mark said, his voice flat and even, giving nothing away. He was quiet, and finally Eduardo opened his eyes, and just looked.

Mark looked furious, and like he was very aware that he shouldn’t be, but that he couldn’t stop himself. He kept opening his mouth, then quickly shutting it.

“Mark-” Eduardo started, hoping to say something, anything, to put Mark out of his misery, but Mark shook his head, almost violently.

“Don’t,” he snapped back harshly. “Just don’t, okay?” Eduardo opened his own mouth again, but before he could get anything out, Mark was up, off the bed, off Eduardo, and on his feet.

“Mark, sorry, but this is just business. I’ll be sure to have Sean put you back on my schedule after I get back, okay?” Eduardo pushed himself up onto his elbows, watching Mark pace at the foot of the bed.

“I fucking hate your business!” Mark shouted, looking right at Eduardo, fuck, right through him even, and Mark’s eyes went wide, shocked at himself for actually saying what had so obviously been at the very forefront of his mind.

Eduardo pushed the blankets down until they were bunched around his feet, then swung his legs over the side of the bed. God, fuck Mark for saying that. Fuck him for complicating this, for acting like a sanctimonious asshole while still making sure that the money was paid on time for Eduardo’s services, every time. Eduardo wanted to punch him in his stupid goddamn face with his stupid deer-in-the-headlights eyes.

He reached down and grabbed his pants, now hopelessly wrinkled, off of the floor next to the bed. Mark was frozen in place when Eduardo glanced at him, arms crossed in front of him like a shield.

“You know, Mark,” Eduardo said, wincing a little at the sound of his voice in the deafening silence of the room, “I am a whore. You can tell me you hate it, but you paid for me. You’ve been paying for me, and you’ll keep paying me.”

Eduardo knew that it would cut Mark, right at the heart. Because he knew that Mark didn’t feel guilty that he paid someone for sex, for company or dating or whatever it was that they were doing, but that Mark specifically thought that Eduardo deserved better.

If Eduardo deserved better, he wouldn’t be so damn good at this.

Eduardo was yanking on his pants and standing on still shaky legs (he usually had a bit more recovery time) to fasten them when Mark said, “I’m sorry if I think that you’re wasting yourself on this. Or that you should do what you want to do, for once.”

“Fuck!” Eduardo yelled. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d raised his voice at someone. He hadn’t even yelled when he called his father after finding out that he hadn’t paid his spring semester tuition bill. It felt dangerous, and good. “I appreciate the sentiment, Mark,” he closed the distance between them as he buckled his belt, “but you are not. My fucking. Boyfriend.”

They were close enough now that Eduardo could feel Mark’s breath against his cheek, both of them amped up and breathing heavily again, like they had been just minutes before.

“Maybe I want to be,” Mark said, almost too quiet to hear, and it took all of the air out of the room. And Eduardo couldn’t help it, but he started to laugh, making Mark flinch back from him. Eduardo reached out, pressing his hand against Mark’s chest, feeling him firm and warm and present, then pushed him gently away.

“Well, you can’t,” Eduardo answered, laughing because there was a part of him, that stupid, stupid part that had been getting louder and louder every day, that wanted him to say yes yes yes, that wanted to feel all of this, even if it hurt. He turned away and picked up his shirt, slipping it on and making quick work of the buttons, carefully not looking at Mark, standing alone in the middle of the room. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but this is who I am. It’s not changing. Not for anyone. And you can’t save me, so stop trying.”

His hands ached to reach out to Mark as he walked past him to leave the room, but he had wasted way too much time being stupid, and had fucked this whole thing up in the process. He wasn’t surprised that Mark somehow got the idea that Eduardo wanted something else, with Mark, in general, because Eduardo had stopped following his own rules and let at least some part of himself believe that it was okay to want that.

And now, he had to walk out of this room and be fine with it probably being the last time, because it would be on the wrong side of idiotic to see Mark again after he came home. He’d probably filled his quota of idiotic several times over at this point.

“Goodbye, Mark,” Eduardo said, as gently as he could, not allowing himself to look back before he stepped through the door, and out of Mark’s life.

*****

Eduardo had forgotten exactly what the warm Brazilian air felt like, humid against his skin. He vaguely remembered his last trip to São Paulo, the summer after his first year at Yale, but it wasn’t the weather he remembered. It was the last substantial amount of time he spent with his father, and remembered the details of that trip like it was yesterday, even though he’d tried to forget.

Eduardo, I’d expected you would have an internship this summer and wouldn’t be joining us. His father had started in on the plane and didn’t let up for the whole three weeks they were there, despite Eduardo’s constant reminders to his father that he actually did have a four week internship at Bear Stearns for the month of August (even though his main motivation to do it was that the guy he was sleeping with was in New York for the summer). He’d spent most of his days at home by the pool, while his father was off attending to business holdings in the city, then out with his cousins at night, drinking and dancing and, more than once, ending up in the back room.

This time, he met the driver in the terminal, holding up a sign from Itaúsa, with Andres Amaral written on it. It was March, the end of the Brazilian summer, but the air was still heavy and hot around him. Eduardo shrugged off his jacket before getting inside the car.

It was hard not to just stare out of the window for the whole drive, like a child, because São Paulo had changed-the favelas more sprawling, the buildings taller, the cars more expensive-since he’d been here last. The traffic was just as bad as it had always been, and there were even more helicopters overhead, ferrying the wealthy over the congested roadways.

It took almost two hours of slow moving stop and go to get to Morumbi, where Andres lived in a sprawling mansion, the trees green with summer all around. Eduardo’s own family, his parents’ house which sat open for most of the year and his aunts and uncles and cousins, lived in Jardim Paulista, just a few miles from here.

He suspected, sometimes, that Andres knew exactly who Eduardo was (he was too rich and too paranoid not to do a background check) and what family he came from, and that some of the pleasure he took in fucking Eduardo into the mattress every time they were together came from the fact that he was a Saverin.

Andres was standing on the wide front step when Eduardo climbed out of the car, hot and tired and ready for nap. He smiled widely and tugged Eduardo in by his wrist.

“I am so very glad you were able to come,” Andres said smoothly, voice rough and sparking down Eduardo’s spine. He wore black dress pants and a white linen shirt, his dark hair curling around his ears, and Eduardo, despite fifteen hours spent flying and failing miserably at not thinking about Mark and how royally Eduardo had fucked that up for every minute of that, wanted to find a bed immediately.

Andres was very distracting. Which was usually a very good thing.

“You look amazing,” Andres whispered, lips brushing against Eduardo’s ear, arms clasped around Eduardo’s back.

Eduardo groaned and pushed a little, making some space between them. “I’m positively disgusting. I’m exhausted and smell like a plane.”

“You smell amazing.”

“You’re crazy. Where’s the shower?”

The shower was amazing, if anything, four shower heads and amazing water pressure and Eduardo was pretty sure he could fall asleep right there. Except that Andres decided to join him halfway through, pressing Eduardo up against the cold tile, teasing his lips along Eduardo’s neck.

He didn’t get fucked through the mattress that time, rather up against the shower wall, the water loud and rushing in the background. Andres swore as he tore open the condom wrapper and tried to slick on some lube, but Eduardo could tell by the burn, the sharp edge of Andres sliding inside him, that most of it had washed away under the spray.

It felt fantastic, and he was sore and tired and exhausted by the time Andres urged him into a wide bed.

He slept for more than ten hours. He couldn’t remember ever doing that, even in college. His father never stood for that kind of laziness.

The morning started with Andres kissing him awake and telling him that he was heading into the office, but that Eduardo should make himself at home, and they’d go to dinner later. So Eduardo did just that. He spent the morning by the pool with his Kindle and his laptop, did some laps, spent the hottest part of the afternoon inside, and had the housekeeper bring him drinks and lunch. He made a point to try to forget about California, about everything he’d so gladly left behind, and tried to enjoy himself.

Sometimes, it still blew his mind that he got paid-obscenely-for this.

*****

Eduardo hadn’t spoken English in so long that he felt like he’d never get his tongue to go back to those clipped, harsh, alien sounds. He’d forgotten how much he’d missed the easy conversations with his family in Portuguese, and he found that the more time passed, the less every syllable made him think about his father.

The morning after he slept off his flight, Andres told him that the car and the helicopter were at his disposal, and that he should go anywhere he’d like to go. He spent one afternoon at the museums (he took the car, preferring the traffic to the conspicuousness of the helicopter), but otherwise didn’t feel much compulsion to go anywhere. He wasn’t really there for sightseeing, and he couldn’t feel like a tourist in São Paulo.

So instead, he was there waiting every day, showered and dressed or in his tiny swimsuit, when Andres came home, sometimes as late as nine or ten, and then they’d go out for another fabulous dinner. And come home for more fabulous sex. It was gloriously uncomplicated. He knew exactly what he was there for, and he knew that Andres had a girlfriend (Eduardo was almost certain she knew about Andres’ other activities) who was out of town on business.

But for the first time he could remember since he started in the business, he was bored. Out of his mind.

Eduardo had never really thought about the fact that he wasn’t really doing anything; he’d always considered himself someone who provided a necessary service. There were some people who needed what he could and was willing to give (for the right price).

For some reason (or for a very specific reason that Eduardo knew too well), he kept picturing himself doing this in five years, in ten. He pictured himself at thirty, thirty five, sitting around a rich man’s house, giving him everything he asked for, whenever he asked for it.

It was so fucking depressing.

Every night, they went out to another ridiculously expensive restaurant, Andres shaking hands with important men, Eduardo standing just slightly behind him and smiling. Eduardo remembered when he thought that he would be one of those men. It felt like a million years ago, a million miles away from being someone’s whore.

And Andres fucked him, every night, on the crisp, white sheets, with the window open and the warm breeze blowing or the rain falling hard outside. It was perfect, every time-Andres having learned Eduardo’s body ages ago, knowing exactly how hard and fast to move to get him off.

He came, every time, and it felt fantastic, his body loose and open, his ears ringing with the force of his orgasm, but it didn’t even begin to touch anywhere else inside of him. He remembered, back when he was twenty and so, so fucking stupid, wanting that-wanting someone who could fuck him like that, and love him too.

He hadn’t wanted that since then, and he was scared shitless that he was even thinking about it now.

On the night before he flew back to San Francisco, Andres’ housekeeper made them a truly spectacular feijoada (his aunt Paloma’s was still his favorite, though) and then Andres took him upstairs and carefully and slowly removed Eduardo’s pants and shirt, at the foot of his bed. He was uncharacteristically pensive, and Eduardo smiled and tried to lighten things up, but Andres just urged him onto his back and stripped off his own clothes while Eduardo watched, his mouth watering.

Andres wasn’t much for foreplay, usually, which was fine with Eduardo. Obviously, whatever Andres wanted with some minor exceptions would have fine, but Eduardo appreciated the simplicity of this, the way that Andres took what he knew he could take. It made everything easier.

They were face to face, Eduardo’s arms pinned over his head by Andres’ hands wrapped around his wrists, Andres breathing hot and hard into Eduardo’s ear as he pushed his cock into Eduardo. It wasn’t gentle, and the edge was always there when Andres fucked him, but it was far more intimate than they typically were. There was a big part of Eduardo that wanted to hide, to run.

Instead, he breathed through it, relaxing and hearing Andres’ groan as he moved deeper inside Eduardo, making Eduardo cry out. He wrestled his hands free and wrapped his arms around Andres’ back and dug his nails in, giving some of that edge back, and smiled when Andres lost his rhythm.

Eduardo came when Andres slipped a hand down between them and grasped Eduardo’s cock. He was already close, just from the friction of Andres’ stomach against him as they moved with each other, and it only took a couple of strokes before Eduardo scored his fingernails down Andres’ back and came, clenching around Andres and dragging him over with him.

It wasn’t acceptable to just crash out, like all of the guys that Eduardo had sex with before he moved to San Francisco had, even though his body felt heavy and sated. Andres let go of Eduardo’s wrists and smoothed his hands down the length of Eduardo’s shaky arms, making him shiver, cold in the air conditioned room.

When Andres rested his whole body weight against Eduardo and took Eduardo’s face in his hands, he struggled to breathe, for more than one reason. This wasn’t the way they did things. Andres’ smile was fond, and perhaps a bit sad. “I’m not going to see you again after this, am I?” he whispered in English, dragging the pads of his thumbs along Eduardo’s cheekbones.

It wasn’t that he’d actually made some big decision about his future or what he wanted to do with his life, or if even knew how to be happy, but it wasn’t hard at all to answer. He paused, forming the words in English carefully. “No, I don’t think so.”

The kiss that Andres pressed to Eduardo’s lips was sweet and almost chaste. “Querido,” he breathed against Eduardo’s mouth, and Eduardo couldn’t help himself anymore. He wrapped his arms around Andres’ back and held tight.

“I’m sorry,” Eduardo said softly, dragging his fingers up Andres’ spine and pushing them into his hair.

“Don’t apologize, Eduardo,” Andres said, burying his face in Eduardo’s shoulder. “Be happy.”

“I’m trying,” he whispered back, swallowing hard. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t think that he was just saying what someone else wanted to hear.

*****

Meetings with Sean were regular, but not often. A necessary evil of the work, and of having a pimp (ugh, Eduardo hated that, and hated more that it was Sean). They usually met up for coffee or a drink around once a month (or whenever Sean called and said, “Meet me this afternoon. I have to lay my eyes on you every once in a while to make sure you didn’t get fat or something.”), where Sean would give him as many of his advance appointments for the next month as he could. Eduardo also tried to avoid them until they were absolutely necessary, finding Sean much easier to take on the phone and through text messages.

This time, though, a few days after he got back from Sao Paulo and fifteen straight hours of thinking about his life on the flight back, he called Sean and asked to meet.

“Eduardo, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Sean, shut up. Seriously.”

The bar was slick and full of beautiful people (several of whom certainly weren’t old enough to be there) and completely Sean’s scene, from floor to ceiling.

Eduardo hated it. He had a great desire to turn around and go home, spend the rest of the night on the couch in his sweatpants.

But he knew he was there for a reason, that he needed to do this, and so he forced himself through the throngs to where Sean was sweet-talking some blond girl at the bar.

“Eduardo!” Sean exclaimed, clasping Eduardo’s hand and dragging him in for a back-slapping hug.

“Sean,” Eduardo acknowledged, shrugging out of the embrace. “I thought I said I needed to talk to you.” He gestured to the large, open space around them, packed full of people and so loud Eduardo could barely hear himself speak.

“We can talk here! Just...” Sean shouted, turning to the girl at his side, who was practically tottering on her five-inch heels and giggling, whispering something in her ear.

Sean led them both through the crowd to an almost-magically open table (sometimes Eduardo was convinced that Sean is a wizard, or an evil sorcerer or something) in the back, still loud but better than the bar.

“So,” Sean started, “to what do I owe this rare pleasure?”

Eduardo tried to consciously unclench his hands, balled into fists under the table. He didn’t know why he was so goddamn tense-he wanted to do this. He knew exactly what he had to do, and for once, he was going to listen to himself.

Might as well just rip off the band aid, deal with the pain, and start to move forward.

“I need to cut back my hours.”

Sean laughed and sipped at his drink. “Wow. I thought that four nights a week was a pretty sweet deal for the kind of money you bring in.” His tone didn’t match the sticky sweet smile on his face.

“Listen, Sean, I have some things I’m planning to do, and I need the time.”

“Some things you’re planning to do, huh?” Sean leaned forward, forearms flat on the table. He didn’t look happy. “Do you think you’re going to find something you’re better at?”

It was meant to cut, to wound somewhere deep, but what Sean didn’t know was that Eduardo was already so raw in that place that he couldn’t make it hurt any more than it already did. “Trust me, I know what I’m good at. And I know that this is what I need to do.”

Sean sighed. “Listen, don’t make me say you’re my best.”

“Thanks for the compliment, really. It warms my soul.”

“I just don’t want to lose you, okay?” Sean leaned forward even more, right into Eduardo’s personal space, almost earnest. “We’ll keep your regulars, cut out everything else. That should do it.”

Eduardo shook his head. “No, no more regulars. One time clients only. Two nights a week, tops.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Sean leaned back and put up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.” He paused and smiled, almost reptilian. “But you probably want to keep your boyfriend Zuckerberg, right?”

Eduardo smiled weakly and shook his head again. “I’m pretty sure that Mark wouldn’t want to see me again even if I wanted to keep him on my client list.”

“Okay,” Sean said, smile gone, sounding defeated. “Whatever you need. I’d rather have you around than lose you completely. I’ll work on clearing your schedule on Monday.”

Eduardo extended his hand, and Sean shook it firmly. “Pleasure doing business with you, as always.”

“I knew you loved me!” Sean called after Eduardo’s retreating back. Eduardo smiled and felt lighter than he could remember in a long time as he pushed open the door and felt the cool evening air against his skin.

*****

Tuesday morning, Eduardo took advantage of the increase in his free time and drove over the Bay Bridge, to Berkeley.

Well, to the Berkeley undergraduate admission office, to be precise. The transfer deadline was in two weeks, and he wanted to make sure that everything was in order.

He had made an appointment for an informational interview with Amy, one of the admission counselors, to talk about the feasibility of transferring for the fall semester. He brought an unofficial copy of his Yale transcript; it had taken him two days to find, deep inside his desk drawer, nearly forgotten after being hastily printed out as he packed up his boxes all those years ago.

After talking for fifteen minutes, Amy smiled and leaned toward Eduardo, a smile on her face, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. “To be honest, Eduardo, you’re not our typical transfer student. Valedictorian in high school, 4.0 at Yale, good extracurricular activities. My only question is: why do you want to go back to school after five years away? What have you been up to?”

He knew this question was coming. And he was so tired of lying, but he knew that he had to, one last time, to start to move on. “After I left Yale I came to San Francisco, and was lucky enough to get a job with a hedge fund manager in the city. I’ve been doing that ever since.”

Amy smiled, wider. “Transfer admission at Berkeley is quite selective, even for California residents, but I think you are a very competitive applicant. I look forward to your application, Eduardo.”

The possibilities swirled around in his head as he walked back to his car, and he couldn’t quite wipe the no-doubt creepy smile that was plastered across his face. He pulled his phone out of his pocket as he slid into his car, and thumbed through his e-mail.

He deleted a few spam e-mails, and passed over an e-mail from his mother (he didn’t want to deal with that at the moment, just because she’d decided to contact him-she hadn’t called in four months), and was about to throw his phone onto the seat next to him when he noticed an e-mail from an unfamiliar address.

To: Eduardo Saverin
From:
Subject: I am not a stalker, contrary to what this seems like

Eduardo,

Please don’t be mad and delete this. It took me a couple of days to wear Chris down and get him to tell me your last name, and fifteen minutes and some hacking skills I had forgotten I had to get your e-mail, and I would appreciate it if you would hear me out.

Sean called to say that you couldn’t see me anymore, which honestly wasn’t all that surprising after our last meeting. After some haranguing, he let it slip that you weren’t seeing regular clients at all. I couldn’t get him to confirm that you had actually come back from wherever you went, but I’ll just hope that you did and have decided to take a break or something.

Okay, the point. Why I hacked into Google (that part was just an extra helping of awesome) to contact you. I just wanted to tell you that I should never have said what I said to you, about your job. It wasn’t fair of me-in fact, it only contributed to the correct perception that I am a massive hypocrite and a more than occasional asshole. I had no right to ask you to do anything that wasn’t a part of our agreement.

What I can’t apologize for is wanting more than what you were able to offer me. Or for thinking that you are smart and funny and pretty fucking amazing, and wanting someone to tell you that every day, to be the one to tell you that.

That’s probably not fair either, but I’ll fall back on that asshole thing again and say that I just don’t care. I know that we met under less-than-ideal circumstances (in that I solicited your services for money), but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be something else. That we can’t be something else. And I know you felt it too.

I know that this whole thing is rather unorthodox, but I hope you’ll reply. Or maybe you won’t, I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t want any more Thursdays (or any other days, for that matter) without you.

Mark

It took Eduardo a minute to figure out that he wasn’t actually having a seizure, but that his hand was shaking, the text blurring in front of him. It felt like all of the air in the car, what little of it there had been, was gone.

Fuck.

Three weeks ago, he knew exactly what he would have done. He would have deleted the message and forgotten all about it, or at least done his very best to pretend that he had. He knew that everything, the tectonic plates underneath his life, were shifting and moving, because instead, he hit reply.

To:
From: Eduardo Saverin
Subject: I’ll take your word for it on the stalker thing

Apology accepted, for what it’s worth. Thank you. But Mark, I can’t be what you want right now. I don’t know that I ever will be, to be honest, but I’m trying to be what I want.

I hope you understand, and please try to let it go. To let me go.

Eduardo

And then Eduardo hit send, before he could think about it too much, before he could erase the whole damn message and type yes yes yes the way he wanted to. And the thing was, he was starting to realize that he could do that, that it would be okay, but he also knew that there were so many other things he needed to do before he could let himself have something like this-this tiny, bright, shining thing that threatened to burn him up from the inside.

He was certain that Mark would be long gone by then.

Still, Eduardo let himself hope, and laugh as he navigated the few blocks to Chez Panisse, driving just a bit too fast, to take himself out to a well-deserved lunch.

*****

It turned out that Mark was a terrible listener, and Eduardo was not at all surprised. A week later, his phone beeped as he was submitting all of his electronic materials to Berkeley, and once he’d finished and closed out of the website, he found another e-mail from Mark.

I know you told me to back off. I’m going to be the asshole I’ve been told I am so very good at being for now, and not listen, sorry.

I realized that I never told you when I called Sean in the first place. I asked you so many questions but I never told you about my own motivations. The truth is, I was lonely. Sad, right? I had just crashed out of two relationships when it became glaringly obvious that it was all about the money, and wanting to change me. It was like I wanted to know that if I was going to have to pay for it anyway, I wanted everyone to go into it with eyes wide open. I just wanted to be with someone who didn’t want anything else from me, who didn’t expect me to be someone I wasn’t.

And a month later, when he got the letter in the mail that said Congratulations! It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Class of 2013 and the University of California at Berkeley., he also got another e-mail from Mark. He hadn’t answered the last three, which had come about once a week, conversational and confessional and Eduardo could hear Mark’s voice, like he was in the room, every time.

I know I said that I wasn’t really a creepy stalker, but I’ll admit at this point that at least my behavior is in line with that profile.

Eduardo, I know I don’t have the right to know anything about you. I just want to know that you’re okay.

Eduardo was still smiling, the acceptance letter clutched in his hand, when he sat down to open up his e-mail on his laptop and hit reply.

You’re right, you don’t have a right to know. But I do want to tell you: I am doing okay. Better. There are some things I need to do, and I need to do them alone.

I know it would be stupid at this point to ask you to stop e-mailing me. I’m sure you’ll ignore me. But I don’t think I can be your pen pal right now.

Sorry.

Surprisingly, Eduardo didn’t feel upset or sad, he didn’t even feel bad about what he said to Mark. And he really didn’t want Mark to stop writing. Not even a little bit.

He logged out of his e-mail and shut his computer, placing the letter on top and smoothing it down. The smile had never really left his lips, and he just sat there, for a long time, staring down a fork in the road, a different possibility. And he couldn’t help being thrilled by it.

Finally, he got up, leaving the letter where it was, and picked up his phone, typing out a text to Sean.

Consider this my one month notice. I quit.

*****

To say that Sean wasn’t happy was an understatement (his string of caps lock filled texts might have been a clue), but when Eduardo finally caved and answered after the fiftieth time Sean called (that was no exaggeration-Eduardo had forty nine missed calls on his phone from Sean), Sean just sighed.

“I’m not surprised, Eduardo, I’m just disappointed,” Sean said, with a hint of whine in his voice that was not at all flattering.

“I know, Sean,” Eduardo said, and he took a deep breath before he continued, “and I want you to know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me over the past couple of years. So, thanks.”

“You’re going to miss me, I knew it!” Sean said, then his voice turned smug. “And you’re going to miss the money.”

It wasn’t even worth rolling his eyes. “Well, of course I appreciate it, but do you have any idea how much money I’ve made in the last five years?” Not to mention the three hundred thousand I brought with me to San Francisco. “I don’t have to work for a long time.”

That seemed to shut Sean up for a minute, because Eduardo didn’t need what Sean was offering. He didn’t need anyone, in fact. He’d worked for years, literally sold himself, to be in the position he was in. He had his investment accounts open on his computer as he juggled his phone to his other ear, and he smiled at how well everything had been doing while he’d been living off of cash. He hadn’t taken anything out of his accounts since he had withdrawn the down payment for his apartment, just let the deposits pile up and his good investment decisions pay dividends. In truth, he’d been so distracted for the last few months he hadn’t checked in to see how his investments were doing.

Eduardo had almost dropped his laptop the night before he sent the text to Sean, telling him he was through, realizing that he could pay off his mortgage, and have enough not to work for as long as he was in school, and for a while after that. There were zeros there he wasn’t really expecting to see.

“You’ll miss the work then. You’re too good at it not to.”

When Eduardo thought about the work (the sex, making people feel good, everything else that went along with it), he knew that he would miss it. The sex wasn’t the problem at all-he loved that part of it. That had never been a problem for him.

Over the last couple of months, though, he felt like he’d started to put down the heavy weights he’d been carrying for so many years, one by one, until he felt lighter than he’d ever been.

He knew that it was time for him to do something because it made him feel good. And he knew that he was just starting to figure out what that something might be.

“Yes, I will. But I’m still walking away.”

Sean made a defeated sound, like maybe (thankfully) he was finally giving up, letting it go. “It’s been good knowing you, Eduardo. I’ll call you some time, we can get a drink and catch up. And call me if you change your mind.”

“Sure, Sean,” Eduardo said, ending the call, and clicking around to the listing of courses at Berkeley’s summer session. Truth be told, now that he knew what the next few years of his life were going to look like, that they were going to be different, he couldn’t wait to get started.

And who knew, maybe he would take Sean up on that drink someday.

*****

April gave way to May, then June. Eduardo had never really gotten used to the fact that the calendar said summer, but that, in San Francisco, the weather never really changed. He hadn’t gotten the stifling Miami heat out of his bones, and it was still strange that he needed his sweatshirt in June, the first morning of his Intro to Complex Analysis class at Berkeley.

It also turned out that he hadn’t changed much-school still made him uptight and anxious, and he decided to leave way earlier than he needed to and to take the BART, because he couldn’t stop thinking about getting stuck in a freak midday traffic jam on the Bay Bridge.

Eduardo sat down on the train, feeling more like a stereotypical college student than he ever had at Yale, in his jeans and hoodie, his iPod headphones stuffed in his ears. It felt really, really good, like another thing he was letting go.

It took him about three minutes to start scrolling through his e-mail.

Mark was still writing. Every few days now, even though Eduardo hadn’t written back since the initial interaction. Strangely, Mark seemed okay with that.

Eduardo was more than okay with it.

In truth, he waited for the e-mails, for Mark’s stream of consciousness rants and philosophical ruminations, full of sharp edges and pretentious vocabulary and alarming honesty.

It turned out that Valleywag (god, they hated Mark so much, it was as if they had made portraying him as some kind of robot/monster/despot their personal mission)-along with almost everything else-was completely wrong about Mark Zuckerberg.

When I was twenty, I tried to screw Chris and Dustin out of Facebook. I was convinced they weren’t in it for the right reasons, or something-it’s hard to even pin it down now. I was young and stupid and paranoid, and I’m so grateful they didn’t let me do it.

I’ve worked pretty hard to stop being an asshole over the last few years. I still need reminders every once in a while, but it’s amazing how people respond to you when you think about how they’ll feel if you say the first thing that comes to your mind. I think that Chris and Dustin still think that I always have something cruel and cutting on the tip on my tongue, and while it’s true I don’t suffer fools, but I’m not twenty anymore.

I’m terrified of what happens after this. Chris wants to move on, and he will soon, and I know Dustin will too. They have ideas, plans, hopes and dreams, and honestly, I don’t have any. This was what I dreamed up, and I’m scared that someday, Facebook will fade into obscurity, and so will I.

There was a part of him that wanted to write back, to tell Mark everything, to pour out every tiny piece of himself to Mark until there was nothing left hidden in the deep, dark corners inside.

He wanted, and it had been so long since he had felt that way and let himself acknowledge it, and not try to push away, down, somewhere where he wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Eduardo stuffed his phone back into his pocket and turned up the music, flooding his ears with the pounding base line and drowning out the sound of the train. He tipped his head back against the seat, closing his eyes.

That morning, he’d picked up his mail on the way out of the building and found a large, ivory envelope inside. He stuck the rest of his mail back into the box, shutting it and tearing into the envelope.

Eduardo couldn’t help but laugh, because inside was a beautiful, simple invitation on crisp white paper, to the wedding of Christine Lee and David Sullivan, in East Hampton in September. Christy, who had taught him everything he really knew about the business, who had been the guiding voice of reason in his head over these last few years, had decided to throw her own rules out the window.

He traced the deep black embossed print with his fingertips, hoping that no one was around to watch him laughing in the lobby of his building, clutching a wedding invitation in his hands.

Eduardo couldn’t stop thinking about Christy, how he’d never seen her look so damn happy before he saw her in that coffee shop, with that ring on her finger. How he’d never really felt the way he did on those Thursdays with Mark, ever before. Not in Miami, or at Yale, or in San Francisco. Only with a brilliant Silicon Valley billionaire whiz kid, with asshole inclinations and the ability to see right through every single layer of Eduardo’s carefully constructed bullshit.

Taking Christy’s advice had worked exceedingly well up to this point, and he might be smart to keep following her lead.

*****

Eduardo turned in his midterm exam for his Climate Change course on a sunny mid-October afternoon. He was smiling as he packed up his bag and slung it over his shoulder, making his way out into the warm sun.

He was in a particularly good mood that morning as he made his way through the Berkeley streets and merged onto the 880, heading south.

A week ago, Eduardo called Sean. It had been late, later than Eduardo usually stayed awake unless he was out with a client, closer to morning than night.

It was still a little strange that it had been months since he had anyone else’s schedule to be concerned about but his own.

“Eduardo?” Sean had answered, dubious and wide awake (probably artificially so, knowing him), and Eduardo was surprised that all he could muster for Sean now was a kind of annoyed affection. “To what do I owe this honor, college boy?

Eduardo had no idea how Sean knew that he was in school, and to be honest, he didn’t really want to. “I need a phone number. Chris Hughes, from Facebook.”

“No way,” Sean said, with no hesitation. “I can’t give out that kind of client information, you know that.”

Taking a deep breath, Eduardo said, “Sean, I have never asked you for anything. Not one thing, in three years.” He paused. “Please.”

Sean didn’t say anything, and after a minute, Eduardo was worried that Sean had hung up, which would just be so fucking perfect. “Fuck,” Sean finally said, then muttered, “I have no fucking idea why I’m doing this, and for someone who can’t even be fucked to work for me anymore...”

Eduardo didn’t care-he was grinning ear to ear as he took down the number that Sean read to him grudgingly, and laughed while Sean told him not to do anything crazy.

He wasn’t sure he could promise that. All of this felt insane-like hurtling toward something bright and hot and dangerous, but he was pretty sure that he couldn’t stop now that he’d decided to start.

So he called Chris, and met up with him at a bar in the Castro. Eduardo told him what he wanted to do, his whole stupid crazy plan that had taken him months to be ready for. And at the end, Chris smiled at him, warm and happy, and said, “I’m in.”

Eduardo hadn’t seen a client in more than five months. It was strange at first, because he could barely remember what it had been like before. He’d never lived in a city, in his own apartment, without a job, without clients to see. He’d gone out to the clubs a couple of times over the last few months and picked someone up, not because he felt like he needed to, but because he wanted to see what it was like-sex on his own terms.

Ultimately, he had liked his work. He wasn’t ashamed of what he’d done, but he knew that it was time for him to focus on himself, what Eduardo might want out of life, rather than worrying about the needs of others all the time. He had spent way too much of his life doing what someone else wanted him to do.

Slowly, things had changed and shifted for him, through the days of class and writing papers and discovering something new and exciting-discovering his mind all over again-and reading line after line on a computer screen that were meant for just him. It had taken him until a warm September day on the beach on Long Island, Christy gorgeous and beaming in white, for him to realize that he deserved this too. All of it. Someone who didn’t just want him for the way he looked, what he was like in bed, but for all of it. The dirty and the beautiful, the broken and the whole.

He danced with Christy towards the end of the night, holding her small body, loose with wine and joy, tight to him, her hands clasped around his neck. She smiled at him and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “You go get your boy, baby.”

So he followed the signs for the Oregon Expressway, then travelled through the Palo Alto streets until he turned onto S. California Avenue. He had his name on the security clearance list, and his phone on the passenger seat, open to an e-mail that he’d received the day before.

Eduardo, I’m not going to stop writing. I know you’re there, reading this, and as long as I know that, then I won’t give up.

Eduardo threw the car into park and took a deep breath. Yeah, I’m here, he thought, before he climbed out of the car.

*****

There was a part of Eduardo that was certain this wouldn’t work, that some part of this plan hatched with Chris would come unraveled, but he made it through security, showing his license and getting a smile and a temporary ID badge as he walked into Facebook headquarters.

When they met, Chris told Eduardo exactly how to get to Mark’s office once he was in the building (“make a left after security, go to the third floor, then a left and right. It will be pretty obvious where Mark is when you get up there”), and Eduardo followed his instructions. They led him to a large room with an open floor plan. He spotted a door straight ahead, a room with wide, floor to ceiling windows. And Mark, sitting with his back to the rest of the room, headphones around his neck and typing furiously.

Eduardo stood in Mark’s doorway for a few minutes, studying the pale, soft skin (he could remember what he felt like beneath his fingertips) at the back of Mark’s neck. Mark hadn’t moved at all since Eduardo approached, completely focused on the screen in front of him. If he didn’t already know that he was completely done in, then how adorable he found Mark’s utter lack of awareness about his surroundings would have clued him in.

Finally, Eduardo cleared his throat, folding his arms across his chest. When Mark didn’t respond, he said, “Mark,” at least three times before Mark’s fingers stalled, Mark’s body going completely still.

Then, he swiveled around in his chair, eyes locking with Eduardo’s. His eyes were wide, startled, and his mouth was open just slightly. It made Eduardo want to kiss him.

“Holy fuck,” Mark breathed, clutching the arms of his chair, white knuckled. “What are you doing here?”

“Well,” Eduardo said playfully, swallowing down his nerves, “considering you’ve been e-mail stalking me for months now, I figured it would fine. Chris helped me out.”

Mark moved his mouth, like he thought he should say something, but couldn’t get the synapses firing properly, to get the words from his brain to his lips. “Remind me to kill him later,” Mark said, tone flat, emotionless.

“I don’t think you should kill him. I needed to come and talk to you.”

“You’re wearing jeans,” Mark said inanely. Eduardo wasn’t quite sure that he’d blinked since Eduardo came to the door.

“Those are some finely tuned observational skills you have, Mark. Did they teach those to you at Harvard?”

“Much better than they do at Yale, anyway,” Mark shot back, and Eduardo felt comforted, because it was obvious that while Mark was in some kind of shock at seeing Eduardo in his office, he was still just fine, still himself.

Eduardo stepped inside the office and turned to push the door shut behind him. “I need to tell you some things.”

“No, Eduardo, it’s--”

“And I need to you to just listen,” Eduardo said firmly, cutting Mark off. Mark didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded anyway.

Eduardo had thought about this moment for a long time-exactly what he would say to Mark if he ever got the chance. And once he’d finally decided to do this, to call Chris and plan the grand gesture, he started to think about the details. Because the truth was, while there had always been a connection between him and Mark, something that ran underneath their skin and down below every rational thought and all reason, they didn’t know each other. What they did know of each other was tainted by the way they knew it, by the thousands of dollars that Mark had paid Eduardo to be there on those Thursday nights.

He wanted Mark to know him. If this was ever going to happen, then Mark would have to know him for who he really was, and on his own terms.

The truth was that Eduardo never really thought of himself as brave, but he knew that he was capable of the kind of braveness that allowed you to leave everything you’ve ever known and move across the country by yourself at twenty one years old, to not speak to your father for years, to talk yourself into a job at a hedge fund with no degree, and to take Peter Thiel’s card at a party.

Eduardo needed-he wanted-to be that brave now, with this. He fixed his eyes on Mark, and started to talk.

“When I was twenty, my dad made a business trip to New York and decided that a side trip to visit his son in New Haven would be a good idea. I was too stupid or reckless to lock the damn door, and he caught me in a bed with a guy.”

“He freaked out-needless to say, I did not sleep with that guy ever again-and tried to get me to tell him it was just a one time thing, that it was some kind of phase. When I wouldn’t, he told me that he wasn’t going to pay for some queer’s college education. I didn’t really believe he was serious until I got to Miami for winter break and he’d changed the locks on the house.” Eduardo shook his head, remembering standing in the humid Miami night on the doorstep of his parents’ house, the keys in his hand falling with a loud clang onto the steps. “And until I called Yale’s student accounts office to find out that my dad had stopped payment on his spring semester tuition check. I didn’t know what else to do, so I picked somewhere as far away as I could think of at the time, where my dad didn’t know anyone, and moved across the country.”

When Eduardo paused, he saw that Mark looked livid, like he wanted to reach back in time and kick Eduardo’s father’s ass for something that was further away than even Eduardo had thought it was. It still hurt, the sting of being sliced out of his family like a cancer, so easily, but he couldn’t even muster up any real anger with his father any more.

“I’m okay, Mark, I am. I spent the last five years trying to please a whole succession of men, like some kind of substitute for pleasing my father, even though I thought it was a fuck you. I was fine, but it wasn’t until I met you that I realized that I could do things to make myself happy and not worry about what someone else thought, and that it could be all right.”

“Eduardo,” Mark said, his voice rough, the anger still stretched across his face. “I never wanted to make you feel that way. I never felt like I owned you, not ever. I wanted you to want to be there.”

“I know,” Eduardo said softly, shifting his feet. “But it was still that way, even if you didn’t want it to be.”

Mark’s face crumpled, like someone had stabbed him in the gut, opened him up for everyone to see. “Oh,” he said flatly, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms tightly around his body, closing himself off layer by layer. “Is that what you came here to say then? Thanks, but no thanks? Because I have to tell you, I would have preferred you didn’t break into my office to tell me that. E-mail would suffice.”

Eduardo wanted to reach out, to soothe, to tell Mark that he was here to say something entirely different, and he realized that he didn’t have to hold himself back, not anymore. So he walked toward Mark and dropped down to his knees on the gray carpet.

“No,” he said carefully, placing his hands on Mark’s thighs, right above his knees, hearing Mark’s barely there inhalation and feeling the searing heat of Mark’s skin through his jeans. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like. “I came here to ask you to dinner.”

Mark frowned, reaching down and circling his fingers around Eduardo’s wrists, as if he meant to push Eduardo away. “What?” he said incredulously.

“I want to go out with you,” Eduardo said quickly, imploringly, wanting to get the words in before Mark shut him out completely. “I want to take you out to dinner and have you be sarcastic to the waitress in a way she doesn’t understand and I want to take you to a movie that you’ll tear apart afterward, and I want to take you to Berkeley and show you where my classes are, where I get coffee. I want to hang out with you and Dustin and Chris. I want to know you, Mark, and I know that we sort of got this whole thing backward, what with the sex first and everything, but I want to do this right. I don’t want to fuck this up.”

Mark didn’t answer right away, but Eduardo hoped that the way Mark stared at him, eyes wide open, none of the hurt or confusion that was there on his face just a few moments ago, was a good sign. He planted his hands on Mark’s thighs and pushed himself to his feet, holding out his hand to Mark, asking.

It was the most terrifying, thrilling, breathless moment of his life, like the first drop at the beginning of a roller coaster.

When Mark’s mouth quirked up to the side, the smile that had hooked Eduardo right from the beginning, and he clasped Eduardo’s hand, Eduardo felt the drop in his stomach, like careening down a two hundred foot decline. He pulled Mark to his feet, flush up against Eduardo, their foreheads pressing together. Mark’s hands on his hips were absolutely steady, like they always had been.

Mark wasn’t just grinning anymore-he was smiling, his whole face lit up in a way that Eduardo had never really seen, and Eduardo couldn’t help but do the same in return. Because for once, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“You know,” Mark said, breath hot against Eduardo’s mouth as he spoke, “this isn’t how I thought it would go from watching Pretty Woman. I was expecting to have to climb up your fire escape.”

Eduardo rolled his eyes. “Shut up,” he growled, and then he shut him up by pressing his mouth to Mark’s, hot and real and everything.

EPILOGUE

Eduardo did take Mark out for dinner the next night, at Chez Panisse (yes, he had a problem, he could admit it)-a big upgrade from their takeout dinners at Mark’s house. It was lovely and awkward and perfect. The truth was, Eduardo was a little scared that everything he’d thought was true about how he felt about Mark and their connection was all in his head, but it definitely wasn’t.

Mark frowned when Eduardo shook his head at Mark’s offer to come in for a drink, once they’d reached Mark’s driveway. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?” he said, and leaned in for a kiss to Mark’s slack, startled mouth.

That weekend, they did a movie (Eduardo had been completely right about Mark’s ability for biting critique) and then went over to Dustin’s place to play video games. At the end of the night, Eduardo kissed Mark goodnight on his front steps, hands pressed to the warm skin of Mark’s chest through his t-shirt, and headed to his car.

He could tell Mark was frustrated, and, hell-so was he, but he didn’t want to skip ahead in the order this time. He wanted to do this exactly like he was supposed to (and maybe, give Mark the opportunity to realize that Eduardo wasn’t worth it, although that belief was fading day by day).

On a Friday in February, Eduardo got up early and drove to Berkeley, to turn in a fifteen page paper that had kept him up most of the night; he was half-delirious with it. It probably wasn’t a good idea to be driving at all in his state, let alone all the way to Palo Alto, but he couldn’t stop himself.

Eduardo and Mark had been dating for two months, and it had been exactly what Eduardo had hoped it would be. Because Mark was an asshole, yes, and stuck his foot in his mouth every single time they were together, but he was also fierce and smart and unexpectedly sweet, when he dropped his guard. It felt strange, every time, to leave before their clothes came off (and he knew Mark would have been happy if they had come off, but he wasn’t pushing), but it also felt right.

They’d gotten as far as making out, horizontal on Mark’s insanely comfortable couch, Mark’s hot palms up underneath Eduardo’s shirt. “Do you want-” Mark started hoarsely, pausing to clear his throat.

“Yes, I want to,” Eduardo said, trying to catch his own breath, calm down. “But-”

Mark sighed and pulled his hands away, wrapping them around Eduardo’s neck and kissing him softly. “I know. I’m also not going to think differently of you if we have sex.”

“I know that too.” And he did know that. But he wanted to be absolutely sure that Mark knew that.

Mark had been patient, if not always gracious, about Eduardo’s caginess. Eduardo was insanely grateful for it. But now, as he went fifteen miles above the speed limit down the 880, he was done with worrying so much.

He was a little surprised that the security guard at Facebook just let him in and handed him the temp ID with no hesitation. When he got to Mark’s office, Mark was sitting there, laughing at something Dustin was saying while Dustin perched on the back on Mark’s couch.

“Hey,” Eduardo said, and Dustin teetered and fell to the floor. “Jesus, Dustin, are you okay?”

“Fine, fine, hey, Eduardo,” Dustin said, groaning and pushing himself up from the floor.

“Hey,” Mark said, his smile fading into something warmer, more familiar, with heat. Eduardo wanted to black out the windows and throw Dustin out and lock the door. “How’d the paper go?”

“It’s done,” Eduardo said distractedly, shrugging, staring at Mark. Out of the corner of his eye, Dustin was up on his feet and clearing his throat obviously.

“Well,” Dustin said, shuffling toward the door with a shit-eating grin on his face, “I’ll just leave you two alone.”

“You okay?” Mark said once Dustin was gone, standing up and coming over to cup his hand around Eduardo’s neck. “You seem weird.”

It felt like Mark’s hand was going to burn right through his skin, and he closed his eyes, calculating how fast he could get them to Mark’s house if he broke the land speed record. When he opened his eyes, Mark was staring at him, frowning.

“Any reason you can’t leave right now?

“What?”

Eduardo reached out and tugged Mark in, dislodging his hand (which was a shame), but bringing their bodies flush. “I hope you can leave, because I’d really like to fuck at your house instead of your office.”

Mark swallowed roughly. “Staying here wouldn’t be so bad.”

Eduardo smiled and leaned in close to Mark’s ear. “Your bed will be better,” and that earned him a gratifying shudder.

“Just let me shut down,” Mark rasped, and tugged Eduardo, laughing, to the desk with him, like he didn’t want to break contact, not for one second.

*****

In the familiar bedroom with its familiar bed and familiar french doors, Mark seemed to lose some of his momentum, hesitant and stumbling. It was kind of endearing, to be honest, but also strange. For all of Mark’s social awkwardness in general, he had always been confident when it came to sex.

Maybe before he was sure of his welcome (he had paid for it, after all), and now he wasn’t.

“Mark,” Eduardo said, pulling Mark in close and framing Mark’s face with his hands. “I want this. We’ve both waited for this, okay?”

“I’m fine, Eduardo,” Mark said irritably, but Eduardo knew him well enough now to know that the look in his eyes was relief.

After that, Mark calmed down, and in some ways, it was exactly like it had been before. The heat between them, the playfulness, the sheer intensity of it. But in some ways, it was brand new, the way that Mark took the time to press kisses into the thin skin on the inside of Eduardo’s wrists and to slide his palms up the back of Eduardo’s thighs. It felt as good as it had before, but it also felt entirely different.

They fucked face to face, quiet, close enough to share breath as Mark pushed inside of him and lit up everything behind Eduardo’s eyelids like the Fourth of July.

Afterward, they slept, on and off, Mark’s chest plastered to Eduardo’s back, legs and arms twined together. “Are you awake?” Mark said softly into Eduardo’s ear, the huff of breath making him squirm.

“Yeah.”

Mark didn’t say anything. Eduardo sighed. “Is there something you needed?”

It was silent for a moment, and then, “I’m trying to figure out whether or not telling you I love you at this moment would be negated based on the fact that it’s post-coital.”

Eduardo wriggled until he got Mark’s grip loose enough to turn around to face him. His heart was pounding. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” Mark said, frowning, curling into himself.

That was not what he wanted, at all. He felt a little like he wanted to throw up, like his heart was going to explode out of his chest, but what he really wanted was-“Say it again.”

“Eduardo.”

“Mark, just say it again, okay?”

Mark looked annoyed, but he didn’t look away. “I love you.”

There was a part of Eduardo that was telling him to run, to get as far away as he could, because this was more than he could be expected to take. And the other part of him, the part that had led him here, was telling him to stay right where he was. Forever, preferably. “Jesus,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said, stiff and shifting uncomfortably all of the sudden, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, Mark, no,” Eduardo said, wrapping his arms around Mark’s back. “Don’t take it back. I just-” he opened his eyes to look at Mark’s face, his blue eyes, the cut of his jawline, the stubble on his chin because he’d forgotten to shave for a few days. The hope in his eyes that you could only see if you knew to look for it.

Eduardo had learned how to look.

“I don’t know that I can say it back,” he said, moving one hand to Mark’s face, his thumb running along Mark’s cheekbone. “I want to, but-”

“It’s okay,” Mark said, cutting him off, his mouth quirking up on one side. Eduardo couldn’t help himself-he let his thumb drift to Mark’s bottom lip. For the first time in his life, he believed that what Mark was saying was true, absolutely. Mark shook his head, his smile betraying him, and reached up to pull Eduardo’s hand away from his face, lacing their fingers together. “I’ll wait.”

And he did.

Eduardo got there, on a cool, breezy late March morning, much like the one on which he’d walked out on Mark a year ago, the sun warming the pale skin of Mark’s exposed back, in Eduardo’s bed. He wasn’t sure that Mark was even awake when he said it, which was a bit of a relief, but then he felt Mark’s body go stiff under his palm. Mark turned over, lower lip caught between his teeth. “Say it again.”

“You’re an asshole, you heard me.”

“Say it again,” Mark said, smiling brightly, and Eduardo couldn’t help but laugh, pushing Mark down into the bed, and saying it over and over again into Mark’s mouth, until Mark kissed him and said it back.