Boys Like You Love Me Forever - 2/2
* * * * *
But then it happens like this: Marcus is driving home from school after football practice, looking up at the gathering clouds through his windshield and gauging his chances of getting there before the coming thunderstorm hits, when he sees Esca on the side of the road, kneeling on the asphalt and fiddling with his apparently broken bicycle.
For the past two weeks, Marcus has kept his new resolution and stayed far away from Esca. He has stopped taking the long way to his locker in the mornings, has stopped saying hello or smiling at Esca. In Calculus, he keeps his gaze fixed firmly on Mr. Cradoc or the chalkboard. In the cafeteria, he doesn’t look over at Esca’s table on other side of the large hall. In his head, he stops playing the “what-if” game, stops fantasizing about things that are never going to happen.
“You’re really serious, huh?” Cottia had asked during lunch period today. “You’re really letting this go?”
“I don’t really have much of a choice.”
Cottia had looked over at Esca’s table for a second. “He’s been staring at you. Ever since that scene, he’s been looking at you.”
Marcus had forcefully clamped down on the flare of hope that followed Cottia’s words. “Well, he isn’t getting a rise out of me. He’s done his damage. Good for him. But I’m not giving him the satisfaction of watching me bleed.”
He had sounded more tired than angry, and Cottia must have noticed the distinction, because she’d responded with a sympathetic look and quickly moved them along to a completely different topic of conversation. Marcus had never been more grateful to her than he was in that moment.
But now, here he is, easing off the accelerator as he tries to decide what to do about Esca. The thunderstorm is going to hit any minute. The wind has already picked up, creating a small hurricane of leaves and dirt as the sky grows darker by the nanosecond. Marcus doesn’t know how far away Esca lives, but he is almost certain Esca won’t make it home before the storm, not if he’s dragging along a broken bicycle. He should go. This doesn’t have anything to do with him. Esca isn’t his concern. Marcus is very clear on that now. But then again-Marcus sneaks another quick glance at the clouds overhead-he can’t just drive by and leave Esca alone in a storm. He couldn’t do that to anyone. Already resigned to his fate, Marcus pulls up behind Esca and parks his car.
“Is everything alright?” Marcus asks when he climbs out of the car.
Esca looks up at him in surprise. Then, strangely enough, he blushes, cheeks and ears going red as he stands up and wipes his hands on his skin-tight jeans. “I…uh…the chain, it kept going slack all week, and now it’s broken.”
Marcus eyes the broken bicycle. It’s an old bike, probably refurbished at a local bike shop or something. Because, God forbid Esca ruin his hipster cred by buying a brand new, working bicycle from Walmart or something. Marcus pushes away the bitter thought and looks down again. He isn’t terribly familiar with bicycles, not enough to be any real help beside getting Esca home.
“Do you live near here?” he asks. “I can drive you home.”
Instantly, Esca’s expression closes off. “I don’t need any help from you. I can get home fine on my own.”
“There’s a storm coming, or did you miss that somehow?” Esca stares at him blankly. “Fine,” Marcus says. “Suit yourself. I don’t even know why I bothered.”
He turns around and starts walking back to the car, but just before he reaches out to open the driver side door, Esca calls out.
“Wait. I didn’t mean-it was…nice of you to stop. I think I’ll take you up on that offer…if it’s still open.”
Marcus takes a deep breath. Then he opens the door.
“Hey-”
“I’m just opening the trunk,” he explains, before bending down to pull the lever by the driver’s seat. He grimaces as he straightens back up, his leg throbbing a little. Coach Guern had made him run suicides for twenty minutes today during football practice after Marcus had messed up two plays because he’d gotten distracted thinking about what Cottia had said about Esca at lunch period.
He walks back to Esca, and together, they pick up the bike and carry it over to the back of the car. They do their best to get the bulk of it into the trunk, at least enough to safeguard against the bike falling out onto the road. Afterward, Marcus gets into the car and waits for Esca to climb in. They ride in silence, save for Esca’s muttered directions and the increasingly frequent claps of thunder. By the time they reach Esca’s house, a modest Victorian on a tree-lined street, the rain is pounding down hard on the roof of Marcus’ car and visibility is shot to hell. He pulls into the empty driveway, and, once again, they carry the bicycle together, this time to the covered porch of Esca’s house. When they set it down, Marcus runs a hand over his face, wiping away the raindrops. His hair is wet with it, and his school-issue, gray hoodie is hopelessly damp. Another clap of thunder shatters the air as the rain picks up, coming down in sheets. Marcus can’t drive home in that…but he can’t stay here with Esca either.
“You can come inside,” Esca says quietly, avoiding Marcus’ eyes. “Wait out the storm.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Marcus says with an edge of bitterness to his tone. “I should get going.”
Esca meets his gaze briefly. “You can’t drive in that. That’s practically begging for something bad to happen.”
“Since when do you care?” Marcus shoots back.
For a split-second, Esca looks chastened. “Look, just come inside. The storm will probably pass soon and then you can go.” He unlocks the front door and walks inside, holding the door open for Marcus. “Are you in or out?” he prompts when Marcus doesn’t move.
“Fine, just until the rain eases up a bit,” Marcus says before following Esca into the house.
“I can put your hoodie in the dryer,” Esca offers after he leads Marcus into the warmly-decorated living room.
“I’ll be gone soon. It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you want something to drink?” Esca asks.
“I’m just waiting for the storm to let up. You don’t need to play hostess.”
“So what are we going to do, sit and stare at our shoes until the storm passes?”
“You’ve already proven your talent for ignoring me. This should be a cakewalk for you. And why would you want to hear anything a marching ant has to say? What was I again? A mindless hyper-mainstream drone without an original thought in his vacant head. Correct me if I missed anything there. I wouldn’t want to misquote you.”
Esca scowls. “Listen,” he begins, only for Marcus to cut him off.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” he says holding up his hands in front of him. “I should just go. This was a bad idea.”
“It’s still pouring outside,” Esca says in a condescending tone, like he thinks Marcus is a five year-old.
“Yeah?” Marcus replies, anger rising after two weeks of doing his best to keep it at bay. “Maybe I’d take pneumonia and driving my car into a streetlight over being stuck with someone who thinks I’m lower than something he scraped off the bottom of his hipster shoes.”
“I never said that.”
“No, you just heavily implied it. Well, I’m sorry that I’m so mainstream. I’m sorry I shop at the Gap and that I’ve never been within a hundred yards of a vintage clothing store. I’m sorry I don’t wear oversized glasses I don’t need and that I’ll never own a pair of skinny jeans. I’m sorry I don’t smoke Parliaments and I think Pabst Blue Ribbon tastes like cat piss. I’m sorry I didn’t like Grizzly Bear before they were cool and I have zero desire to move to Brooklyn or San Francisco. I’m sorry I don’t quote Camus or read Kerouac and I think Wes Anderson films are kind of overrated. I’m sorry I’ve never done anything ironically in my entire life and I never will. I’m sorry I’m so unoriginal. I’m sorry I play high school football and I’m good at what I do. And I’m especially sorry that I’m not sorry at all!”
Esca looks as stunned as Marcus feels after the uncontrollable stream of words he just let out, and for a brief, heart-stopping moment, they simply stare at each other in silence. Then Esca pulls himself back together again and slaps on a disdainful look.
“If you’re expecting me to apologize, you’re going to be waiting forever. Actually, no, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry that you’re just another brainless jock who thinks rugby-I mean, football-is the be all and end all of everything. Why does some silly game mean so much to you?”
“It isn’t some silly game. Not to me. Football is-why bother, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
Marcus hesitates, instinct clamoring against telling Esca anything, against revealing open wounds. “My father played football from the day he could walk,” he starts quietly, eyes fixed on the floor. “He won the Heisman trophy his senior year at Ohio State and got drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. All my best childhood memories are from football season. All those home games when I’d sit in the stadium with my mom and watch my dad march out in green and white, leader of the team. I used to think there couldn’t be anything better than that, to run the length of the field, to march with the Eagles. Then, one season it all started to go south. My father and the new head coach didn’t get along and my father took to calling his own plays mid-game. They went up north to play the Lions for the division championship, and my father did it again, only this time, it cost the team their first shot at the Superbowl in fifteen years. He never came back from that. It was a downward spiral for two more seasons until they let him go. After that, everything else went to hell. He started drinking, disappearing for days at a time. My mother almost fainted a few times, pushing the limits of the soulbond just to track him down.
“The night it happened, we had just picked him up from a police station in West Philly. My father was falling-down drunk and they were screaming at each other in the front seat when the truck hit us dead-on. My mother died at the wheel. They told me later that the wrecked car door cut into my leg. When I woke up in the hospital, I’d been unconscious for two days and my father was a mess. He kept saying “it’s all over, it’s all over” and he was right. A couple months after I was released from the hospital, he sold our house and drove me down here to stay with his older brother. Just for a little while, he said, but he never came back. I went through another surgery on my leg and a year of physical therapy before I could walk properly again, and he wasn’t here for any of it. He abandoned me.
“I play because it was important to him. I work twice as hard as everyone else on the team to be the best that I can be. Because a part of me dreams that someday, I’ll march into stadiums with the Eagles too, that someday, he’ll hear my name or see me on television and he’ll come. I dream that one day, I’ll find my father out there. I’ll look up to the stands after a game, and he’ll be waiting for me. And he’ll put his hand on my shoulder and tell me ‘you did good, son. We can go home again.’
“I play football because it’s the only connection I have left to my old life. It isn’t just some silly game. But I’m sure you’ll continue to disagree, just like I’m sure that I’m boring you to tears with my unoriginal sob story. Probably not edgy enough for you, right?”
When several seconds pass without a response from Esca, Marcus finally looks up and sees what he has missed. Esca looks shattered. Almost as if everything Marcus just described happened to him instead.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Marcus shrugs. “Whatever,” he mutters, too wary to trust the look on Esca’s face or the sudden hoarseness of his voice.
“No, no, listen to me, I’m sorry. When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong. Please. I didn’t know.”
“You never bothered to find out. You were happy to assume the worst about me. You didn’t even give me a fighting chance.”
“I’m so sorry,” Esca says, guilt written all over him. He looks down, wringing his hands, twisting his fingers together so forcefully that Marcus wonders how they stay intact. “I’m sorry about your parents,” Esca adds in a small voice.
Marcus swallows hard and pushes down the surge of emotion threatening to crash over him. He can’t let himself feel any of it. Because if he does, then he’ll feel everything.
“In such a big world, these little things happen,” Marcus says, aiming for nonchalance and missing by a mile.
“Don’t say that,” Esca says looking up at him again. “This is not a little thing. I can’t even begin to imagine what you went through, what you’re still going through. And I haven’t made it any easier for you, have I? I wish I could take it back. I wish I could….” Esca turns away abruptly, and Marcus sees him swipe at his eyes with quick, angry motions.
“Esca?”
“I’m fine. I just-” Esca turns back around. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again without speaking. It happens twice more, and then he finally asks, “Can I see your leg?”
“Why?” Marcus asks suspiciously. “So you can mock me?”
Esca flinches. “Okay, I deserve that. I’ve been an unmitigated ass to you, and I deserve that. But I’m not looking to make fun of you. Before, when we walked into the house, I thought you were limping, but it was so slight, I figured I was imagining it. But now, I know better. I just want to see. I want to know. I need to know. Please.”
Marcus pins Esca with a searching look, trying to find the lie in his words, but all he sees is empathy and guilt and a kind of desperation. So, he does what Esca asks. He hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants and pushes them down to his knees, revealing the jagged scar running the full length of the upper part of his left leg. He feels naked, defenseless, like an exposed nerve, as Esca stares with an unreadable look for a long moment before coming nearer and going down to his knees in front of Marcus.
Esca reaches out and traces the raised, mottled flesh edging the scar, from just an inch above his knee up to where it disappears beneath the band of Marcus’ black boxer-briefs.
“It’s ugly,” Marcus says, all too familiar with what Esca is seeing for the first time.
“No, it isn’t. It’s a memory, just marked on skin. It tells the world that you survived, that you’re still here. It isn’t ugly.” Esca touches the scar again. “Does it still hurt?”
“Sometimes, when I push too hard at practice.”
Esca’s fingers pause mid-slide and his eyes narrow, staring critically at the scar. “How come it’s-”
“There was still metal in my leg after the first surgery,” Marcus explains, knowing what Esca was going to ask. “It would hurt for hours every day. Eventually my uncle insisted on new tests and that’s when they saw. They reopened the wound the summer after seventh grade to remove the last of the metal. That’s why it looks like that.”
Esca looks shattered all over again. “I’m so sorry you went through all that pain.”
“I’m alright now,” Marcus says, feeling a strange need to reassure Esca, to wipe that broken look off his face.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Esca says, looking up with a smile. It’s the first time Esca has ever smiled at him. It’s different from any other smile he has ever seen on Esca’s face, and there’s something about that realization, something about the thought that this version is just for him that makes Marcus dizzy. Suddenly, he is hyper-aware of their position, of how close Esca is, on his knees in front of Marcus, warm breath fanning across Marcus’ bare skin. Esca’s fingers move over him again, and this time, Marcus goes completely rigid and sucks in a small gasp.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, it’s just….” Marcus blushes hard and makes a vague gesture between them, but his meaning is evidently clear enough because Esca goes red to match Marcus and instantly scrambles up to his feet.
Marcus pulls his sweatpants back up, and afterward, they both shuffle from one foot to the other for a brief while, silent and awkward.
“We do these stretches after dance practice sometimes,” Esca says. “Kind of like a warm-down after all the stress from practicing. I can show you some. Maybe you can try doing them after football practices when your leg hurts.”
Marcus wants to tell him no, that he doesn’t have to, but Esca looks so earnest that Marcus gives in. He takes off his hoodie while Esca takes off his glasses and moves the coffee table aside, and then they run fifteen minutes worth of stretches, with Esca moving Marcus this way and that, guiding him through the steps in a hushed, patient voice. Marcus follows Esca’s lead, and tries not to react to their proximity, to the warmth of Esca’s body against his when Esca presses close, or when his fingers skim Marcus’ skin.
“Good. Hold it. Do you feel it there? You’re doing so well. So good for me, Marcus,” Esca keeps saying, praising him at each step, while Marcus tries not to imagine the same words in a different context. Would Esca sound like that with his fingers carding through Marcus’ hair while Marcus works over him? Would Esca praise him like that? Voice syrupy-warm, murmuring “so good for me” and “you’re doing so well.”
By the time they’re finished, Marcus is dazed and half-hard and unbelievably grateful for the long overhang of his t-shirt.
“I can help you regularly,” Esca offers. “Guide you through a full set of stretches after football practice sometimes, if you want.”
“You really don’t have to do that,” Marcus says, even though his heart is leaping in his chest, hope giving it a sugar-high after the last two weeks of dull anger and crushing disappointment.
“I want to. I’ve been such a shit to you, and I thought I had these super-important reasons, but it all seems so inconsequential now compared to everything you just told me.”
“It’s not inconsequential if it mattered to you. If it was enough to make you push-” Marcus stops abruptly, hesitant to dredge up all the ugliness now that it finally feels like they’re getting somewhere.
“Make me push you away,” Esca finishes. “That’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“There was a boy.” Esca runs a hand through his hair and lets out a hollow, self-deprecating laugh. “That’s how the story always goes, isn’t it? It always starts with a boy.”
Marcus doesn’t say anything. He wants Esca to continue. He wants to hear this, to understand why Esca never gave him a chance.
“I was fifteen, and he was almost seventeen. We went to secondary school together back in London. I wanted him so badly. Everyone wanted him. He was the big hero at school. Co-captain of the rugby team. They’d won the championship the year before and everyone swore they were going to go all the way again that year. I was nobody, just some pale shrimpy kid trying so desperately to fit in, to be like everyone else so they would like me. But somehow he noticed me. I would have done everything he asked-I did do everything he asked. I wanted him to feel the same way about me. I wanted him to love me. By the end, he didn’t even have to ask anymore, I gave it all away without a second thought for myself. I thought I was having some big love affair, and then I found out I wasn’t the only one. He was sleeping with two other boys, using them like he was using me. When I confronted him, he laughed at me, said I should be grateful that he’d bothered with me at all. I didn’t come out of my room for a week. After that, I swore I would never let myself get so obsessed with fitting in anymore. From then on, I would be my own person, and I’d never let a boy like that get the chance to hurt me again.”
Esca pauses for a moment, shifting his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other, looking everywhere but straight at Marcus.
“The moment we met, I wanted you. It wasn’t because you were my bondmate, I would have wanted you regardless. And I have wanted you every second of every day since. But I was so angry about the cosmic joke I thought the universe was playing on me. I was so angry with myself for making what I thought was the same mistake all over again. Every time I found myself looking at you, I’d think ‘haven’t you learned anything? Wasn’t it bad enough the first time?’ I was angry with myself and I took it out on you, and I’m so unbelievably sorry. I know it’s selfish to ask, but I hope you’ll consider giving me the chance I never gave you. I hope you’ll let me make it up to you.”
“You want me?” Marcusasks, a little shell-shocked from hearing it out loud.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Of course I want you.”
Marcus fights to contain a smile at that. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, but I’m not the same as the boy who hurt you.”
“I know that now.”
“In that case, I forgive you.”
It’s Esca’s turn to look a little shell-shocked. “Just like that? You have to let me earn it first.”
“How?”
Esca frowns. “Um…I’m not sure.”
A thought occurs to Marcus, and he breaks out in a sly, teasing grin. “I have faith in you,” he says playfully. “You’re a smart boy. I graded your Calculus test, so I know what I’m talking about. You’ll figure something out in short order.”
Esca looks at him quizzically for a moment, before he catches on to the new turn in the conversation. “You know, an idea is occurring to me as we speak.”
“Pray tell.”
“I should probably show you instead.”
Esca closes the gap between them, movements slow and deliberate as he settles his hands on Marcus’ shoulders, giving him every chance to pull away. As if Marcus has any intention of going anywhere.
“Is this okay?” Esca asks as he shifts even closer, right hand stealing around the back of Marcus’ neck and fingers sliding through his still-damp hair.
“God, yes,” Marcus breathes, and just like that, Esca is there, lips soft and warm against his own. It’s a slow, sweet kiss, filled with nervousness, pent-up want and surprise. It’s everything a first kiss always is, a discovery, a revelation as lips slide softly against each other.
“Do it again,” Marcus says with a low groan when Esca pulls back.
For a moment, Esca just stares at him, eyes wild and bright. Then, all of a sudden, he’s a blur of motion, guiding and pushing until Marcus’ back hits a wall and Esca crowds against him, pulling Marcus down into another kiss. There’s nothing slow about it this time, nothing sweet or tentative. This kiss is all heat and want, hard and deep and wet, Esca pressing in the moment Marcus parts his lips, an earth-shattering sensation as their tongues slide against each other. Esca’s free hand slides all over him-over his shoulders, down his chest, before coming to rest at Marcus’ hip-even as Esca continues to take Marcus apart with his kiss. Everything about him screams ownership, as if he’s finally willing to say ‘this is mine’ and he wants Marcus to know it, to give into it, to let him in. He kisses Marcus over and over again, barely coming up for air, and Marcus opens himself up for it and moans low in his throat, giving back every bit as good as he is getting.
“Is it always like this?” Marcus asks breathlessly when they finally pull back. He watches as Esca catches the implication in the question.
“You’ve never done this before?”
“I wasn’t always the captain of the football team,” Marcus says with a self-effacing smile. “Before that, I was just the weird kid with the metal leg brace who got made fun of every day. No one wanted to kiss me then.”
“I’m sorry that happened. And no, it isn’t always like this. It’s never been like this for me. Not even close.”
Marcus’ answering grin is ear to ear. “So basically what I’m feeling is the combined effect of our individual awesome?”
Esca chuckles. “I never figured you for funny.”
“Stick around and then you’ll see all the different parts of me.”
Suddenly, Esca grows serious, and he pulls all the way back, making Marcus groan softly at the loss of contact. He takes the privacy band off his wrist and drops it to the floor. Then he reaches for Marcus’ hand and does the same. Afterward, he holds Marcus’ wrist beside his. “What about these? What now?”
Marcus’ heart skips a beat. “You decide.”
“Me?”
“I already know what I want. It’s up to you. You have to choose it too.”
“You still want the soulbond with me? Even after what I did?”
“I forgive you,” he says again, and this time, Esca doesn’t argue. Actually, he doesn’t say anything at all, and Marcus starts to worry that he is pushing for too much, too fast. They’ve only just cleared things up between them. This is still so fragile and new. He doesn’t want to pressure Esca. “We don’t have to form the soulbond now. It can wait. People go for years without it all the time. Remember that news story last year? The one about those two seventy year-old bondmates who met each other for the first time at the Paris airport? We don’t have to do anything now.”
“Don’t you want to?”
“I do. But it’s okay if you don’t want to right now.”
“I want to. I’ve already wasted two months that we could have been together because of my own stupidity. I don’t want to waste another second, and I don’t want it halfway. I want the soulbond.”
Marcus lets out a relieved sigh. “Then we’re agreed.” He looks out the window to find that the storm has calmed considerably. “We can stay here, or you can come with me. My uncle has to work late today.”
“My parents won’t be home until ten. My dad has a work dinner thing. We can stay here.”
Marcus smiles. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Esca echoes. He holds out his hand to Marcus and smiles. “Come with me?”
Marcus takes Esca’s hand and entwines their fingers. “Lead the way.”
* * * * *
And it happens like this: Esca’s bedroom is exactly how Marcus would have imagined it, large and bright with almost every foot of available space on the wall covered with posters for movies and bands Marcus has never heard of or seen. Not that Marcus spends much time staring at Esca’s walls. Especially, not when Esca is lying in bed with him, naked and warm and surprisingly muscular, all whipcord strength and pale, flawless skin.
Contact with intent. Marcus doesn’t know what to expect. All he can do is what he has been taught: get as close as physically possible and open up his mind to his bondmate, make a conscious choice to be tied together. And somehow, the soulbond will follow.
So when Esca kisses him and settles between his thighs, Marcus spreads his legs wider and lets him in, opens himself up in every way, gasping and moaning as Esca touches him, as he grips his thighs, leaving finger-shaped impressions on his skin. Marcus leaves his own marks on Esca too, fingernails digging half-moons into Esca’s biceps, lips parted on low moans at the heat of it, at the overwhelming feeling of Esca's hard length rutting against his own.
He isn’t sure when exactly it happens, but suddenly every sensation is followed by an echo of the same, as if he is experiencing his own pleasure and Esca’s as well. He feels Esca’s surprise at the same time as he hears Esca’s gasp, and for a crazy moment, his head is flooded with Esca’s thoughts, with everything Esca feels, all the want and lingering guilt, all the possessiveness and fire and light. Esca is everywhere and Marcus wants to drown in him, to stay lost in the moment forever. He comes like that, with Esca surrounding him, mouth falling open on a drawn-out cry as the pleasure slams through him and reflects back, over and over, a seemingly endless reverberation.
* * * * *
And then it ends like this: Esca walks Marcus to his car around 9pm, after the storm has passed. The ground is wet and littered with sodden leaves, the trees are swaying with the last gasps of the storm winds and the air is heavy with the scent of fallen rain and possibility.
Marcus gets into the car and rolls down the window, and Esca leans down afterward, resting his hands on the ledge.
“So,” he starts, nervous and halting, “tomorrow, at school, what are we going to…um…around everyone, I mean….”
Marcus resists the urge to smile as Esca trips all over himself trying to get the words out. He can feel Esca’s nervousness, the faint thread of worry, but it comes through dimly, nothing at all like the moment when the soulbond had taken root. After that initial merging of their minds, the intensity of the connection had dimmed until it felt more like static, sensing Esca, but from a great distance. But Marcus isn’t worried. He has learned this part too. He knows that the soulbond is weak at first, that it strengthens over time, that decades from now, he’ll be able to feel Esca from halfway around the world, that in their old age, they will share the same dreams.
“Will you have your bike fixed by tomorrow morning?” Marcus asks.
“No.”
“Then I’ll come pick you up. We’ll ride to school together.”
Esca relaxes. “Together.”
“Yeah. We’re a package deal now. You’ll be my cute hipster boytoy and I’ll be your pretty-boy football player on the side.”
“Pretty?” Esca says laughing. “Someone thinks very highly of himself.”
“Oh please, don’t act like you’re not all about this,” Marcus says, grinning and gesturing at himself. “I’m gay hipster catnip. Boys like you love me forever.”
Esca’s eyes go wide, and Marcus feels his own pulse quicken. Has he gone too far? This is only the beginning, and Marcus has never done this before. Maybe it’s too soon to mention ‘love’. But just as Marcus is about to make another joke or take the word back, Esca beams at him.
“Yeah,” he says, soft and quiet, “we kind of really do.”
Later, as Marcus drives home, body still humming with heat and happiness, he recalls those words, plays them in an endless loop in his head and finds that he can’t help the sappy smile tugging at his lips.
Senior year is going to be awesome.
THE END