Chapter 1: Games, Games, Games
Chapter Text
Adventureland
May 2002
Mark should be a rides guy.
He was so sure he would be—he hadn’t considered he could work anything but rides at Adventureland. When you’re working rides, all you have to do is grab tickets and push buttons—and then just sit behind the booth and say nothing, do nothing, have time to scribble code in your notebook because even if you hadn’t broken your laptop on the last day of spring semester, bringing it to your shitty summer job is asking for it to be shattered or stolen or slid under the vinyl beneath the Music Express to be smashed to bits between all the moving parts.
But he’s not working rides. His new manager, a thick-mustached man named Bobby, doesn’t even look at his resume (formatted with his mom’s help, printed fresh that morning). He just hands Mark a blue shirt and sends him to the ring toss booth to get trained. No, you’re a games guy. Definitely a games guy. Don’t fight it, Mark.
So, fine. Blue’s his color, anyway.
He hasn't been to the park in almost a decade, since his 8th grade field trip, and it hasn't changed much—if at all—since then. He knows from radio ads that they've added two new coasters, but he was never a fan of rides anyway, and especially not of the rickety Ferris wheel that stands tall and foreboding near the entrance, mocking him while he passes. Couldn't find anything better to do this summer? Not even an internship? Had to be a carny in your hometown?
Mark kicks up dirt in its general direction.
The guy waiting for him at the game booths has a too-wide smile for nine in the morning. His hair is almost-ginger, almost-wavy, and it sticks out messily above his forehead while he leans halfway against the booth barrier to spin a cherry-red ring around his finger. He throws it into a bucket of dozens more and yells out “Fresh meat!” when Mark’s close enough to hear him.
Mark wants to die a little bit. He’s already bordering on over-stimulation, the sun high and hot above him, Bobby’s loud, boisterous voice echoing in his ears. He’s still got his new work shirt crumpled up in his hand, and he wants to use it to wipe the sweat from his neck, but that’s gross even for him. “Okay. Hi.”
Game-booth-guy claps him on the shoulder, still smiling. “I’m Dustin, man, you’re gonna love working games.”
“Mark,” Mark says, and because he can’t quite tell if Dustin’s serious, “And I doubt it.”
Dustin laughs like he’s said something really funny, and Mark studies him, trying to determine whether or not he’s a loser. There’s an argument to be made that any grown adult working their summer at an amusement park is a loser, which would immediately implicate Mark (assuming Mark isn’t a loser anyway, which, okay, he’s more self-aware than to think otherwise), but Dustin seems charismatic and he’s already treating Mark like a long-time buddy, so Mark decides, tentatively, that he’s amenable to being work-allies with him.
Dustin spends more time showing Mark how rigged the games are than how to actually run them, but it’s hard to feel like he’s missing out on anything. Collecting tickets and darts and rings isn’t rocket science. Or even PHP.
His fingers twitch. While Dustin’s pointing up at the dented, unethically elliptic rim of a basketball hoop, Mark wonders how many hours he’ll have to work until he’s saved enough to buy a new computer. He should’ve done the math before he showed up today. It’ll be the first thing he’ll do when he gets home in—he glances at his watch—eight hours.
Dustin looks him over, amused. “Got somewhere to be?”
“No,” Mark says, wishing he did.
Displeasure must read pretty clearly on his face, because Dustin gives him a sympathetic look and says “It’s not so bad, you’ll see.”
And, well, it isn’t.
People start showing up by the time Mark’s changed into his work shirt, but it never gets all that busy since opening day is just for summer pass holders, Dustin dutifully explains to him. It’s laughably easy, handing out rings and watching people fail at throwing them just to collect them off the ground and do the whole thing over again. It’s a little dull, but Dustin peeks around the edge of his own water-gun-horse-racing booth to chat with Mark, and he keeps saying just wait til Chris is here, Chris is my other friend, he’s on second-shift and you’re gonna love him, and Mark’s still thinking back to the other friend part because Dustin, it seems, is the kind of guy who considers someone his friend after talking to him for an hour.
So he’s definitely a loser.
But maybe the good kind?
The nice kind, at least.
Eventually this Chris guy does show up, and he fixes his swoop of blonde hair in the reflection of his back car window before trekking up the hill toward him and Dustin.
“Hey,” he says, and smiles when he sees Mark. “Fresh meat!”
Dustin’s grin is impossibly wide. “That’s what I said!”
Chris is like Dustin, but he’s a little kinder, a little softer, and he asks Mark questions about what he’s studying and where he’s going to school in the fall. When Mark tells him Harvard, Chris oohs and ahhs politely in the way Mark’s mom’s friends had when they’d been told the same thing, and Mark lets himself feel prideful until some kid vomits a foot from his booth and he has to go find someone to deal with it.
Chris covers for him while he’s away, but he isn’t technically on the clock for another fifteen minutes, so he spends the rest of that time at Mark’s side to give him the lowdown on second-shift staff as they clock in.
“Christy and Alice,” he says, nodding up at two girls crossing underneath the entrance arch. They’ve both got sleek, dark hair and matching pink RIDES RIDES RIDES shirts that have been cropped shorter than Mark would assume is allowed. “I would recommend staying on their good side,” Chris continues.
So Mark’s fucked, because he has never been on a girl’s “good side” except those three glorious weeks that Erica Albright had decided he wasn’t that repulsive, after all, but even she had changed her mind and saw fit to dump him in the cafeteria for everyone to see. So. Christy and Alice are hotter than Erica, but they also look like the kind of girls that are fiercely and relentlessly mean to guys like Mark, so he decides preemptively to keep his distance. They’re on good enough terms with Chris to smile and wave at him, but not enough to come over and say hi. Mark watches them disappear into the office to punch in.
After them comes a guy named Billy, who looks stoned out of his mind. Then there’s Divya, who makes a beeline to some big, scary-looking twins at the carousel pretty much as soon as his car’s parked. After him, Mark decides he’s not putting any more brain power towards remembering people’s names, sorry Chris, so he puts his whole attention into the task of handing snot-nosed kids their rings and ignoring their bitching when they can’t get any to land.
And then a couple minutes pass and Chris is saying “You should talk to him!” and Mark blinks at him, not understanding.
“What?”
“Eduardo,” Chris says, patiently, like he knows Mark wasn’t listening but doesn’t care enough to be mean about it. “He goes to Harvard, too. He’s gonna be a sophomore. You could have him, like, show you around and stuff.”
“Oh,” Mark says. “Who—”
“Eduardo!” Chris calls into the open alley, and a guy coming down the steps of the office stops in his tracks to look up at them. From a distance, Mark can really only make out shapes: long stretches of golden limbs, a thick pile of dark hair. The guy half-jogs over and now Mark can see the strong line of his jaw, dark eyelashes, and the gentle curve of the smile he points at Chris, then Mark.
“Hey,” the guy—Eduardo—says, drumming his fingers on the edge of the booth. It doesn't look like nervous energy; maybe it’s excitement. “Who’s this?”
“Mark,” Mark and Chris say at the same time.
Amusement flickers in Eduardo’s eyes. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says, which always sounds like some faux-polite bullshit out of any other 20-year-old’s mouth, but out of Eduardo’s it sounds genuine. “I’m Eduardo.”
Mark nods. He’s not sure what else to say.
“Mark’s starting at Harvard in the fall,” Chris cuts in, and Eduardo looks at Mark with a new reverence.
“That’s great! Do you know where you’re staying?”
“Kirkland,” Mark says. He’d just finalized the paperwork a few days ago.
“I’m in Eliot! We’re neighbors,” Eduardo says, with a smile that Mark’s sisters would call charming.
And that actually is good to know, because his mom’s been kind of freaking out about Mark not knowing anybody on campus yet, and Mark’s wildly offended that she clearly thinks he’s going to end up a friendless loner there. Knowing one person is good, so long as he doesn’t drive Eduardo away by the end of the summer, which is something easier said than done in Mark’s case.
He tries to smile. “Nice.”
Eduardo smiles back, then looks at the two of them in turn. “Well, I should probably find a booth, but I’ll see you guys around.”
“Yeah, later,” Chris says, and that’s that. Mark watches Eduardo disappear into the crowded lane, and then Chris starts pointing out more arriving staff. Through them all, it seems like he’s looking for someone, eyes darting back to the parking lot every few minutes until it’s clear no one else is coming and he does some investigative work.
“Dustin!” he yells to the next booth, and Dustin peeks his head out.
“What?”
“No Sean Parker?”
“Nope!” Dustin yells back, popping the P. The family waiting at his stools to get started looks irritated by the interruption, hands braced on the water guns. “I heard he’s in San Francisco.”
Mark doesn’t know who that is, but even if he wanted to ask, Chris seems like he’s over it, humming to himself and gossiping about people Mark doesn’t know.
Mark gets back to work. Eats a shitty corndog for lunch and has to pay for it. Passes out a couple hundred more rings. Smiles politely (and generously) at maybe half of Dustin’s jokes. The earth turns; the sun sets, and when the white-yellow lights of the park are bright against the dark sky, Mark clocks out and thinks of his first paycheck. Two weeks. And then two more after that until his next one, on and on until the end of the summer.
Dustin sees him unlocking his bike in the parking lot and offers to drive him home in his pickup, which is an offer Mark can’t refuse, and then after ten minutes of Dustin blasting Radiohead with the car windows down, he offers to pick Mark up the next morning, too.
So now he’s got a friend and a ride. Not bad for his first day.
Mark doesn’t get an opportunity to really, actually talk to Eduardo until day two, and even then it’s only because shit goes south.
Mark’s stationed at the fishing game, so between handing out poles for people to catch little magnetic fish with and checking the cups of live prize goldfish to make sure he’s not displaying any dead ones, it takes him a second to notice the girl tap-tap-tapping on one of the cups, the fish inside twitching with each beat, fins flailing.
“Don't do that,” he snaps on instinct, and she just looks up at him, wispy blonde pigtails falling back. She looks young, like, really young, too young to not have an adult in her immediate vicinity, and the more time Mark spends scanning the area the more he’s sure there isn’t going to be one. There are families and teenage couples and groups of friends milling about, gathering around his game and others, but amid them there’s no one in this little girl’s orbit, and past that, no one freaking the fuck out because they’ve lost a kid.
Mark’s skin gets prickly like he’s about to start sweating. “Um,” he says, and looks around again. He’s not sure who he’s looking for. Bobby, maybe, or someone on their break, but he ends up locking eyes with Eduardo, who’s walking down the dirt path and stops once he sees what Mark’s sure must look like dead panic in his eyes. Eduardo’s gaze drops from Mark to the kid, face smoothing over with determination, and then he approaches.
The first thing Eduardo does is crouch down on a knee, putting himself at eye-level with the girl. “Hey,” he says, gently, and she looks at him with mild interest. “Do you like the fish?” he asks, pointing up at them, and she nods her head, wary.
“Me, too,” Eduardo continues. “My mom has lots of fish at home, in a big tank. They’re all kinds of pretty colors. Pink ones and blue ones and orange ones like these. Did you come here with your mom today?”
The girl shakes her head. She’s got her arms crossed in front of her, which Mark thinks is kind of a defensive gesture, but she’s still watching Eduardo carefully.
“Your dad?” Eduardo asks.
She nods.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, still as calm as the second he knelt down. “I’m going to help you find your dad. We’re going to go somewhere really fun, and we can make an announcement over all the speakers in the whole park. You can even push the button on the microphone. How does that sound?”
“Fish,” the girl replies, voice wobbly like she’ll cry. Mark really fucking hopes she doesn’t.
Eduardo glances warily at the stack of cups. “We can take a fish,” he says after a second, “for you to watch over until your dad comes. But we have to give it back to Mark, so he can look after it and give it all the food and love it needs.”
Mark’s surprised by two things: first, that Eduardo remembers his name, and then by the implication that he’s supposed to be feeding these things. Either Dustin missed a key component in his training or Eduardo needs something to fall back on so he won’t have to send this girl home with a new pet. Mark hopes it’s the latter.
“Which one’s your favorite?” Eduardo asks.
She points to a spotted one at the bottom of the stack, the same one she’d been violently tapping when Mark saw her. Probably has permanent fish-brain-damage, he thinks, as he picks up the cups stacked atop the one Eduardo goes for.
They look at each other, then, something deep and sympathetic in Eduardo’s warm brown eyes, and Mark tries his best to not look stupid and useless in the aftermath of a very minor problem that he’d immediately required Eduardo’s rescuing from.
Eduardo doesn’t look judgy, or irritated, or any of the things that Mark expects. He looks grateful, first, at Mark’s helping him pick up the fish, and then something calmly dismissive, like kids, ya know? or this is fun, isn’t it?
Mark feels like he’s just seen a magic trick. He doesn’t like kids all that much; they’re sticky and gross and they scream too much, so he curses whatever surely biological disturbance makes watching Eduardo be good with this kid make him feel like this, brain jumbled and frantic. He can’t even get a word out.
Doesn’t matter. Eduardo’s on his way already, waving over his shoulder as he walks the girl in the direction of the offices. Mark slouches back against the booth wall, dumbfounded, until some teenager pokes him with a plastic fishing rod and he snaps at him to cut it out. Then there are more tickets to collect, more fish to hand out, and Mark loses himself in the idle motion of it all.
Eduardo comes back maybe five minutes later, cupped fish in hand and no toddler in sight. He plunks the fish down atop the stack and smiles brightly at Mark, who wonders what god-slash-goddess-slash-deity he’s pleased to have earned the privilege of the glamorous Eduardo’s full attention.
That’s what he is—glamorous, and, like, weirdly charismatic, and his hair is as perfect as it was when he started his shift this morning, probably because it’s loaded with gel or something, stuff Mark never uses because he always rolls out of bed minutes before he has to leave.
Eduardo looks too good to work here, Mark thinks. He should work at, like, a bank, or maybe a hotel or a casino holding out a little plate of canapés and smiling at the people who pass him.
“Mission accomplished,” Eduardo says. He rests his palms on the booth, leaning forward into Mark’s space. “Her dad was already at the office. He turned his back for a second, and she ran off toward the fishies. He was totally freaking out.”
“That was—” Mark starts, unsure of how he’s going to finish. He should probably thank him. “You’re good at that.”
Eduardo shrugs like it’s nothing, but his prideful smile betrays him. “It happens like five or six times a day. I’m glad I saw it.”
“Me too,” Mark says, because that’s as close to a thank-you as he can get without looking even more pathetic.
Eduardo hums. “So. What’s your major?”
It’s weird of him to ask—isn’t it? Especially when—
“You’re on break,” Mark says, not a question.
Eduardo blinks at him. “Yes.”
—when he’s on break, and he’s been talking to people all day, some of the most annoying people in the world, in Mark’s opinion, and by the time Mark’s break came around this morning he was so socially dead that he hid behind the offices for a few minutes to himself because he knew no one would bother him there. So Eduardo’s on break, and he’s already helped Mark more than he has to, and now he wants to talk to him, not about something important, but about his major, which is irrelevant.
And weirdest of all, he doesn’t seem off put by Mark staring—well, studying him right now.
So definitely weird.
“Computer science,” Mark says, after a too-long silence. “You?”
“Econ.”
Boring. “You like that?”
Eduardo shrugs. “Sometimes. I like that I’m good at it.”
That’s something Mark understands. “I’m good at programming.”
“And you like it?” Eduardo asks, and he’s looking at Mark like it matters, like he’s not just saying it to say it.
“Yeah,” he says after a second. “Yeah, I like it.”
“That’s great,” Eduardo says. “That’s more important than being good at it.”
“Not to recruiters.”
“To you. So you don’t get burnt out at thirty and have a crisis about what you wanna do.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Okay,” Eduardo says, holding his hands up. “Didn’t say you would.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Mark asks, finally looking up—has he really been avoiding eye contact the whole time? He’s gotta get better about that— “Burning out at thirty, stuck in some dead-end econ job?”
Eduardo’s eyes almost sparkle. “Maybe. It wouldn't be as fun as this.” He makes a wide gesture to the booth.
“Pays better.”
“I hope,” he agrees. He’s smiling.
Mark stares.
“Cool,” Eduardo says, clapping his hands together. “Well, it was nice talking to you. I should really—”
“Get back,” Mark finishes. “And stop wasting your break with me.”
“Not a waste,” Eduardo says, pointing at him while he walks away. “I’ll catch you later.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. When he turns around, there’s a line of kids glaring at him, mad for having to wait.
“I have to say,” Eduardo says over Mark’s shoulder the next day, effectively scaring the shit out of him, “I don’t know much about coding, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how it’s usually done.”
Mark’s halfway down a page of handwritten code, scribbled hurriedly with a blue ballpoint pen that’s almost out of ink. This project’s been itching at him for a couple months now, ever since he started digging through course registration junk and wondered who’d be sitting in each class. It’s hand-writing code is annoying, but it’d be even more annoying to have nothing to show for the time he’d spent thinking about it.
This picnic table is a few paces farther than the others to any rides or food stands or games, and Mark was pretty sure no one would bother him here, but he hadn’t accounted for Eduardo and…whatever he’s up to.
“Uh, yeah.” He blinks at the paper, all the writing blurring as his eyes refocus. “I broke my laptop. I’ll have to put this all in when I get a new one.”
Eduardo nods sympathetically. “How’d you do that?”
“Dropped it,” Mark shrugs. He’d tried to balance it on his knee while on the toilet, but he still dropped it, so it’s not like he’s lying, just omitting the embarrassing part.
“Gotcha,” Eduardo says, and Mark thinks that’ll be the end of their conversation, but Eduardo looks over in the direction of the food stands and asks, “Are you on lunch?”
“Yes.” Mark checks his watch instinctively. He’s still got ten minutes—eleven if he leaves when his break’s over and doesn’t count the walk back to the whack-a-mole booth as his off-time. He’ll take that extra minute.
Eduardo tilts his head at him. “And have you eaten anything?”
Mark shrugs again, turning back to his notebook. He hadn’t been interrupted at a great time, honestly, and now he’s trying to grasp at the train of thought he’d lost.
And then Eduardo takes the hint and leaves, which is fine, Mark thinks, good, because now he can focus, but not much time passes before Eduardo’s back and this time with food.
Food being a hot dog from one of the carts, nestled snugly in its little paper boat. Eduardo holds it out to him and Mark eyes it. “What’s this?”
“You’ve never seen a hot dog before?”
“No, shut up,” Mark says, heatless. “You didn’t have to do that.”
Eduardo laughs aloud at that—and not at Mark, probably, though he’s never been good at judging that kind of thing. “I sometimes do things because I want to do them.”
“You wanted to buy me a hot dog.”
“Don’t say that like it’s so unbelievable.”
Mark gestures at the hot dog, still held in Eduardo’s outstretched arm. “This is an unbelievable thing.”
Eduardo’s smiling. “Take it.”
Mark does because he’s hungry and because it’s there and paid for. Eduardo steps onto the bench to sit next to Mark on the tabletop, so he sets his notebook down on his other side.
“I’m not completely sure you don’t have some ulterior motive,” Mark says.
Eduardo rests his elbows on his knees. “Is not wanting you to pass out from low blood sugar not a good enough reason?”
Mark takes a bite. It’s a shitty hot dog, barely-warm and with a stale bun, but that’s not Eduardo’s fault. “No.”
“You’re right, then. That three-dollar hot dog is an act of bribery.”
“Figures.” Mark rubs his fingers together, dusting the crumbs off onto the ground. “In exchange for what?”
Eduardo looks contemplative. He’s still smiling, though, which maybe he always is. “Friendship?”
Mark has made more friends in three days than he did in four years of high school. “I think I’d prefer passing out from low blood sugar.”
“Don’t say that,” Eduardo says. “I don’t trust our first aid tent—I’d have to take you to the hospital myself.”
“That wouldn’t be my fault.”
“No,” Eduardo agrees. “Especially if you’re refusing my friendship.”
“For liability reasons only,” Mark says, then through another bite of the hot dog, “So you don’t have to take me to the hospital.”
“That’s actually very considerate of you, Mark.”
“I get that a lot.”
Eduardo laughs. “Oh, I can tell.”
This—this is good. Whatever they're doing. Eduardo's, like, funny, actually. And maybe he thinks Mark is, too.
"So we're friends now?” Mark asks.
“I think so,” Eduardo says, grinning, and holds out his hand like it’s a goddamn business deal.
Mark stares at it for all of a second before shaking it.
It’s a small price to pay for lunch.
They talk every day after that. It helps that Dustin and Chris are friends with Eduardo, too, so he’s always hovering near their booths or meeting up with them when their breaks align.
Eduardo likes to talk. He talks about his frat—AEPi, go figure—and his school friends and what games he likes being placed at. He doesn’t talk about his family, really, except Mark does catch the fact that he has a sister—one who's staying on campus for the summer but has told him she'll come visit if he can swing free park tickets for her and her friends.
It’s nice to listen to him. He talks about everything like it’s the most important thing, like speaking about it gives it meaning.
And when Mark’s not listening to Eduardo, he finds himself watching him, all the time, while Eduardo’s ducking away from the target zone of the dart board or smiling at some mom who’s explaining her ring toss strategy or handing off some giant stuffed panda to its winner.
At first, Mark thinks he must be jealous of him. He's preoccupied with Eduardo's casual charisma, his effortless confidence, his put-togetherness… all things that Mark lacks. But he can't bring himself to resent Eduardo for any of it.
He's just… Well, Mark doesn’t know how to describe Eduardo beyond his initial assessments. Interesting to look at, for sure. Pretty, maybe, but not like how girls are pretty, though he does have the same kind of dark eyelashes and bright smiles they do. At the dart toss one evening, Eduardo worries his lip between his teeth while he counts out dollar bills, and Mark mindlessly wonders how soft his lips are. What they'd feel like in his own mouth.
He flushes with the realization, but his analytic brain rejoices—that explains the obsession!
It’s annoying, really, because he can’t like Eduardo like that—he shouldn’t, at least, because that’s a surefire way to make his life miserable, especially while Eduardo's near-constantly in his orbit, bringing him lunch or hanging out in Mark's booth during his breaks.
Mark attempts to erode his agonizing crush by affirming that his feelings are based in fantasy; for one, he barely knows Eduardo. For another thing, Eduardo is most definitely not into guys, and if he is, he's most certainly not into Mark.
He's lucky enough that Eduardo's willing to spend any time with him at all; sometimes it feels like Harvard’s the only thing they have in common. Eduardo’s popular, for one, and not how people were popular in high school for being super bitchy or having brand-name clothes or any of that (though Mark has seen Eduardo’s Mercedes in the parking lot, so maybe the rich thing’s part of it). Everyone just likes Eduardo. Even the girls. Especially Christy; she’s always ushering him toward her ride stations so she can chat with him and pop her bubblegum in his face or cover her mouth with a sharp-nailed hand to giggle at something he’s said.
And if the staff like Eduardo, the customers love him. Even if he’s dealing with some entitled hag, he’ll always send her on her way with a smile on her face.
Mark doesn’t go above and beyond like that. He just does what he’s paid for. The day he gets his first check, Bobby pats him on the shoulder and tells him “Keep it up, kid,” which is more validation than he needs. He bikes to the bank immediately to make the deposit.
It’s not bad work, for the money. Especially now that he has friends.
Friends that won't leave him the hell alone, for better or worse.
It doesn't take long to discover that there is no such thing as alone time at Adventureland. Certainly not during his shifts, when he's always swamped with snot-nosed kids or bratty teenagers, even when he's at the boring games no one should want to play, like his least favorite, where rubber ducks sit in a pool waiting to be plucked up by some unsuspecting schmuck and inspected for a red or green dot on its bottom: red for a bad prize, green for a good one. Thrilling stuff.
His breaks always align with those of other staff, so if Chris or Dustin or Eduardo don't sit themselves next to him at the picnic tables, someone else will—it's that guy Billy, once, and he insists something about "the babes" who work here, and doesn't let up until Mark agrees that, yeah, there are more than a couple hotties on staff—but he ends the conversation before Billy can interrogate his preferences. Another time, the girl he recognizes as Alice eases herself into a seat beside him and slides a crystalline nail file out of her fanny pack to whittle her nails down while she asks Mark about school and his family and mmhms at him until she gets bored and wanders off toward her friend Christy, waiting patiently next to the cotton candy wagon. They both whisper at each other and look over their shoulders at him, which makes his hands shake for the rest of the day.
He tells his friends about it when he sees them next, all walking up the hill together to clock out.
"They're bitches, man," Dustin concludes, and Chris doesn't hide his grimace.
"They're gossips," Eduardo cedes. "Not worth worrying about. I'm sure you didn't give them much to work with."
Right. Mark sits with that for a second. Lets it burn a hole in his ego.
"Not that you're uninteresting," Eduardo blurts at once. "That's not what I—I think you're super interesting—"
"Nice one," Chris says, while Dustin calls him a "Douche bag."
Eduardo runs a hand up into his hair. "Jesus. You know what I mean."
Mark shrugs. "Yeah."
The walk back to the office trailer takes them through a food court's cloying scents of funnel cake and hot fudge, and then past the Ferris wheel. Mark cranes his neck up to watch it go. Somehow, it looks both too fast and too slow. Its carriages swing and level out, just to swing wider as they continue on their course.
Eduardo notices his staring. "Have you been on it yet?"
"Hm?"
"The wheel."
"Oh. God, no."
"What the hell?" Eduardo turns on Dustin. "Were you initiating him or not?"
Dustin spits on the ground. "Hell nah, if that thing's involved."
Eduardo stops walking; the rest of them do, too. "Seriously?"
Mark does not like where this is going.
"Seriously," Dustin says. "I've only been on that thing twice. Once during my first summer, and then two summers ago when Katie R. said she'd give me a hand job on it."
Eduardo regards the wheel seriously. "You get, what? Three rotations on that thing? You think that's enough time for a hand job?"
Chris scoffs. "For Dustin, absolutely."
Dustin glares at Chris. "Not, like, to completion."
"Is it still a hand job if you don't come?"
They all consider this.
"Half a hand job," Dustin says eventually, "Whatever. She didn't even fucking do it. Fuck her, and fuck the Ferris wheel."
"Well, I'm taking Mark on it," Eduardo says.
"What?" Mark's neck hurts from the whiplash from turning to look at Eduardo so quickly. "No, I—I don't think so."
"Duh," Dustin says. "No one wants to go on that thing, Wardo."
Dustin’s always called him Wardo. Mark tried the nickname out a few times before he decided he liked it, too.
Eduardo deflates a little. He looks at Mark, and his eyes are so big and so brown and Mark realizes, all at once, that he never had much of a choice.
"I mean, I'll do it," Mark blurts. "Just to do it. And to… have done it."
Eduardo lights up. Mark feels like he's passed some kind of test—and now he'll be punished for it.
It's not that he's hugely terrified of the wheel, or anything, it's just not his first choice of activity. Hitching a ride on that ancient, rickety contraption isn't so appealing—he can't be blamed for that. His acquiescence is mostly about proving himself, and it's only a little bit about getting to spend more time with Eduardo.
Dustin just rolls his eyes. "Okay, you guys are nuts."
"Ignore him," Chris says. "He doesn't want to admit he's too scared to go on again."
Dustin immediately tries to put him in a headlock, but Chris slips out and socks him in the arm. Dustin tries to sweep his leg and they both flail their limbs weakly at each other, landing weak, open-handed hits. At the top of the hill, Bobby yells at them to cut it out, so they do, and Chris goes right to fixing his hair and calling Dustin a jackass under his breath.
"Okay," Eduardo says, and takes Mark's arm, pulling him back and away from their friends' cat fight. "We're gonna go. Clock out for us?"
"Fine." Dustin turns to Chris. "Wanna stick around and play Joust?"
"Obviously," Chris says, still messing with his hair, and away they go.
Mark and Eduardo start in the direction of the wheel. For one harrowing moment, Mark thinks they'll have to wait in line, where he can already see a few couples canoodling against the iron dividers, but Eduardo walks them straight into the exit line. One of the scary twins is running the wheel, and although he glares unkindly at the two of them, he doesn't stop them on their way to board the next empty carriage.
They shuffle in side-by-side. There's not much space at all; their thighs touch on the seat, and Eduardo's shoulders look cramped. He smiles reassuringly at Mark, who proves how calm he is by asking "Has anyone ever died on this thing?"
Eduardo pulls the lap bar down over them. "Not that I know of." The bar looks like it'd been painted teal, once, but now it's mostly chipped, revealing rough, unfinished metal. Mark's glad he's up to date on his tetanus shots. "Which is pretty impressive, since it's the third-oldest ride in the park."
Suddenly the cabin lurches forward, starting their nauseous ascent. The lap bar looks frankly disgusting, so Mark folds his hands in his lap. "What're the first?" he asks, desperate for a distraction.
"The carousel," Eduardo says. "And Steel Trap."
As the carriage climbs, Eduardo doesn't do much to contain his excitement. He swivels his head around to get a good view of the park, then leans forward to get a good view of the ground. The whole damn thing leans with him, tilting with a creak, pitching them forward and giving them a better view of the ground.
Mark averts his gaze and forces himself to take a few deep breaths. He's not gonna hurl or anything, but he's not exactly having fun.
"You okay?" Eduardo asks.
"Yeah," Mark spits, accidentally venomous.
"Oh, geez," Eduardo says. "You sure you don't get motion sick or anything? Or are you afraid of heights? We didn't have to get on. I could've told Chris and Dustin that we did, anyway."
The offer is very noble, extremely kind, and much too late.
The cabin pitches again, tilting backward this time, and Mark slides back against the wall against his will. He reaches out on instinct, seizing Eduardo's thigh in a death grip.
"Shit," Mark blurts, horrified, letting go immediately.
"That's okay," Eduardo says quickly, apologetic. "I should've warned you it does that. It sticks on the axle, I think, and—yeah."
Shame blooms brightly at the front of Mark's mind. He should cut off his hand and throw it off the Ferris wheel. He should disintegrate into dust and let the wind carry him across the park.
"All good," Eduardo says. "Don't miss the view!"
They've reached the top now. Somehow, even though Mark can still hear the usual chorus of screams and chatter from the park below, they're far enough away that it feels almost serene. The wind is stronger up here, but still little more than a gentle breeze. This late in the evening, the sun hasn't set yet, but from here Mark can see that it's about to—it kisses the horizon and paints the sky yellow behind the distant hills. Looking to his left, Mark sees the bigger coasters, light ricocheting off the metal in warm orange rays. Two adults wave up from the ground; when the next carriage passes theirs, Mark watches the two kids inside wave back and squeal with delight.
"Pretty great, right?" Eduardo says, at the same moment the carriage tilts again, swinging widely back, then forward. Even Eduardo sticks his arm out against the wall to steady himself. "Whoa, maybe not that part."
Mark is struck with an all-consuming pang of something he faintly recognizes as gratitude. For the view, his job, his friends, Eduardo, all of it. He can't remember the last time he felt singularly content—no—happy. "It's something," Mark finally says, too overwhelmed for verbosity.
Eduardo laughs. "I'll take it."
On the next go-around, Mark takes a page out of Eduardo's book and leans forward to optimize his view. Eduardo points out the drop tower, and they watch legs dangle from the top. Then Mark manages to catch Chris and Dustin meandering to the arcade, sharing popcorn, Dustin gesticulating wildly while they chat.
On the last loop, Eduardo nudges Mark's knee with his own. "I hope you're not too mad at me for forcing you on here."
"I volunteered," Mark objects.
Eduardo bites off his smile, nodding solemnly. "Right. And I didn't even have to promise you a handjob." While Mark's brain short-circuits on that sentence, Eduardo goes on. "So how does this compare to the other rides here? Does it make your top three? No, don't tell me. Bottom five, probably."
"It was the best." Mark bites the inside of his cheek. "And also the worst."
"Hm?"
It's the only one I've been on," Mark admits.
Eduardo gapes at him. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah."
Eduardo laughs, short and humorless. "Wait—don't you live nearby? You never went, like, as a kid?"
"I went," Mark shrugs. "Just didn't go on the rides."
Eduardo looks at him for a few seconds, his dark eyes dancing between Mark's while he assesses him. "You're serious."
A sliver of embarrassment lodges itself in Mark's chest, but he ignores it. "Yeah, it wasn't really my thing."
"Rollercoasters are every kid's thing!"
Mark shakes his head. "I pretty much just hung out at the arcade and tried to beat the high score on Snow Bros."
Eduardo's grinning at him. "That was fun for you?"
"You didn't know me at thirteen."
"I would've liked to," Eduardo says, and there's something soft there, something unspoken. But then the sharpness returns with a smirk: "I would've forced to you go on every ride in the park."
"Because you're a sadist?"
"No," Eduardo says. "You know, you can't pretend not to like them if you don't know what they're like."
"I guess," Mark admits. He toes his sneakers against the metal wall. They've only got half a rotation left, and as much as he hates this fucking thing, he doesn't want this—his time at the park, specifically with Eduardo, he'll admit—to end. "I mean, do you have any other plans for tonight?"
He probably does. Of course Mark doesn't—he'll probably end up watching a movie on the couch with his parents.
Eduardo grins impossibly wider. "Seriously?"
Mark shrugs. "We could—I don't know."
"We should," Eduardo says. "I have nowhere to be. Have you been on the swings yet? I think you'll like those. And we've gotta get you on the scrambler. Hey, watch out!"
They both manage to stumble off the wheel in the not-enough-time their carriage spends on the landing platform. On the way out, Eduardo continues rambling about rides, but Mark can barely hear him over the buzz of excitement humming through his brain, drowning out the self-preservation instinct he has of not letting his Thing for Wardo get to be too much to bear.
The park lights click on right as they push the exit door open. Eduardo's already planned out their course of action, pointing at the walkways and optimizing their flight path, and despite the chill of the newly-night air, Mark is warm all over.
The Fun Slide is fine. It's just a slide. The fun part is watching the pinched faces of toddler parents as he cuts them all in the line. When Eduardo asks for his rating, Mark gives it a 3/10.
The tilt-a-whirl is kind of fun, actually, but they have to hop over a barf puddle in the exit line. 6/10.
The Music Express pushes him against Eduardo's side so aggressively he sees stars, and Eduardo laughs so hard at this that his voice is coarse by the time they get off. Mark gives this one a 10/10, but he tells Eduardo 7/10 to preserve his dignity.
Eduardo buys a funnel cake for them to share, and after finding Chris and Dustin in the arcade, and the four of them race to the bumper cars (9/10), then the drop tower (4/10), then the carousel, all in quick succession.
"You've never even been on this?" Chris interrogates.
Mark hops the fence after the rest of them. "Nope."
"The animal you choose says a lot about you," Dustin says. "For example, Chris is gonna choose the shark because he's vicious and bloodthirsty."
Chris hops on what is definitely not a shark but a dolphin. He shrugs. "That's what they say."
Eduardo picks a giraffe.
"Because he's tall," Dustin says, as he climbs atop a tiger without explaining why.
Mark ends up choosing an alligator—or maybe it's a crocodile. He doesn't wait for Dustin's explanation, because he has his own: it's on a diagonal from the giraffe—close enough to Eduardo that they'll be able to chat, but not so close that he'll think Mark is trying too hard.
The carousel starts up, droning its off-key circus tune, and Eduardo turns around to ride backward on his giraffe, facing Mark. "Having fun?"
"Oh, yeah," Mark says. His crocodile rises and falls at a pace that can only be described as tedious. "Nothing better than this."
Eduardo snorts. "So?"
"Two out of ten," Mark says.
"Mm. Could be worse."
"Is that a threat?"
Eduardo shrugs. "Maybe." Then he leans forward. "We didn't hit even half of the rides today. We'll have to do this again. A few times."
"If you say so," Mark says.
"I do."
"I get to pick next!" Dustin calls out. "Who's up for Gravitron?"
They end up staying 'til close—just after close, actually, and KC looks pissed when she has to collect them from the west side of the park and personally escort them to the parking lot, but Bobby smiles at them through the window of his office on their way out.
Mark's mom chews him out for coming home so late, but changes her tune when he tells her that he was still at the park with his friends.
"I think you're starting to like that job," she says, awed.
"I guess," Mark says on his way upstairs, and before she can probe him, he's already locked his bedroom door behind him.
It takes a couple seconds to shove aside his laundry pile and make space to lay in bed, and just another few to pop the button on his shorts and get a hand down his pants, parting the zipper on its way down.
Here's the thing. Times have been tough ever since he broke his laptop. He's not gonna look up porn on the family desktop—and it's not that he can't cover his tracks, because he can, it's more that he'd have to find a time to stealthily jerk off in the house's central hub, just next to the living room, and that is NOT going to happen—so he's had to get a bit creative.
Truth be told, it hasn't been the problem he'd anticipated it being. It happens to be very easy to picture being crowded against a wall by someone nearly a head taller than he is, being pinned by cinnamon eyes and touched all over by pretty, long-fingered hands.
Mark breathes hard out of his nose. Feels himself harden under his hand.
Simply put, it's easy to picture Eduardo.
It's a convenience thing; Eduardo's the most accessible and attractive person in Mark's life right now, and Mark's gotta picture someone. Eduardo feels uniquely easy to project fantasies upon; his open, generous attitude would surely lend itself nicely to, like, getting face-fucked or something. He's got the perfect mouth for it, plush and pouting, and his hair is long enough that Mark could take a fistful at the root to guide him with. Eduardo would look up at him with those dark, wet eyes, and ask Mark to come down his throat. Or maybe all over his face. What a pretty picture that would make.
For now, Mark pulls his shirt up and comes on his bare stomach instead. He comes up empty when he reaches at his nightstand for a tissue, so he grabs a freshly-cleaned shirt from the other side of the bed to wipe himself off with. Then he throws it on the floor, rolls over, and falls right into a dreamless sleep.
They become kind of a thing, the four of them, Chris&Dustin&Eduardo&Mark, leaving and arriving at the park together, spending lunch breaks at the same beat-up picnic table, lining up at the games next to each other when their schedules allow it. Chris puts himself next to Dustin whenever he’s working horse races because he thinks it’s funny how Dustin’s voice gets all fast and dramatic while he’s giving the play-by-play, and Dustin never fails to remind them all that he used to be the announcer at his high school basketball games because he thinks that’s way cooler than it is.
On the hottest day of the summer, Mark and Chris had fought over who’d get to work the water-gun races, because if you stand in a certain position sometimes the wind will blow a breeze of fine droplets in your direction and that’ll be the difference between sweating your balls off and a just-fine summer day. Chris won their rock-paper-scissors match (most of them—best of seven) so Mark tries not to look absolutely miserable at the ring toss when Eduardo approaches them, barely breaking a sweat, not a hair out of place.
It’s not fair.
He looks especially striking against the blueness of the sky, the sun behind him haloing his dark hair with a ring of brilliant gold. And he’s smiling, still, like it isn’t a billion fucking degrees even in the shade.
“So.” He smiles at the two of them, looking almost coy. “My parents are out of town this weekend, and I’m having kind of a get-together tonight.”
“That sounds like fun,” Mark says.
There’s a beat. Eduardo looks between Chris and Mark, amused. “So I’m inviting you. You’re invited.”
“Oh.” Mark flushes with humiliation. Excuse him for not knowing party protocol; this is kind of a first.
“That sounds great,” Chris says, freckled cheeks lifting into a bright smile.
“See you there?” Eduardo asks, to both of them, surely, but he’s only looking at Mark.
“Yes,” Mark says immediately. “Yes, I will be there.”
“We will be there,” Chris amends. “Should I tell Dustin?”
Eduardo’s attention snaps back to Chris. “Oh! Yeah, yeah, of course, I was just going to find him, but that works.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a napkin, handing it to Chris. “That’s my address.”
Chris looks at it, nodding. Mark glances over—and of course even Eduardo’s handwriting is perfect: slanting, masculine lines of cursive.
“See you guys later,” Eduardo says before leaving, and Chris barely waits to contain his whooping and fist pumping.
Once their shifts are over, Mark accompanies Chris and Dustin to the parts yard. It’s just up the hill, still technically Adventureland property, and used primarily as a place to dump the pieces of discontinued rides under the excuse of being reused someday so they don’t count as litter. Its secondary use is as the staff's smoke spot, because the old bumper cars are kind of couch-like and far enough away from anyone who’d care if they smelled weed.
Chris bummed a couple joints from Billy during his lunch break, so now he passes one back and forth with Dustin, the two of them punctuating their pulls with short, quiet coughs. Sometimes one of them passes it to Mark, forgetting he doesn’t smoke—pot makes him anxious—but Mark just passes it on, in a circle, over and over until it’s gone and Chris and Dustin are staring at each other with lazy, blissed out grins.
The sky is orange and yellow and blue all together, clouds drifting their casual paths into darkness. It’s cooler now, but Mark still feels sweaty and gross, so he’ll probably shower before Eduardo’s party tonight.
Eduardo’s party tonight. It feels stupid to get excited about it, so he doesn’t, his quickening heart rate be damned.
"Should we?" Chris suddenly asks, and Dustin giggles, then looks at Mark, then giggles some more.
"What?" Mark asks, sitting up. "Whatever you—no."
That sets them off on another laughing fit, Dustin banging the metal seat with the heel of his hand. They are stoned out of their fucking minds.
"No, it's—" Chris says, still laughing, "Just this game we used to play here—"
"This dumb game," Dustin adds through a wheeze, "This stupid fucking game."
“Fuck, marry, kill,” Chris reveals, and okay, Mark knows that one. He's just never played it.
Dustin rubs his hands together. “Hit me, Chris.”
Chris falls silent for a few seconds. “Okay. Stephanie, Christy, and the old clown mannequin that used to be in the fun house.”
“Easy.” Dustin re-positions himself, propping an elbow up on the side of his car. “Marry Stephanie. We would make the most gorgeous little babies in the world, man, it would be insane.”
“I shouldn’t have included her,” Chris says. “I knew you’d say that.”
“And I’d fuck the mannequin.”
Chris gives him a sidelong glance, eyes lazy and red around the edges. “You’re lying.”
Dustin raises his hands. “Swear on my life.”
“Dude, Billy found maggots in that thing’s eyes last summer.”
“Yeah, but did it light his shit on fire?”
“That’s just a rumor. And you’d rather have dick maggots?”
“What’s the rumor?” Mark asks. Dustin and Chris look at him like they’ve forgotten he’s there. Then they look at each other, and Mark watches a conversation pass between their eyes in the span of a second.
Chris turns to Mark first. “So, Christy and Eduardo. They’re, like, kind of an on-and-off thing.”
“That’s also a rumor,” Dustin adds. “Wardo doesn’t talk about it at all. I try to ask him and he just laughs it off or, like, changes the subject.”
“Right.” Chris sets his chin up on his hands. “Well, people say she burned a bunch of his clothes and stuff because he wasn’t answering her calls.”
“I heard she tried to burn his parents’ house down,” Dustin says.
“That’s, like, arson, dude. She’d be in jail.”
“No way. I bet she’s got connections. She’s all mysterious and shit.”
“Wait,” Mark says, mind reeling while he catches up. “Christy and Wardo?”
“I know.” Chris looks down the hill at the park. “I thought it was weird at first, but they kind of make sense when I think about it.”
They do not make sense to Mark. Christy is all bubbly energy and crossed arms and perfect hair, and Wardo is Wardo, with his soothing, calm presence and soft hands and…also perfect hair. Mark pictures them together and it feels wrong. Then he pictures them together-together, making out across the seats of Eduardo’s Benz, her hands raking through his hair, scratching at his back, and that’s much worse.
“Also, that clown mannequin’s a dude,” Chris is saying when Mark tunes back in. “So if you fuck it—”
“Your turn, Mark,” Dustin interrupts. “Same question.”
“Um.” Mark tries to remember the choices. “I haven’t met Stephanie. Or the mannequin.” He’s only met Christy—err, seen Christy—and he’s starting to hate her more with each passing second.
Dustin makes a face at him. “Party-pooper.”
“Do one for me,” Chris says, and Dustin groans.
“Great, now I have to think like a queer.”
Chris punches him hard in the arm.
“Ow, fuck! Okay.” Dustin rubs his arm, glaring as hard as he can while he's still smiling.
Chris is gay, and that fact is less weird to Mark than the fact that Chris is fine with people knowing that about him. Mark has enough sense to keep those kinds of impulses to himself, a self-preservation tactic to eliminate one more thing for people to give him shit for. Aside from Dustin and his playful razzing, though, no one on staff is stupid enough to pick on the universally-loved Chris.
“Fuck, marry, kill,” Dustin says. “Let’s start with Wardo.”
Mark lays back in his seat and shuts his eyes.
“Sean Parker,” Dustin adds.
It’s weird, Mark thinks, that people around here only refer to Sean Parker by his full name. It makes him sound like some kind of celebrity. Like a myth. Mark hasn’t met him, so maybe he is one.
Chris nods approvingly.
Dustin’s eyes glint with mischief. “And me.”
Chris blows a puff of air from his cheeks. “Kill you.”
“Your own best friend,” Dustin says. “Cruel.”
“Marry Eduardo,” Chris finishes, quickly, like he doesn’t need to think about it. “And fuck Sean Parker.”
Dustin looks contemplative. “I want you to elaborate, but in a PG way.”
“Eduardo’s the kind of guy you take inside to meet your parents,” Chris says. “Sean Parker’s the guy you sneak in through the back door.”
Dustin snorts. “Yeah, tell us more about how much you want Sean in your back door.”
Chris punches him again. “That wasn’t PG.”
“I only said you had to be.”
“Bigot!”
Mark desperately wants to tell them to shut up, but that’s not good-friend-shit, so he just lays all the way down and stares at the clouds, hoping they'll get bored and they can all go home before the party tonight.
Eduardo's party.
Tonight.
When they pull up at Eduardo’s place, parked half a block down because that’s where the closest open spot is, the party's in full swing already. Mark thinks so, at least; he wasn’t invited to high school parties, so seeing a couple dozen people drinking and laughing and chatting feels like a success already. Eduardo greets them at the door, smiling widely.
The house itself is gorgeous, and rich, all dark wood and wide windows looking out to a rectangular swimming pool that glows turquoise from the lights beneath. It only further cements Mark’s theory that Eduardo doesn’t need to be working for minimum wage at some shitty summer job. He tells him so when Eduardo’s finished with his impromptu tour and Chris and Dustin have gone to the kitchen to raid the liquor stash.
Eduardo gives him a funny look—not bad, per se, but curious. “You should tell my father that. He’d much rather have me in the city for an internship.”
That makes a lot more logistical sense, Mark thinks, but he won’t say so. “So why Adventureland?”
Eduardo’s gaze turns nostalgic. “I’ve been going there since I was a kid, and working there since high school. I think this’ll be my last summer, though.”
Mark nods.
“How do you like it so far?” Eduardo asks, leaning up against the wall of the hallway. It’s the first time Mark’s seen him in something that isn’t his work shirt, and although Mark’s sure Eduardo could make anything look good, he seems much more comfortable in a black button-down, left open just enough for Mark to see the full stretch of his neck as he swallows his next sip of beer, the shift of his collarbones as he positions his shoulders. “Mark?”
Mark blinks, embarrassed. “Yeah, it’s fine. I needed something to do this summer. I guess I started looking too late to work anywhere good.” And God, had it been humiliating to be rejected by restaurants, retail shops, ice cream parlors, every place in town that had already taken on their summer staff. Adventureland hadn’t been his last resort, necessarily, but it was close to the bottom of his list.
He realizes too late that he’s probably insulted Eduardo’s willing choice to work there, but Eduardo doesn’t look offended, just amused, eyes glittering as he looks down at Mark. “Well, I’m glad you’re here.”
The compliment—is it even that?—runs warm and pleasant up Mark’s spine. Before he can respond, Eduardo adds, “And so are Chris and Dustin. You fit right in.”
“You don’t have a fish tank,” Mark blurts.
Eduardo gives him a strange look, but he’s still smiling. “What?”
“You don’t have a fish tank,” Mark repeats. “Like you said.”
Eduardo takes a second to remember, but once he does, he huffs a short, loud laugh. “Oh, to that little girl?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo repeats. “I lied. I’ve never had fish. I kind of hate them, really.”
“You hate them?”
Eduardo looks away, hiding a sideways smile. “They’re boring! They don’t do anything. I used to have a cat, though, and she was adorable.” He points a hand toward a shelf by the window stacked with picture frames. “Do you want to see her?”
Mark’s more of a dog person, but “Sure.”
The cat’s whatever. It’s a cat. It’s cute, though, how Eduardo coos over her picture and seems so eager to show her off. Mark’s more interested in the other pictures, though, like one of a younger Eduardo beaming at the camera, two older figures standing stoically behind him.
“Your parents?” Mark asks.
“Mm.” Eduardo picks up the frame, angling it toward Mark so he can see better. “When we lived in Brazil.” He points to another, this one in a room Mark doesn’t recognize from the house. Eduardo’s a bit older in this one, but smiles just as brightly, next to two other kids. “And this one in Miami.”
“You moved around a lot,” Mark says.
“Not too much, but they were big changes,” he says. “I got very good at making friends.”
That explains his likability; years spent developing a social survival skill.
“Do you miss Brazil?” Mark asks. “Or Miami?”
“The weather, definitely,” Eduardo admits. “But it’s nice having my family close to where I go to school. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
Eduardo’s gaze goes cloudy while he puts the first photo down. When he speaks, his voice is soft. “Well. My father—”
“Wardoooooooooo!” Dustin croons, using the railing post at the end of the stairs to swing himself around to put himself, quite literally, in the middle of their conversation. “So, you’re friends with Stephanie.”
Eduardo smiles at him, amused. “I am, yes.”
Dustin breaks out into a grin. Mark wants to punch him a little. “Dude. So she totally wants me.”
“I dunno,” Eduardo answers slowly, glancing quickly at Mark. “Um, I’ve never heard her talk about you, but—”
“Playing hard to get,” Dustin says, raising his cup to Eduardo. “All girls are the same.”
Yikes.
“Where’s your babysitter?” Eduardo asks.
Chris appears out of nowhere, planting his hands on Dustin’s shoulders. “Preferred term is designated driver, thanks.”
“Nerd,” Dustin says, but lets himself be steered away by Chris. “Hey, Chris, you know how Steph totally wants me?”
“Uh-huh,” Chris replies while they walk away.
Eduardo laughs at them once they’re gone. “They’re cute.”
“They’re annoying,” Mark replies.
“In a cute way.”
There's silence. Eduardo’s looking at him. Fuck, is Mark supposed to say something? If he doesn’t keep this conversation going, Eduardo might get bored and—
“Let’s go swimming,” Eduardo says.
“That’s—um, okay,” Mark says. “Swimming.”
He’s not sure what to make of Eduardo’s choice, whether it's motivated by spontaneity or tipsiness. Whatever it is, Eduardo’s more than comfortable stripping down to his black briefs and executing a perfect swan-dive into the deep end of the pool before Mark’s brain even has time to process that yeah, they’re standing in front of his pool, and yeah, they’re actually going swimming.
Mark glances through the wide glass windows at the rest of the party inside. He thinks he spots a joint being passed around in the kitchen, and here comes Chris chasing Dustin back up the stairs, and—
“You coming?” Eduardo asks from the pool. He’s just resurfaced, hair slicked back and dark from the water. He props his forearms up on the side. “It’s nice, actually, not too cold.”
“Yes,” Mark says, and is grateful that he loses Eduardo’s attention when he pushes against the pool wall to float backward, staring up at the night sky. Mark shucks his clothes as quickly as he can and half sits, half slides himself into the water.
Eduardo’s right. The pool’s not too cold. It’s perfect, actually, since the air’s still muggy with humidity and the ghosts of the day’s suffocating heat. He can stand where he’s at, so he does, waving his arms a few times for balance.
Now Eduardo’s watching him carefully. He’s slowly drifting on his side, almost circling Mark, with his mouth barely above water. “Do you like swimming?” Then he laughs, sharp and bright, like the call of a songbird. “I should’ve asked you that before we came out here.”
Yeah, he does. But his sisters liked it more; they used to team up on him and drag him underwater when he refused to play mermaids with them, something he rambles to Eduardo, who’s closer, now, and smiling, his face wet and sparkling, glowing golden in the light.
Eduardo mms and they float around each other some more. Crickets sing, tucked away in the trees behind the yard. From inside, a burst of raucous laughter breaks out. It’s just muffled enough that Mark can still hear drops of water fall from Eduardo’s hair into the pool.
“This is… cool,” Mark says, meaning the party, needing to say something. There can’t be more than an arm’s length between them. Eduardo’s looking right at him. He has nice shoulders. He has nice everything.
“Yeah,” Eduardo says quietly. He's standing now, head tilted like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t, just waves his arms underwater and takes a half-step forward and now they’re really close, close enough that Mark could count Eduardo’s eyelashes if he wanted to, and Mark’s heart seizes in his chest, and Eduardo laughs, nervous, and his gaze slides off to the side and catches on something over Mark’s shoulder, in his house. His face changes completely.
Mark turns around to look for himself.
Someone Mark doesn’t know—someone on rides crew, probably—is at the top of Eduardo’s staircase with a couch cushion while a small group cheers him on from the bottom, pumping their fists and shouting.
“What—!” Eduardo starts, panicked, and Mark says, “Oh my god, go,” and Eduardo gives him an apologetic look before pulling himself out of the pool and grabbing a towel to wrap around his waist for his half-jog back to the door.
Mark stays in the water to watch Eduardo work his magic, somehow convincing the guy to totally not perform his stunt in a nice enough way that they’re patting each other on the back by the end of their thirty-second chat. Someone points to his wet hair and then out to the pool, and that’s a great idea, of course, so Mark has to quickly pull himself out before six people make a beeline for the water.
His chest pounds hard. Eduardo—what had he—before…?
He grabs a towel and sits on a lawn chair, willing himself to calm down. The rides crew doesn’t pay him any attention, leaping and cannonballing into the water, laughing at each other.
After a few deep breaths, Mark realizes he's shivering, so he puts his clothes back on and looks through the glass for his friends.
Dustin hasn’t noticed him. He’s too busy giggling at what some girl is saying.
But Chris is looking right at him.
Mark thinks he’s home free until he starts his Monday shift and Chris corners him in the space between the rope ladder booth and the lemonade stall, pinning him with a stare that would be downright scary on anyone else, but on Chris’s baby face it just looks juvenile, like he’s about to steal Mark’s lunch money to buy Pokémon cards.
“Chris,” is all Mark can think to say while he’s plotting his escape. He could knee Chris in the nuts and make a break for it if he needs to. He might.
“I have a theory,” Chris says, slowly, watching Mark carefully.
Mark tries to keep his face as neutral as possible. “That’s great, Chris.”
“Will you help me prove it?” Chris asks, “In the name of science?”
Mark swallows. “Technically, you can’t prove theories, you can only disprove them—”
“Eduardo,” is all Chris says, and Mark’s face must do something revealing, because Chris gasps out loud, bringing a hand to his mouth, which Mark thinks is a little dramatic through his haze of irritation.
“Chris,” he starts, his chest hot with anger, “I don’t know what you think you know, but—”
“I didn’t think I knew anything,” Chris says, awestruck. “Until you just confirmed it for me.”
“You—” Mark makes himself take a breath. “You don’t know anything.”
“Holy shit.” Chris runs both hands up his forehead into his hair. “You let Dustin give me shit about the gay thing, and this whole time—”
“There is no gay thing. I’m not gay.” And then, betraying himself, “Don’t tell Dustin.”
“I won’t,” Chris says immediately, which is reassuring, at least. “But he can theorize just like I can.”
“Hey, guys,” someone says from behind Chris, and when Chris turns around Mark can see it’s Eduardo.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Eduardo looks between them with the confusion of someone who couldn’t have possibly heard the first half of that conversation. “I—sorry, did I interrupt something?”
“No,” Mark says quickly, and Chris says, “Absolutely not.”
“Okay,” Eduardo says, shifting from one foot to the other. Is he nervous? Mark’s never seen him nervous. “Mark, I was wondering if we could talk later?”
Mark ignores Chris turning to look at him, now, too, and the look that must be on his face. Talk later. Privately, obviously, or else they’d just do it right here. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Okay. I could give you a ride home if you want.”
A ride home in Eduardo’s car. “Yeah,” Mark says again.
Eduardo nods shallowly, smiling a little. “Cool. We’ll just meet in the lot, then.”
“Yeah,” Mark says for a third time.
Eduardo gives him a funny look. “Great. See you later, then. Bye, Chris.”
Chris gives him a little salute-thing and then Eduardo’s gone, stalking uphill on those long legs of his. Mark watches him until Chris clears this throat.
“You let me know how that goes,” he says, grinning, and Mark turns away so Chris can't pester him about how red his face must be.
It’s been dark for a while when their shift ends. Mark prefers having the second shift; it gives him more time to sleep in and he’s a night owl, anyway. It’s busier in the evenings, too, so he doesn’t get as bored.
“I like it, too,” Eduardo says while they walk to the staff lot. “It’s not so hot in my car when I have to leave.”
Mark eyes the black leather seats through the window. Yeah, figures.
The first few minutes of the drive are silent. Eduardo doesn’t even turn on the radio, just drums his fingers against the wheel and hums a little, not even enough to be a tune.
It makes Mark want to rip his hair out. Eduardo was the one who wanted to talk to him, anyway—so what the hell is going on? He feels like he's suffocating in here; he can’t tell if that rancid energy is from his own nerves or Eduardo’s.
Mark can't stop himself from thinking back to the pool. Eduardo had wanted to kiss him, hadn’t he? He was so close, and nervous, and beautiful, but it was just as likely he’d seen something in Mark’s face and was letting him down, somehow, cordial and polite enough to stop the runaway train of Mark’s feelings before it got too far off the track of their friendship, and—
“Can we stop somewhere?” Mark asks eventually. If he doesn’t get some fresh air he actually might puke.
Eduardo nods and signals for the next exit. They’re almost to the suburbs now, and the place he parks is some used-to-be underpass that’s since been closed and overgrown on either side with tall grass that doesn’t do much to hide all the litter in it—wrappers and cans all tossed from overhead.
Mark opens his door the second the car comes to a stop, letting himself out. His hands are shaking, so he presses them together, willing himself to breathe.
Eduardo comes around from the other side of the car. “Um. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Mark snaps. He stares at his own hands. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
When he can finally manage looking up at Eduardo, he looks like he’s been kicked. “I—Mark. Are you upset?”
“No!” Mark shouts, then gentler, “Shit, I’m—I don’t know—”
“Hey,” Eduardo says. “It’s okay.” He closes the distance between them and gently collects Mark in his arms, hugging him. “That’s my fault, sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, Mark.” Eduardo’s chest vibrates while he speaks. He smells sharp like cologne, but also heady and warm, like sweat. And like outside.
Mark freezes, hands at his sides. “My father used to do the same thing,” Eduardo continues, still holding him, “He’d say we needed to talk, and then let it drag out all day, and I’d get so anxious about it. I shouldn’t have—I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m so sorry.”
“What did…” Mark starts, and Eduardo pulls away just enough that they can look at each other, and he, too, looks nervous when he smooths his hand over Mark’s jaw to cradle his face, tilting it upward until they’re eye-to-eye.
Mark knows what he’s doing. Giving him a chance to flinch away, to say no.
He doesn't.
When they kiss, every cell in Mark’s body exhales.
Eduardo is gentle, tentative, and his lips barely touch Mark’s, still poised to flinch away. But Mark has been waiting too long. He clumsily grabs at Eduardo’s shirt, forcing him closer, and they both stumble, Mark falling back and Eduardo holding an arm out, both catching themselves on the hood of the car. For a second all they do is stare at each other. And then Eduardo smiles.
“Oh, my god,” he says slowly, “I thought… you…”
Mark feels himself smile, too.
“Oh, c’mere,” Eduardo says, and touches Mark’s face again to kiss him properly this time.
This is nothing like kissing Erica under the bleachers. Mark's not trying to remember how he should hold his lips or his breath, he just lets Eduardo lead and coax Mark's lips open, licking cautiously into his mouth, holding him through it. When Eduardo sighs too-quietly against Mark's lips, Mark goes a little lightheaded from the overwhelming swell of his want and sags further against Eduardo's car, breaking the kiss, staring up at him.
Eduardo's eyes are dark, but they sparkle yellow from the overhead street lights when his face breaks into another smile. "So that's what I wanted to talk to you about."
"You haven't done much talking," Mark says.
Eduardo laughs. "I guess not."
He pulls Mark in for another kiss: a slower, gentler one, until Mark licks into Eduardo's mouth before Eduardo takes him by the shoulders to hold him at arms-length and laughs a little breathlessly while he continues, "I have to get home soon, my parents are doing this dinner thing—"
And Mark is saying "Okay, yeah."
And Eduardo's saying "But we should, uh, I'd like to talk more later—"
And Mark's saying, "Yeah, talk—"
And they're kissing again, wet and messy, for just a few desperate seconds before Eduardo steps back completely and slides his hands into his pockets, biting his lip, eyes alight. "Really," he says, "We should—We have to go."
"Okay," Mark says.
"Okay," Eduardo repeats. They stare at each other. Eduardo laughs again. "Get in the car, Mark."
Mark's cheeks hurt from smiling. "Okay."
He does. Through the windshield he watches Eduardo cross to the other side and run a hand through his hair, grinning too.
Back in the car, Eduardo executes a flawless three point turn to get back on the highway, and once that's done, he rests a hand on Mark's thigh.
Mark wants to say something. Something like so that happened (stupid) or what does this mean, where do we go from here (gay), but the silence is a precious, sparkling thing between them, fragile and warm, so he says nothing, and Eduardo says nothing, and when they catch each other's eye it feels like all is understood, no words necessary.
Eduardo's hand stays on Mark's thigh until they pull up to his house.
After Eduardo parks, he smiles, looking meaningfully at Mark while he undoes his seat belt, but Mark's mom is a creep and he gestures to her silhouette in the window, peeking out at them. "Sorry, she's—"
Eduardo laughs. "No, that's sweet. I can pick you up tomorrow, if you—"
"Okay," Mark says. The space between them is already too much. He's already imagining pulling off the road and leaping over the center console to mash faces again.
"Sure," Eduardo says. His eyes are dark, his lips shiny. "I'll see you in the morning, Mark."
The journey up the walkway is too long. Eduardo waits in his car until Mark gets the door open, then he waves and pulls off.
Mark's mom stands, ready, in the hallway. "That wasn't Dustin," she says, doing a shit job at containing her excitement. "New friend?"
"What's for dinner?" Mark asks, and pushes past her into the kitchen.
Eduardo's car is in the driveway when Mark peeks out the kitchen window the next morning. Eduardo doesn't notice him looking, so Mark watches him bite his lip and fiddle with the car radio for a half a minute before he goes out to join him.
"Hey," Eduardo says when Mark slides into the passenger seat. He smiles his perfect smile.
"Hey," Mark says, trying not to think about how much he wants to kiss him again. A fruitless endeavor; he'd spent the entire night trying not to relive their too-short make-out so he could stop thinking about it and get some sleep. Exhaustion already tugs at him, so he knows it'll be a long, tired day.
Eduardo pulls out of the driveway, and they begin their journey to the park.
"I feel awful," Eduardo starts, and Mark braces for it, the regret and the backpedaling, but Eduardo continues, "that I made you so anxious last night, with the drive and everything. I should have just told you—"
"No," Mark says, "I mean—don't, it's okay."
"If you're sure," Eduardo says, and he looks uneasy for a moment before smiling shyly at Mark. "I mean, it ended up being okay, I hope."
Mark nods. Adds, "More than okay," and Eduardo grins.
"Good."
They lapse into casual conversation: Eduardo muses on his desire to work at the basketball booth today, since it's been popular lately, and then he starts a story about a guy who tried to cheat at ring toss yesterday.
Mark nods along, but he feels like he's on fire. He wasn't sure what to expect, getting into Eduardo's car—maybe some mushy talk about liking each other, but that idea excites and disgusts him in equal measure—it's somewhat of a relief that they're back to business as almost-usual: chatting about Adventureland stuff, like friends do. He supposes they're still friends, just friends that have kissed each other. Friends that will continue to do so. Friends that might do more than that sometime, and Mark looks out the window when he feels his face heat up at the thought.
Eduardo parks and they clock in, walking together to the game booths. They're not doing anything differently, but the tension is electric between them, and Mark's sure Eduardo feels it too; every time he looks over, Eduardo's looking back, and his eyes are warm and perspicacious.
Chris is hanging out at Eduardo's booth, gnawing on a churro, and when he sees the two of them walking together he grins wickedly.
"Knock it off, Chris," Mark says, before anything. He tries to scowl, but he's maybe not doing so good of a job pretending to be anything other than elated.
Chris raises his hands in defense. "Easy!"
Eduardo looks between them. "What?"
Mark gives Chris a pointed look. "He was going to…" Well, he's not sure exactly. Say something smug and pointed. Something like—
"I was going to ask if you two had gotten over yourselves and swapped spit already."
Something like that.
"What the fuck, Chris?" Mark asks, and when he looks at Eduardo, his mouth is agape.
"Relax," Chris says through a mouthful of cinnamon sugar. "Just wondering if you guys were gonna keep making goo-goo eyes at each other or actually, like, do something about it." Then he grins widely. "Seems like you did."
Mark's face burns. Had they really been that obvious? Well, Chris had bore witness to the intimate moment in the pool—and nearly every single one of their interactions before that. Maybe it was obvious from an outsider's perspective. But if that was the case…
"Wait," Mark blurts. "Who else—"
"Just me," Chris says. "But if you keep looking at each other like that, the rest of the universe won't be so far behind."
"Noted," Eduardo says, and shares a nervous smile with Mark. "We appreciate your discretion, Chris."
"You should really be thanking me for my wing man abilities," he says, winking obnoxiously, then pushing himself off the booth to stand. "You're welcome. Both of you. I accept payment in peanut M&Ms and frozen lemonade."
"Wing man?" Mark asks, and watches Chris and Eduardo share a knowing—maybe even guilty—glance.
"I'll let you take this one." Chris points a shit-eating grin at Eduardo.
Eduardo reaches into the bucket toss booth for a blow-up hammer prize and whacks Chris on the head with it.
"Hey!" Chris shouts. "Some thank-you!"
They struggle for the hammer for a few seconds before Eduardo throws it at Chris with a flourish. Chris raises it above his head, triumphant, and stalks away into the park.
Mark watches him go. "What was that?"
"Uhhhhhh," Eduardo says, but he's smiling when he hops up to sit at the booth. "We might've talked about things. Before."
"Things," Mark repeats. "Me?"
Eduardo nods, biting his lip. "Yeah, you."
Mark turns to look at Chris again. Looks like he's caught up with Billy, who's now breaking off a piece of Chris's churro for himself. "He did the same thing to me."
Eduardo's eyes widen. "You mean, about me?"
"Yeah."
Eduardo looks back at Chris, too. "That meddling little shit," he says fondly.
"What'd he say to you?" Mark asks, nerves prickling under his skin. Chris is a friend, and so is Eduardo—well, sort of—but being talked about behind his back has never been a particularly good thing.
Eduardo glances around, but no one's close enough to hear, and too focused with opening the park to pay any attention to the two of them. He kicks his feet against the booth and drops his voice a few levels. "He asked me if I liked you."
"And?"
"And I said I did!" Eduardo laughs. "Of course I did. I said I like a lot of things about you."
"Oh," Mark says, and he can't even look at Eduardo.
But Eduardo's not done. "I like how I can tell exactly how hard you're thinking by just looking at you. I like that you're so into your computer stuff—and you're, like, ambitious about it, and not just doing it to do it. I like that you're honest, and that you don't pretend you like everyone." He pauses, waits for Mark to look at him. "But you like me, I think."
Mark finds the courage to say "Yeah, I do."
"And," Eduardo says, even quieter, "I'm crazy attracted to you."
And now Mark's face is burning again. "Don't say that."
"Come on," Eduardo says. "Even if it's true?"
"Especially if it's true."
"Even if I think about you all the time?"
God, that's—something else. The thought that Eduardo could be thinking about Mark just as much as Mark's thinking about him is overwhelming. The idea that Eduardo could be having the same kind of fantasies Mark is… It's almost too much to bear. So he's honest. "You're too hot to be thinking about me all the time."
"That's very sweet," Eduardo says, and when his eyes drop down to Mark's lips, a pang of loss strikes deep in Mark's chest.
"I wish we could," Mark says. "Um. Talk some more. Right now. Like we did last night."
"Yeah," Eduardo says, voice so low it's almost a whisper. "I do, too. But you'll need a ride home, won't you?"
A ride home, in Eduardo's car with Eduardo. "Yeah, I think I will," Mark says.
They part ways with knowing smiles.
Now that Mark's got something to look forward to, the work day stretches infinitely out before him, bland and unenjoyable. At first it looks like he'll get to steal a few minutes with Eduardo during their lunch break, but Dustin sees them on their way to the parts yard and invites himself to join them. Chris trails along with an apologetic look that turns into a there's-only-so-much-I-can-do look when Mark glares at him.
The four of them pile into two bumper cars and share their hodgepodge of carnival food: a corn dog, soft pretzel, kettle corn, and nachos, plus a remarkably uncandied apple that Eduardo nabbed from the sweets stall before it could receive its coating of caramel. He passes it back and forth with Mark, licking over the spots where Mark's teeth punctured the skin, thumbing juice from where it sticks to his own lip while he tells Dustin that yes, he'll be giving Mark rides from now on, and no, it's not because Dustin sucks at it, it's because Eduardo's car is much more fuel-efficient and he doesn't want Dustin to have to go out of his way, no, seriously, it's fine, and you're welcome.
Chris catches Mark's eye during this exchange, barely containing his smile. Mark scratches his nose with his middle finger and Chris sticks his tongue out at him, mouthes smooth, and god, this day can't be over soon enough.
Eduardo has more time, tonight, so they go to get food—real food—at the bistro just off the highway. Mark's been here a couple times, for his cousins' graduation parties and plain old family dinners, so he's familiar with the place, its exposed brick walls dimly lit in orange by kitschy plastic wall sconces, its scuffed glass water mugs, its perpetually sticky dark wooden booths.
They sit across from each other in one now, and Mark distracts himself watching Eduardo's long fingers fiddle with the edges of the menu, waiting to muster enough confidence to ask if they're on a date.
Points in favor: Eduardo said he'd pay. And it's dinner. And they kissed.
Points against: They've gotten food together before. And maybe this isn't a dating situation; Eduardo didn't call it a date. He said "Let's get food." There is nothing inherently romantic about food.
Mark decides he'll ask after they've ordered. Once they've ordered, he amends his decision to asking once they've gotten their food, but then Eduardo starts talking about his favorite places to study at Harvard, and then about parties, about frats and final clubs, and Mark has to pay attention to that, so his question goes unasked and before he knows it they're back in Eduardo's car and Eduardo pulls into the very same overpass they'd stopped at yesterday and releases his seat belt to lean across the center console and kiss Mark, open-mouthed and sensual and still tasting a little bit like Dijon mustard, and Mark runs his hands over Eduardo's shirt up his chest and into his hair, and Eduardo whispers Mark's name and their tongues are slick in each other's mouths, exploring for ages, centuries, or maybe just until the lazy summer sun dips below the horizon and the streetlights click on, illuminating them in yellow.
Eduardo laughs a little when they separate. He looks at Mark, then away, then back, with a subtle shake of his head. "Wow."
Yeah.
So it doesn't really matter if they were on a date or not, but they probably were.
Mark thinks about asking again.
There's not really a great time to ask, is the thing. At the park, if Chris and Dustin aren't in their immediate vicinity, someone else is—be it another staff member or one of the hundreds of park goers. When the two of them do find the chance to chat at work, they keep it light: How was Duck Drop today? Did you hear about the woman who fell on her ass at the Music Express? Did you hear they ran out of jumbo pretzels? Did you hear that Staff Member A is fucking Staff Member B?
And their time together outside of the park is limited, mostly by Eduardo's anxiety about being out while his dad's home (He doesn't volunteer any additional context, and Mark hasn't asked yet). Most days, Eduardo makes no stop at the overpass before taking Mark home. Instead of a kiss, he sends Mark on his way with a squeeze of his knee or a few rubs of his thumb over Mark's arm.
And most nights, Mark jerks off to the thought of everything they haven't been doing—everything he'd like to be doing with Eduardo. His imagination is capricious; lately his fantasies have been increasingly sensual: Eduardo biting his lip while Mark strokes him off, Eduardo getting a hold on Mark's hands and pinning them above his head, Eduardo choking on Mark's name, eyes fluttering shut while he comes.
So that's new.
He's not sure what he'll do if he finally gets the chance to actually do any of that, but for now, there's no use worrying about it, and their contact stays painfully G-rated.
They do what they can to get any alone time together at all—Eduardo's recently introduced him to their own semi-secret spot on park grounds, and they've been exploiting it for all it's worth.
Today, while Mark waits in line at the BBQ stall, Eduardo comes up beside him, nudges his shoulder. "Hey." He's got a tarp folded and tucked under his elbow.
"Hey," Mark says. "I thought I was meeting you out there?"
Eduardo snorts. "I didn't think you'd take this long." Then he walks past the next few people, right up to the front of the line. The curly-haired woman leaning out the window sees him right away, and a smile brightens her face. "Eduardo, love. You want your usual?"
"Two, please."
"Sure thing."
She doesn't make him pay—and within seconds, he's back at Mark's side, his hands full with two pulled-pork sandwiches, grinning from ear to ear. "Ready?"
Mark stares at him. "You're so good at that."
"Good at what?"
Mark shrugs, because the answer is everything. Eduardo's eyes interrogate Mark's for a few seconds, and then he gives up, rolling his shoulder toward the exit. "C'mon."
At the north end of the parking lot, a grassy hill separates the lot and the highway past the edge of the property. Overgrown and verdant, it's an enticing spot for school field trip meeting spots and staff members who want some alone time from the rest of the park, if they can stand the mosquitoes.
Eduardo lifts the tarp; Mark gets the idea and takes two ends of it, and they spread it out on the lush grass to sit.
In the sunlight, Eduardo's skin looks luminous and warm. He lays back, stretching his hands above his head, and his shirt rides up, revealing a sliver of toned stomach. Mark stares, unashamed, even when Eduardo's eyes ease open and catch him in the act.
He smiles, smug. "What?"
"Nothing," Mark says.
"Okay," Eduardo says, but his eyes are bright and knowing. He closes them again and brings his hands to rest behind his head. "This is really nice."
Mark busies himself with peeling the paper away from his sandwich. "So what's the deal with your dad?" For as long as he's known Eduardo, Eduardo's dad has been a nebulous, uneasy presence above his son, always appearing in bitten off sentences or excuses, cutting their plans short or hovering over his stories of home.
Eduardo doesn't say anything for a moment. Mark looks over to make sure Eduardo's heard, and he has; his eyes are closed, but his face is pinched in discomfort. Finally, he takes a long, exaggerated breath. "Okay. Uh, he's strict, I guess. He can be hard on me, sometimes, but he wants the best for me." He shifts on the tarp. "I mean, his parents were the same way—and he's been very successful. He wants that for me, too."
"And he doesn't want you working here," Mark prompts.
Eduardo grimaces. "Uh, no. I told him it was the only place I could get a job, so, you know, it's better than nothing, I guess, to him."
Mark's own dad had been delighted to hear about Mark's full-time carny gig; as a young man, he'd worked at his own hometown fairground. Really, Mark, you'll love it there, I had the time of my life, I still talk to the gentleman I worked the rides with, Johnny, we were thick as thieves…
"Are you two close?" Mark asks.
Eduardo looks at him strangely. "He's my father," he replies, which isn't an answer.
"Okay," Mark shrugs.
"Okay," Eduardo repeats. He rolls onto his stomach and looks over his shoulder at Mark. "Any other burning questions?"
Mark waits a few seconds to make it seem like he's thinking. "I heard you used to date Christy."
Eduardo doesn't seem fazed by this. "Yeah, last year."
"I think she still likes you," Mark says.
"Yeah." Eduardo sits up on his elbows. "I think so, too." A dark piece of hair loosens from his coif and dangles from his forehead. He smooths it back into place. "We weren't together for very long. And she was—I don't know."
Mark doesn't say anything.
"Crazy," Eduardo finishes. He laughs, dryly, looking out at the lot. "Actually crazy. While we dated, and like, right after. You should've seen the texts she sent me."
"I heard she lit your stuff on fire."
"Who told you that?" Eduardo asks, too evenly to be surprised by the accusation. His gaze darkens. "It was Dustin, wasn't it."
"Did she?"
"Or Chris?"
"Are you, like, what, defending her?" Mask asks, facing Eduardo completely. Eduardo's already looking at him, eyes intense and inquisitive. "Did she?" he asks again.
"Are you jealous?" Eduardo asks, not accusatory, just curious—which somehow makes it worse. "Is this you being jealous?"
"No," Mark spits immediately. "Wardo, did she."
"Yeah," Eduardo says, still holding his gaze. "She kind of did."
He stares at Mark until he realizes that won't be enough for him, and then he sits up all the way and slings an arm around his knee, holding it close to his chest. "I was kind of—well, I wasn't a great boyfriend. I didn't feel, you know, the way she felt about me. And she was upset by that, and I wanted to fix things, so I gave her this—this stupid scarf, and she lit it on fire in the staff lot. That's all."
"So she broke up with you?"
"I broke up with her," Eduardo corrects, and lays back down. "Right after that."
Past the park gates, a coaster zips around a corner and into the sky, and a chorus of distant, shrill screams rises up with it. The day is warm, but not hot. Wind whistles overhead, carrying the tender scent of lilacs.
"So you're not, like, an on and off thing?"
"No," Eduardo says instantly, then, more disgusted, "No. Is she telling people that?"
"Chris is. And Dustin agreed, I guess."
"Yeah, they probably think—I mean, I never—She probably—I'll talk to them," Eduardo says, calmer than Mark would have been to hear someone spreading rumors about him.
Mark watches the drop tower fall. "You don't like her."
"No," Eduardo says quickly. "I mean, we're friends, still, I guess. I don't have feelings for her."
"Okay."
"You don't believe me?"
"No. Not no like—I mean, no, I do believe you."
"Then what?"
Mark reaches past the end of the tarp and plucks a thick blade of grass. He shreds it to slivers with his fingernails. "You've said you like me."
"Mark," Eduardo says, and turns on his side. "Of course. What? Have I not done a good enough job at convincing you of that?"
"So, by your logic, it stands to reason that you have feelings for me."
"Yes," Eduardo insists.
"I guess I was curious what kind," he says, and on Eduardo's confused look, adds, "of feelings."
Eduardo smiles, which is a little patronizing, or maybe Mark's just embarrassed, but he has to look away, out at the park again. "Well," Eduardo starts. "I like spending time with you. I want to keep doing it. I feel like—I kind of want to, I don't know." He smiles, uneven, hesitant. "Okay, this is going to sound stupid."
"Say it."
"Like… Take care of you?"
"You don't need to take care of me."
"I know." Eduardo traces a crease in the tarp below him with his fingertip. "But I want to, I think. Even when I don't really know what that means."
"I was about to ask," Mark says, and Eduardo laughs.
"That's too bad."
"Take care of me," Mark repeats.
"Okay." Eduardo twists his ring while he thinks. "I guess I think you're really special, and different. And you matter a lot to me. So I just want to keep you in my life, and make sure you're doing okay."
"Different," Mark echoes.
"Different like good."
"That's why you buy me lunch."
"Yes—exactly! Like that."
"And why you switched booths with me last week when I was at rope ladder?"
"You would've burnt to a crisp in all that sun," Eduardo says. "Yeah, see, all that stuff. You're, like—I like being there for you. Here for you."
Mark won't pretend that makes sense to him, but he supposes it doesn't have to. Eduardo wants to be around him, and that's enough.
Eduardo nudges Mark's hip with his elbow. "Now's the part when you tell me what feelings you have for me."
In the lot, Mark watches a family in matching lime green t-shirts file out of a mini van. "You gave Christy a scarf in the summer time?" he asks.
Eduardo huffs a humored breath. "I told you it was stupid." Then, seriously, "Mark."
Mark takes a bite of his sandwich, chews, and swallows. Eduardo waits patiently.
"I like you," Mark finally says.
Eduardo's eyes roll. "Great, thanks."
"No, like—" Mark struggles for the right words. "Like, I might need you."
"Oh," Eduardo says softly. His eyes are wide and shining—his attention is overwhelming.
"I don't know what I did before you," Mark says quickly, and doesn't say the other part, I don't know what I'd do without you. "That's it. We don't have to talk about it."
"We don't," Eduardo says. He reaches out and takes Mark's hand, lacing their fingers together. "But thank you for saying it."
Eduardo's hand is large and soft, and he strokes the side of Mark's hand with his thumb, firm and comforting. Mark stares at their hands together until Eduardo drops his; a facilities truck has swung around the parking lot bend and toward them on its way to pick up cones, close enough to see.
"Sorry," Eduardo murmurs, and the moment has passed.
Eduardo takes him on more maybe-dates. When it's just the two of them at the diner, they share a milkshake, and Eduardo lets Mark choose the flavor. Mark learns that Eduardo is great at mini-golf, adequate at darts, and piss-poor at bowling. He cries at movies and buys flowers for his mom. He makes baby noises at stray cats and he only uses his car horn when he's in danger of being hit—and even then, he'll mutter an apology under his breath as if the other driver can hear him, and as if he's at fault. He brings coffee with him to work in a thermos and buys another cup during his afternoon break, which he's also started using to buy packs of Red Vines for Mark once he learned he likes those. He has walked every inch of the park and knows the best spots for everything.
One day it rains so hard that the rides shut down at noon, and then two hours later Bobby makes the executive decision to close for the day because there are, like, four customers total and all of them are huddling under awnings to stay dry. Mark’s planning on meeting Eduardo in the parking lot, but Eduardo ambushes him before he gets there, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him swiftly into a storage warehouse.
“Ew,” Mark says immediately, because it smells all musty and there’s a part of the roof missing, rain dribbling through it down the side of the wall to puddle on the floor. Thick dust wafts in, dislodged from the movement of the door, and when Mark looks past Eduardo he sees the old mannequin Chris referenced during their game (and then Mark thinks of maggots and then of Dustin fucking it, both of which are equally disturbing).
Eduardo mock-frowns, pulling Mark close by his wrists so that they’re only a foot apart. “Am I really that disgusting?”
“Not you,” Mark clarifies. “This.”
“I thought it would be nice.”
“Which part, the mildew or the—”
Eduardo kisses him then, planting his hands on Mark’s waist (Waist! Like he’s a girl or something!) to get him that much closer.
His lips are slick and taste like rainwater.
And admittedly the waist thing is kind of nice, because when he gets is hands on Eduardo's shoulders, their bodies press together warmly and Eduardo mms, satisfied, and slips his tongue in Mark's mouth, and—
“Mark—” someone says from the doorway, and Mark barely has time to separate from Eduardo and look over his shoulder before Dustin screams “Aaaaagh! What the fuck!” and covers his eyes. He makes no move to leave, though.
“Dustin!” Mark yells back. “Get out!”
“What the fuck!” Dustin says again, hand still in front of his face. “What the fuck!”
“Dustin,” Eduardo tries, ever the calm one, “This doesn't have to be—”
“What the FUCK!”
“Relax,” Eduardo says, more tense now.
"Ugh!" Dustin cries. He waves a hand at Mark, then at Eduardo. "You—What the fuck!"
"Stop shouting," Eduardo pleads.
Dustin's voice drops down to an angry hiss. "You two are—God! How long have you been keeping this from us? Chris is gonna flip shit when he finds out!"
"Chris already knows," Mark says, immensely satisfied to burst Dustin's bubble.
Dustin's mouth drops open. Mark watches the gears turn in his head. "You guys fucking hate me," Dustin decides. "You wouldn't care if I fell off the drop tower."
"It's not like that," Eduardo says. "We didn't tell Chris, he figured it out."
"So he got to know and I didn't?" Dustin whines.
"Our mistake," Mark deadpans. "Since you're acting so normal about it, now."
Dustin points a finger at him. "Fuck you." And then at Eduardo. "And fuck you, too. How long has this been going on?"
Eduardo looks at Mark; Mark looks back. After a moment, Eduardo speaks. "Since my party, just about."
It's charming that Eduardo views that as the starting point. Mark does, too. Even if nothing happened in the pool, it was the first time he'd realized that his feelings were in danger of being reciprocated. It'd scared the shit out of him in the moment, but he'd since spent many nights reliving every detail and letting the memory warm his chest while he fell asleep.
Dustin scoffs. "Fucking figures. Everyone got laid at that party except me."
Well, they weren't doing any laying, per se.
"What?" Eduardo asks. "Were people having sex in my house?"
"Don't change the subject," Dustin says. "We gotta get back to Chris so I can beat the daylights outta him."
"Why are you out here, anyway?" Mark asks.
"Who was having sex in my house?" Eduardo asks again.
Dustin ignores him, answering Mark instead. "Well, I'm not out here to get my dick wet like you pervs," he spits. After a moment, he drops the attitude. "Bobby has to lock up the parking gate, so he needs everyone out."
"So you came to find us," Eduardo concludes. "That's very kind, Dustin."
"And I was tortured for it," Dustin mutters. "Can we go? If you're done?"
"We're done," Eduardo says. "For now."
"What the fuck," Dustin says one more time, defeated, and they start towards the parking lot, keeping a brisk pace through the rain. Dustin stays a few steps ahead of them, ostensibly so he won't have to witness any of the PDA they're not even doing, but he keeps throwing accusatory looks over his shoulder like he's expecting to catch them in an act.
Mark tries to catch Eduardo's eye, but he stares down at his feet while he walks, his jaw tense. Mark wants to say something, or to grab his hand, but that doesn't feel appropriate after what's happened. Whatever his mood is about, it can wait—and Dustin's on anti-intimacy duty, anyway.
Finally they reach Chris, sheltering under the office's awning.
"Jesus, that took a while," he says. "Where were you guys?"
"Don't get me started," Dustin grumbles. He glares at Mark and Eduardo again, for good measure.
"Ooooohkay," Chris draws out. "We all going to dinner, or what?"
Dustin frowns at him. "Obviously."
Half an hour later, over chips and guacamole, Dustin's done detailing the whole gruesome story for Chris, who had to beg twice for Dustin to stop because he was laughing too hard to breathe.
"Did I miss a question on the job application, or something? How statistically improbable is it that all three of my friends like cock?" Dustin points a finger at Eduardo. "Now, you? Not that surprising. And Chris has been gay since birth. But Mark? Fucking seriously?"
"I'm not sure how to take that," Eduardo says.
"As a compliment," Chris advises. "He means you dress well and practice basic hygiene."
"Which makes the case of Mark even more perplexing," Dustin says, steepling his hands in front of him.
"I practice basic hygiene," Mark says. He's not even going to touch the slight to his lack of fashion sense.
"I'd hope so, for Eduardo's sake." Chris hides a smirk in the next bite of his enchilada.
Dustin stares at him, incredulous. "This is funny to you?"
"Of course. We outnumber you, now. Come to the dark side, you’ll get way better hand jobs.”
When Dustin's face breaks into shell-shocked horror, Eduardo tries a different tactic. "I'm sure this was surprising, Dustin, but it's not like much has changed. You couldn't even tell before you walked in on us. We're still all friends."
Dustin pushes salsa around his plate with a chip. "I get that. I even get why you kept it from me. It just blows to be outside a secret."
"You're right," Eduardo says. "I'm really sorry, Dustin."
"I'm sorry, too," Chris says.
Eduardo has to elbow Mark in the side before he thinks to mumble his own apology.
"Alright," Dustin says. "Thanks, guys. Now that's enough of that mushy-gushy shit." With newfound spirit, he points to Mark and Eduardo across the table. "Now, if you guys break up, you cannot make it our problem. I'm not picking sides, so hash it out amicably or we'll have to drown one of you in the Tunnel of Love."
"Nice vote of confidence," Chris says. "Congrats on being boyfriends; let's settle your divorce now."
"Oh," Eduardo blurts. "We're not—"
"Boyfriends," Chris finishes, not missing a beat, "Official, exclusive. Sorry. Didn't mean anything by it."
Dustin whistles lowly. "Way to go."
"No, it's okay," Eduardo says. "Just—yeah."
Mark bites his tongue. Yeah, he knew all that, but to hear it so definitively confirmed by Eduardo is another thing entirely, and it doesn't feel great, the way he shut it down so insistently. Is he seeing anyone else? How could he be, with the amount of time he spends at work and with Mark, Chris, and Dustin? Does he want to see someone else? Does he not like Mark enough to commit to him? Is Mark being relegated to summer fling status, even though they're going to Harvard together? Would Mark even want to date him seriously, even if that was an option, which it totally isn't, it seems like?
Ironically, Dustin's the only one who catches this internal shame spiral; his eyes narrow at Mark, and they share a moment of eye contact before Dustin clears his throat and says to Eduardo, "And it was KC and Divya that hooked up at your party. She blew him in the upstairs bathroom."
Eduardo's mouth drops open. "They're—whoa, okay. I'm glad it wasn't in my bed."
Chris mms. "That makes sense, actually. She was asking Bobby to change the schedule so they could be together on the Music Express while I was clocking in yesterday…"
While he goes on, Mark meets Dustin's eye and tries to silently communicate something like that was no big deal, and I wasn't upset, but thank you for changing the subject even if I was, which once again, I wasn't.
Dustin half-shrugs, communicating something like whatever, dude.
The conversation turns to gossip about the other staff couples, but thankfully none more about Mark and Eduardo. They all finish their food, Eduardo gets the bill, and that's that.
"That could have gone worse," Eduardo says while he pulls his car out of the lot.
Mark buckles himself into the passenger seat. "I guess."
Eduardo drums his hands on the steering wheel. "I hope that was okay," he says quickly, "That I said, you know, that we're not—"
"Yeah." Mark stares out the window. "I mean, we're not, so."
"Right," Eduardo says.
Mark lets the silence stretch between them, thick like taffy. He counts the streetlights as they pass; in his peripheral vision he watches Eduardo turn to look at him, then the road, then back to him, then the road again.
"Is that okay?" Eduardo eventually asks.
"Is it okay for you to state facts?" Mark asks dryly.
Eduardo sighs. "Come on, Mark, I've obviously upset you."
"You haven't," Mark says, not sure if he means it. If he is upset, that would mean he wants something Eduardo doesn't—and he's not even sure that he does. He certainly doesn't want it enough to risk what he's already getting from Eduardo. So he softens a little. "It's fine, Wardo."
"It's fine that I said we're not in a relationship? Or that we're not in one?"
Mark's shoulders tense. "I don't know, both? Does it matter? I just said it's fine."
"It does matter," Eduardo says softly. "We should be able to talk about this kind of thing, don't you think?"
Mark keeps his gaze out the window. "There's nothing to talk about."
"Okay," Eduardo says, and his voice is hard. "Well, if there was something to talk about, I'd want you to know that it's not about you. Being in a relationship with anyone, it's like, a serious, public thing. And I couldn't have that getting back to my father while I live at home."
"Not being with anyone. Being with a guy," Mark corrects, because he still doesn't know much about Eduardo's father, but what he's heard suggests he's the traditional type.
"Mostly that," Eduardo says. "Yeah, look. I don't want…" He trails off, frustration edging into his voice. "Look, I like you, okay? And I like this. But we have to kind of… be careful? We were lucky it was just Dustin who walked in on us today—"
"That was your idea." Mark could have found a better spot to make out than the old storage shed.
"I know," Eduardo says. "And I'm not mad that Dustin knows. But we should—I should—have better judgment. You've seen how the rumor mill runs off with stuff like that."
"Yeah," Mark says. And again, "I said it's fine."
"Okay," Eduardo says, and Mark hears him shift into park and cut the ignition.
And that's a little weird, because they're not at Mark's house but down a few blocks and next to an empty field where he used to play soccer with his sisters. "Wardo? Why—"
Eduardo reaches around the steering wheel to turn off the headlights. "Because I want to kiss you," he says, and looks over at Mark, meeting his gaze for the first time since they got in the car. His thick eyebrows are furrowed, and he watches Mark intently, waiting.
"Oh," Mark says, and the warmth that floods him must read clear as day on his face, because Eduardo's breaks into a smile before he leans across the center console to press their lips together.
The kiss is gentle and warm but tinged with its own soft wanting, so Mark isn't surprised when Eduardo pulls back, smiling shyly, and shifts his seat back to make room for Mark to crawl over and straddle him. It's a clumsy transition, and Mark kicks the hell out of the passenger seat and then Eduardo's knee to get there, but he does, sitting not-quite-comfortably in Eduardo's lap and steadying himself on the driver's seat with his hands.
"Good?" Eduardo asks, but doesn't wait for an answer before he wetly kisses Mark's lips, his cheek, his neck, and finally presses his nose to the spot just behind Mark's ear. "I can't let you doubt how much I like you. Not for a second."
"Message received," Mark says, shivering into Eduardo's touch, and Eduardo presses their lips together softly, sweetly, but it isn't long before it turns into something less soft, less sweet: more needy, more hungry.
Because the Fourth is the busiest day at the park, Bobby spends a week offering meal vouchers to anyone who'll promise to work overtime. Sick as they are of the food, the four of them sign up anyway; Mark hasn't got anything better to do, Eduardo doesn't want to be at home, and Chris and Dustin are at least partially motivated by the incentive; they both exchange their food voucher for enormous bags of kettle corn which make them quite popular among staff; more than twice, Mark watches someone jog to catch up with them, reaching in to grab a handful to take to their posts.
The day itself is famously scorching; the sun is a vicious beast that burns thighs on benches and ticks the log ride wait time up to two hours. Mark stares wistfully at it from the ring toss booth. Usually, attendance dips around six, but with everyone staying for the fireworks show, Mark's busy until the sky darkens and Bobby gets on the loudspeakers to give his thirty, fifteen, five minute warnings.
They were told to stay at their booths during the fireworks show, but no one wants to shoot hoops or throw rings during the main event, so when the first blasts start echoing their way through the park and a chorus of oohs rises up to meet it, Eduardo hops his booth and sits next to Mark at his, nudging his knee. From where they're sitting, they've got a near-perfect view of the fireworks between the orange arcs of the new steel coaster.
Eduardo turns to him, grinning, and Mark watches the explosions reflected in his dark eyes: blue, red, then shimmering gold. Eduardo reaches over and squeezes Mark's knee, then brings his hand back to rest on his own lap.
He is warm, so warm, his hand and his leg next to Mark's, and Mark doesn't feel sated by the gesture, he feels wound up tighter, like he needs to lick into Eduardo's mouth as soon as possible, witnesses be damned.
Not an option, obviously, so he just sits and watches. The boom of the fireworks reverberates all the way down to his bones, and when Eduardo rests his shoulder against Mark's, he can feel them through their bodies, too.
The show convinces Dustin to set off his own fireworks, and he tells them at lunch the next day that he needs somewhere to do it. Mark volunteers his own backyard which his mom allows with minimal protest because look at your friends, Mark! She stares out the window at all of them sitting in the grass out there, and when she brings out ice-cold lemonades Mark rolls his eyes but Eduardo introduces himself with his usual charm and then the two of them talk about the neighborhood, about Harvard, about Adventureland and then about Mark, both of them smiling and laughing, eyes bright. Chris elbows Mark in the ribs and mouths wow, lips stretching exaggeratedly over the word, and Mark averts his eyes. Dustin’s probably going to blow his fingers off with those shitty fireworks if someone doesn’t intervene soon, and Mark goes over to supervise so he's not forced to acknowledge the sight of Eduardo and his mom getting along like they've known each other for years.
When Mark and Eduardo's shifts align with Chris's and Dustin's and they're all off late, they hit the 24-hour diner up the street because even a diner hamburger is better than an amusement park one, and Eduardo only smothers half of his fries in hot sauce so Mark can eat some off his plate.
“You guys are so cute together it’s actually disgusting,” Dustin says once through a mouth full of bacon. Chris grunts his assent.
“Jealousy’s a bad look on you, Dustin,” Eduardo quips easily, and then he smiles at Mark like he doesn’t mind being so cute together it’s actually disgusting, like he wants to be, and Mark feels warm from his face all the way down to where his thigh is pressed against Eduardo’s where they meet on the bench of the booth.
It’s nice to have friends, but all the time he’s spending with them is getting in the way of the coding stuff he wants to get done, which is a minor problem, and it’s also getting in the way of all the time he wants to spend alone with Eduardo, which is a less minor problem.
Lately he's been fixated on sleeping with Eduardo—that is to say actually sleeping, or at least sharing a bed. Besides the backseat of Eduardo's car, they haven't had a chance to get horizontal, and Mark can't stop imagining laying beside Eduardo: Eduardo holding him from behind, tall and all around him, or facing each other, hands on waists and shoulders while they lazily kiss. In his own bed at home, he's started falling asleep with his arm thrown over a pillow beside him under the sheets, picturing Eduardo there, remembering the warm smell of him, rolling his hips up against it in the mornings when he has the time to indulge in thoughts of Eduardo's hands, his mouth, his hips.
Most mornings, he makes the time.
Eduardo’s stationed at the basketball booth today, but the park’s pretty dead, so Mark goes over there during his break. If anyone asks, he’ll say it’s because the awning’s shade is a sweet relief from the sun, which is true, but he knows why he’s really here.
They sit next to each other on the booth top, Eduardo leaning back, one of his hands behind Mark on the platform to support himself. It’s about as close to a possessive gesture as he can get without raising some eyebrows; in fact, it’s so tame it means basically nothing, but Mark’s body still feels alight with the thrill of it all, burning with an electric hum of just knowing Eduardo’s that close to him, that Eduardo wants him, and if they were alone the space between them wouldn’t exist.
Summer looks good on Eduardo. He’s already a few shades tanner than he was when Mark met him, and he never burns like Mark does, just turns golden and gorgeous where the sun touches him (and it’s very clear where it does—they’d spent their break yesterday assessing the tan lines at the edge of their socks, around their shirt collars, and on Eduardo's wrist where his watch lays).
“You should come over tonight,” Eduardo’s saying, voice low. “My parents are going to dinner with their business partners. It always takes, like, four hours, and they don’t get home ‘til late.”
“Okay,” Mark says, trying to be nonchalant when in his head he’s already computing
if (Mark&Wardo alone) {
// More than making out,
But he’s distracted by Dustin running up the hill, like actually running, arms pumping at his sides and coming to an abrupt stop in front of them, wheezing long gasps of air.
“Hi, Dustin,” Eduardo says politely, in a tone Mark now knows him well enough to clock as you just interrupted something but I’m too nice and perfect to complain about it to your face.
“I—” Dustin takes another breath, then looks up at the both of them, seeming lost. “Where’s Chris?”
Mark looks at Eduardo, who’s looking back at him. Dustin gets the picture; they don’t know. “Okay, whatever. I’ll find him after this. Guys.” He slams his hands on the booth. “Sean Parker is back.”
Eduardo’s face twists into something sour. “That’s not funny, Dustin.”
“I’m not joking,” Dustin pants. He points a hand in the direction of the parking lot. “I saw him myself!”
Mark looks over there on instinct, but it’s too far away to see anything.
Eduardo doesn’t bother looking. His mouth is pressed into a hard line. “Dustin.”
“I don’t know!” Dustin throws his hands up. “He said he wasn’t going to be back. Now he’s back. And he’s working rides.”
"Of course he's working rides," Eduardo says. "What—Jesus."
"Do you not like him?" Mark asks.
Eduardo scowls; Dustin snorts. "Understatement."
They all watch Sean Parker turn the corner into their section.
It takes no more than three seconds for Mark to understand why Sean Parker’s garnered such a reputation. He moves through the park like charisma personified, clapping some staff on the back, leaning in to greet others with a warm hello, snaking his arms around the girls’ waists to squeeze. Mark doesn’t think he’s especially good looking, but he’s not bad-looking, either, with curly hair cropped shorter than Mark’s and an easy, flirtatious smile that he seems to be pointing at everyone who crosses his path, all of them delighted to see him. It’s weirdly mesmerizing. Mark can’t look away.
Then, from her spot behind the Enterprise control panel, Christy sees him and squeals, careening down the metal ramp and wrapping both of her arms around his neck for a full body hug. Eduardo makes a low, disgusted noise that’s so quiet Mark almost misses it.
Mark looks at him. “Jealous?”
His eyes flick to Mark’s, apologetic. “No,” he says, then softer, “Of course not, Mark.”
Half-satisfied, Mark looks back at Sean, deep in conversation with Christy. She’s talking quietly, and he’s leaned in close, nodding, and in an instant both of their heads turn to look directly at Mark (or maybe Eduardo or Dustin. It’s jarring regardless).
“Ugh,” Dustin says. “I don’t like that.”
And then Sean’s nodding again, waving goodbye to Christy and starting up the hill towards them, and Eduardo sits up a little straighter when Sean Parker smiles, realizing he already has their attention.
"Heya, guys," he says warmly, once they're close enough to hear him. He reaches for Mark’s hand, and that’s weird because they’re not businessmen, seriously, what the hell, but then Sean clasps Mark’s one hand in both of his, and that’s weirder but almost charming, kind of, especially when Sean smiles like that, like he’s letting Mark in on a joke. Mark can feel the heat of Eduardo’s glare on the side of his face.
“Mark,” Sean says. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You have?” Mark asks.
Sean waves a casual hand in the air. “I like to stay up to date on my staff. It’s not every day we get new members.”
“Just every summer,” Eduardo cuts in with a tone Mark’s never heard.
Sean’s unphased, still grinning as his attention shifts to Eduardo. “Good to see you too, Wardo.” He stretches out the nickname, Wardooooooo.
Eduardo bristles, jaw stiffening, and says nothing.
“I thought you said you weren’t coming back this summer,” Dustin says. His tone is forcibly light, deliberately so, even though the line of his body is tense.
“I wasn’t supposed to.” Sean looks out at the park. “Plans fall through. I’m glad I’m back here, though. Didn’t feel like my time here was over. Bobby was so glad I'm back. Seems like he needed more rides staff."
And that's a little annoying, because Mark had wanted to work rides. Would have preferred it, even.
“Don’t let us keep you,” Eduardo says evenly. “I think I saw some high school girls over by the Ferris wheel. Maybe their moms haven’t taught them to stay away from predators yet.”
Mark gapes at him.
Sean's easygoing smile dissolves. He glaces at Mark, then at Dustin, then back at Eduardo. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."
They stare at each other for a moment, Eduardo venomous, Sean challenging. Finally, Sean looks back at Mark. "Great to meet you, Mark." Then Dustin, "Good to see you."
And then he moves on, bounding over to double high-five the girl working the carousel, then leaning against the metal barrier to chat her up.
Dustin waits for Sean to pass out of earshot, then cracks up. "That was twisted, Wardo."
Eduardo doesn't wait for Mark to ask what that was all about. "Last year he seduced an underage customer," he says under his breath, still glaring in Sean's direction.
"She was eighteen," Dustin amends.
"She'd just turned eighteen," Eduardo snaps. "And he's, like, twenty-five."
"That's not underage—"
"What, so it's okay?"
"I didn't say it was okay!"
"Guys," Mark says.
Eduardo looks angrier than Mark's ever seen him—which maybe isn't saying much, since it's the first time Mark's seen him angry at all, but that makes it all the more significant. He scowls at the ground, then looks up at Mark. "He's always been… I don't know."
"It sounds like you do."
"He's a shit-starter," Dustin says. "A real dramatic type."
"And his parents are family friends with Bobby and his wife," Eduardo adds. "So he gets away with everything."
Dustin snorts. "Like when he showed up an hour late eight days in a row."
"Bobby didn't care!" Eduardo says, impassioned, "No one was running the mini-coaster in the mornings, and those moms started complaining to us!"
And that's—annoying, sure, but not really enough to warrant Eduardo's vitriolic hatred towards Sean, so Mark must be missing something. Maybe he used to date Christy, too? He makes a mental note to investigate further when he gets the chance.
Dustin grabs one of Eduardo's shoulders and shakes him by it. "You fucking crazy person. I have to go tell Chris what you just said to him."
"See you," Eduardo says, and Dustin heads back the way he came. Then Eduardo twists on the booth, bringing both of his legs up to sit and face Mark completely. "So, you're free tonight?" he asks again, which is a little funny, because he always asks, even though he knows Mark's always available.
"Yeah," Mark says, feigning nonchalance, shrugging a little. "I could come over."
Sprawled over Eduardo on his living room couch, Mark decides that making out with Eduardo will never, ever be boring. He keeps finding new things to like, like the scratch of Eduardo’s barely-there stubble against his chin, or the way that Eduardo smiles whenever their teeth click together or their noses bump, making kissing impossible, so they just stare at each other, grinning wildly until Eduardo pulls Mark back down with a hooked finger in his shirt collar or a hand pressed flat on the back of his neck, fingers curling in Mark’s hair.
So yes, this is good.
But that doesn’t mean it can’t get better, and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want more. Mark would really like to lose at least half of his virginity before he starts college.
So he's kind-of sort-of grinding, rolling his hips minutely against Eduardo's in barely-there rotations, just enough to get a tiny bit of friction between them, but not enough that Eduardo will think he's some crazy pervert and throw him off the couch if he's not up for that kind of thing.
As it happens, Eduardo is up for that kind of thing—on Mark's third pass downward, Eduardo's eyes flutter shut and he sighs into Mark's mouth, breaking their kiss to press their foreheads together and look down, together, at where their bodies meet—where both of them are hard, straining at the fronts of their pants.
Mark huffs a laugh, relieved, and Eduardo grins at him. His eyes have never been so dark, so hungry. "Mark," he says, tentative, and sets his hands on Mark's hips, easing him down in a slow grind against him, shallow at first, but deeper when Mark adjusts the hand he's using to hold himself up on the couch beside Eduardo's head. Eduardo throws his head back, and a choked-off moan escapes him.
This is so much better than Mark's pillow.
The line of Eduardo's neck is long and delicious like this, and his whole body shivers when Mark nips the delicate skin just below his ear. "Mark," he says again, voice wobbling. "God, you're unreal."
It's funny, because Mark was just thinking the same thing about Eduardo—that this was a scene pulled so directly from his imagination that it can't be real, and yet Eduardo is loud and real and solid below him—fuck, he's hard below him, wanting Mark just as much as Mark wants him.
The buzz of excitement heightens his senses—how far will they go? And then, the putrid, errant thought—how far has Eduardo gone with anyone else? With Christy or anyone at Harvard—guys, even. Isn't that what college is for—had Eduardo bruised his knees in dorm showers? Did his frat brothers share knowing smirks when he entered a room? If that was the case, what could Mark give him that he hadn't already had?
While jealousy burns hotly up Mark's chest, Eduardo obliviously sits up, getting one arm around Mark's waist and pulling him closer onto his lap to straddle him.
If Eduardo is unimpressed by Mark—by his lack of experience or just generally and physically—if he'd deliberately chosen the easiest, most convenient person to rub off against with undiscerning abandon, he is masterful at pretending otherwise; when he smiles against Mark's mouth and slips a hand under his shirt to stroke at his bare hip just above his waistband, Mark shivers all over and knows it's because he feels wanted.
"Wardo," Mark barely whispers, and Eduardo smiles even harder, moving to break the kiss, but Mark gets a hand into his hair and keeps him close, grinding down onto his lap.
Slowly, Eduardo's eyes rise to meet Mark's. His hand curls forward when he brings it to the front of Mark's body, his thumb mere inches from his groin, and his tongue darts out to wet his pink lips before he asks, "Can I?"
There's no way to be sure what Eduardo means. Mark nods anyway.
Eduardo's eyes gleam, and they close when he leans in to kiss Mark again, gently, almost chaste, completely at odds with deft and desirous fingers undoing Mark's fly, his hand slipping into Mark's pants to cup him over his boxers, fitting him in the crook of his thumb to loosely stroke down, fingertips at Mark's base.
"Shit," Mark hisses, because he can practically feel the blood rushing downward, leaving him faint. There is no time to think about decency; he rolls his hips into Eduardo's hand unabashedly, and Eduardo moans like he's the one getting stroked, says Mark's name like it's a precious thing—
And then the front door handle clicks.
With impressive speed, Eduardo shoves Mark to the other side of the couch—like, actually shoves him—and then cringes and hisses “Sorry!” while he smooths out his clothes. Mark barely has time to do up his pants before the door opens and Eduardo’s parents shuffle in, one after the other.
They look just like the photos Mark had seen. Eduardo's mom, short and lithe, swallowed up by the brown fur coat she's donned. His dad, broad-shouldered and fierce-faced, with a harsh brow and fierce eyes that skate over Mark's face completely and darken upon locking eyes with his son.
“Mãe. Pai. You’re home early,” Eduardo says, with the even, practiced tone of someone who can't be anything but godlessly terrified.
"Oh, terrible thing," his mom says, while she hangs up her purse. "The Navarros' daughter got ill at dance practice. We've plans to reschedule, but you know them, so who knows when we'll all get together again." She seems to notice Mark in that moment, eyeing him curiously with a not-quite smile. "Who is—"
"This is my friend, Mark," Eduardo says, standing, and Mark mirrors him, thankful that the terror seizing him is enough to have completely obliterated his boner. "We work at the park together."
"Oh," his mom says. She reaches over the couch to shake Mark's hand. He catches a whiff of her perfume, floral and refined. He's not sure whether Eduardo's father will want to shake his hand, so he stands there for a moment, hand raised, before it becomes clear that will absolutely not be happening—the man won't even look at Mark. In fact, he hasn't stopped pinning Eduardo with the same cruel glare since he arrived.
"You'll be taking your friend home now," he finally says, and Eduardo's head drops quickly to nod.
"Yes, sir."
Mark waits for Eduardo to speak once they're in his car, but he doesn't, just starts the car and shifts into reverse with the efficiency of a getaway driver.
"Um," Mark says, after the nauseous turn out of the driveway, "Do they, like, know—"
"No," Eduardo responds quickly. "That I'm—I mean, they have their speculations." His knuckles are white on the steering wheel. In each sweeping pulse of yellow streetlight, Mark sees how wet his eyes are.
"They wouldn't be cool about it," Mark guesses.
Eduardo laughs cruelly. "No, Mark, they wouldn't be cool about it."
Mark balks; Eduardo's never taken that tone with him—against him. "Wardo," he tries, "They didn't see anything. To them it looked like we were just sitting on the couch."
They stop at a red. Eduardo hides his face in his hand, and his voice quivers. "You saw how angry he was."
Mark should reach out and comfort him, somehow, but instead he bites at his fingernails.
The rest of the drive passes in silence.
Mark sleeps poorly, dreaming of Eduardo—of losing him in the park, pushing past crowds to get to him, only to find he's just missed him, and his shadow's darted elsewhere, restarting Mark's chase. When his alarm rouses him, he feels as exhausted as if he'd been running all night.
He dresses quickly and shuffles downstairs. By this time, Eduardo's usually waiting in his car for Mark to grab an apple or a piece of toast and head out the door with it, but when Mark peers through the kitchen blinds today, the driveway is empty. He's already woken up too late to bike—he thinks about calling Dustin, but he doesn't want to get into the whole Eduardo-not-being-there thing, so he nuts up and asks his mom for a ride.
"Just this once, honey," she says sternly, but she must see something on his face that makes her regret it. "Is everything okay?"
"Fine," he mutters, and puts his hood up so she knows not to grill him any harder.
Even the weather today feels tense and uneasy; the sun's hidden away, blanketed by an opaque sheet of cloud cover, and a bracing wind cuts through Mark's hoodie and chills him deeply. He tucks his hands into his pockets and speeds up on his way to the office.
He clocks in and checks the schedule—looks like Eduardo's already in. So he hasn't dropped dead, or rendered in any way incapable of contacting Mark. He stares at the schedule for another few seconds before heading into the park.
"Hey, Mark!" someone calls on his way, and when he turns, Sean grins at him from the merry-go-round ticket box. Mark half-waves and moves on, realizing with a sickening, unpleasant jolt that he's pissed.
He's hoping that'll go away once he sees Eduardo—but now, watching him sit on the orange riser and count rings, he only feels angrier.
"What the hell?" he asks, once he's close enough that Eduardo will hear him.
Eduardo looks up, recognizes him. Shame colors his face and he hangs his head, setting his bucket down. "Mark—"
"You couldn't have called?" Mark asks. "'Hey, sorry. Can't pick you up today, I'm sulking because my dad thinks I'm a queer.' How fucking easy is that?"
Eduardo's jaw sets. He glances around, but the park's not open yet, and no one's close enough to have heard. "That's enough, Mark."
"You'll be fine," Mark says. "You're going to the best school in the country. You have friends that adore you, you're fucking rich, who cares what your parents think. You can't let them, like, rule your life—"
"My parents are 'fucking rich,'" Eduardo says. "Not me. It's how they pay for my tuition, and my room, it's how they set me up with my investments. Get it?"
Yeah, and Mark's embarrassed that it's only now that he does. It hadn't occurred to him that Mr. Saverin would hold those things over his son's head, using them as a threat against unsavory behavior, like jerking boys off on his living room couch.
An unfamiliar spark of gratitude flickers within him—his own parents hadn't—wouldn't—do the same. And not that he was planning on telling them about his own proclivities—at least, not any time soon—but if he did, he's sure he'd be met with more warmth and acceptance than he'd want.
The spark of Mark's anger snuffs out in an instant, wisping away in the next gust of wind. "I—Yeah."
He should—what, apologize?
But he doesn't. They stare at each other instead.
"I fucked up," Eduardo says quietly. He doesn't look like he's gotten much sleep. His posture is uncharacteristically poor; he's slouching forward, hands bunched in the pockets of his black North Face. He looks at Mark with something he can't place—pity, maybe? God, he couldn't bear that. "I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have dragged you into—"
"Bullshit," Mark cuts him off. "If your dad freaked out on you or—or whatever, it's because he's a dick. If you looked past your daddy issues for two fucking seconds, you'd know that's his fault, not yours."
Despite the fact that everything Mark said is true, and he's being really nice, actually, Eduardo looks as if he's been punched. His eyes rove over Mark's face as if seeing him for the first time.
"I think," he says, and pauses, as if it's taking him a great deal of effort. "I think we should maybe not do this."
"Like, fight?" Mark asks. "Yeah. You're right."
"No." Eduardo rubs his face with his hand. "Not do this."
"This," Mark repeats, and the realization hits him fast and all-at-once. "Us?"
Eduardo doesn't look at him.
"Wait," Mark says. His mouth is too dry. He takes a few steps forward, forcing himself into Eduardo's field of vision. "Is this real?"
Finally, Eduardo meets his eye. "Yes."
"Wait—I'm sorry—What did I—"
Eduardo looks down again. "It's not about—"
"Wardo, I said I'm sorry, really, I mean it."
Something shifts in Eduardo. He sits up and rolls his shoulders back, tilting his head at Mark. "What are you apologizing for?" he asks, accusatory.
The change in atmosphere nearly knocks the wind out of Mark. He steps back on one foot, defensive. "I don't like what you're—"
"Oh my god," Eduardo laughs, dry. "See, you don't even know!"
"So tell me."
"I am telling you," Eduardo says, and his hands come in front of him, insistent, "I don't think we should be—I mean, we can't be—"
"Why," Mark asks. "Why, Wardo."
"Don't do this," Eduardo says.
"We're breaking up because you're—what, a fucking coward? That's it?"
Mark figures that'll be a surefire way to get something out of him—anything—but Eduardo just stares at him. He looks… confused, maybe, or upset—no, definitely upset—and hopefully with himself. Things had been so good between them before Eduardo had gone all chickenshit overnight.
"Yeah," Eduardo says.
Mark isn't sure he's heard correctly. "What?"
Eduardo sets his hands in his lap with unnerving calmness. "Yeah, we're breaking up because I'm a fucking coward."
"I—What is this?" Mark asks again. "Are you speaking in code?"
"I'm a coward," Eduardo repeats, "But at least I'm not an asshole."
Mark forces himself to take a deep breath through his nose. "You think I'm an asshole?"
The park's speakers crackle to life; Bobby's distorted voice tells them they're five minutes out from opening. A girl chatting with her friend at bumper cars skips across the path to start setting up whack-a-mole, adjourning his and Eduardo's window of privacy.
Eduardo glances at Mark with big, sad eyes, then looks down at his hands. "You should probably go."
Mark won't stick around to be asked twice. Numbly, he puts one foot in front of the other until he gets to his station across the park.
So, it sucks to get dumped. He remembers that from high school.
But maybe the only thing worse than getting dumped is getting dumped at work.
The stupidity of the general public feels uniquely and cruelly personalized to enhance his misery. A teenager stands behind his girlfriend to direct her aim, using his other hand to cradle her waist, and she giggles obnoxiously. A mother of four small kids asks Mark to repeat the rules three times, as if they're more complicated than "throw the ball, hit a can, win a prize."
He finally snaps when a heavily tattooed man with a sparse mustache throws the ball a little too close to his head and Mark tells him to fuck off, which wouldn't be a huge deal, except Bobby's just around the corner stocking a balloon cart and he stomps over to apologize on Mark's behalf and comp the guy's next few plays, sending him off with yet another apology. Then he turns to Mark.
"What the hell, kid?"
Mark doesn't say anything; he can barely meet Bobby's eye. But his anger must be palpable, and Bobby, for all his flaws, doesn't press it.
"Take a lap," he orders. "I'll take over."
Mark nods and takes off.
Wandering aimlessly is a lot worse, so it's not long before he's wishing he'd just stuck it out there. He feels too ill to find something to eat, and he'd feel a lot better about finding his friends if they weren't Eduardo's friends before they met Mark. There's really no telling how they'll feel about him now. For a while, staring at the back of Dustin's head as he stretches up to pin plush dogs on the ceiling of his booth, Mark considers a strategy for getting him and Chris on his side. If he gets to them first, he can say whatever he wants—spin a story about Eduardo being cold hearted and cruel—and they might just believe him.
He stands there and thinks about it for long enough that Dustin sees him first and his face twists into an awkward grimace that can only mean he already knows. Still, he waves Mark over.
"I can give you a ride home tonight," he says when Mark's close enough to hear him.
"Thanks," Mark says. "How do you know? It was like an hour ago."
Dustin looks a little guilty. "Wardo told Chris."
"And Chris told you," Mark finishes.
Dustin looks him over. "Would you prefer if he didn't?"
No, definitely not. It's kind of a relief that Mark doesn't have to be the one to break the news; he's not even sure how he would.
Mark shrugs.
"Sorry, man." Dustin reaches into his box for another dog and holds it out to Mark. This one is neon green and cheaply made; its eyes look in two opposite directions and its tongue lolls out pathetically.
Mark knocks it out of Dustin's hand onto the ground, where it face-plants in the dirt.
Dustin laughs. "Yeah, that's fair."
They leave it there, settling beside each other on the edge of the booth. After about a minute of silently watching people go by, Dustin asks, "You okay?"
Mark focuses his attention on a kid who's just dropped down to his knees to cry about the bucket of popcorn he's spilled in front of him. "What did he tell Chris?"
Dustin rolls his head back, stretching his neck. "Man, please don't put me in the middle of this."
"I'm not," Mark says, and again, "What did Chris tell you?"
"Don't make me look like a snake," Dustin says, and makes Mark pinkie-promise him. "Okay, uh. I guess, and this is all according to Chris, but Eduardo said you were kind of being a jerk about his stuff with his dad."
Definitely not how Mark would have summed up their conversation. What other shit had Eduardo drudged up and exaggerated? Had any of Mark's inadequacies been broadcast to their mutual friends?
"What else?"
Dustin glances warily at Mark before continuing. "He said that he didn't want things to be awkward, and that he was really sorry if you two made things weird for Chris and me," he says simply. "It was really cool of him, actually. Especially since he's so upset."
"So upset," Mark mutters. "As if he wasn't the one who—"
"Don't!" Dustin shouts, shoving Mark's shoulder, hard. "Don't drag me into this, dude!"
Ugh. Now he looks like the immature one, after Eduardo had done all that virtuous grandstanding. "Okay," Mark says.
"Sorry," Dustin says. "I know you're sad, too."
"It's fine." And because he's not sure how long he can sit here and pretend it's fine, he gets up. "I'll go."
"Okay." Dustin smiles at him, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I'll meet you in the staff lot."
Walking back to his booth, Mark sees that send-off for what it is; a promise that the only time Dustin will spend with Mark is at the end of the day, no sooner.
Sure enough, when Mark makes a loop around the food court on his lunch break, his three (former?) friends sit together at a picnic table. Eduardo's head rests in his hand, and he frowns at the table while Chris says something that Dustin nods along to.
Mark stops and watches for as long as he can bear to. Eduardo rests his head down on his folded arms and Chris and Dustin share a look over his head. Then Chris rubs comforting circles on Eduardo's back, and Mark's chest burns.
There is no war for his reputation. He's already lost.
Mark gives enough thought to calling out sick the next day that he's actually late when he does show up, having biked. He's singularly motivated by the knowledge that today's the only day he can pick up his paycheck before he's off all weekend. He only needs two more before he'll afford his computer, the only reason he's here in the first place, he bitterly remembers. When Mark gets into the office this morning, Sean is already there, hunched over the schedule. He smacks the clipboard with the back of his hand, a dull thud.
"I can't have this, Bobby," he's laughing, and when his eyes flick up to meet Mark's, his smile only grows. "Hey, I just had an idea."
Bobby's reclined in his office chair. Half a funnel cake sits on his desk, and both his polo and his mustache are dusted with powdered sugar. He looks between Sean and Mark and sighs. "Alright, Mark, you're helping Sean out with rides today."
"Oh," Mark says. "Uh, what?"
"Amy called out," Sean replies. He playfully smacks Mark's arm. "I need another person to run the swings."
"Oh." Mark's at first surprised that his instinct is relief, but he doesn't need to wonder why; working rides means he won't risk being stuck next to Eduardo—or Chris or Dustin, for that matter. Plus, he'd wanted to work rides crew in the first place, and if he's honest, he still does. "Do I need anything—like training, or…"
Sean and Bobby laugh in unison.
"Just this," Bobby says, and throws him a pink RIDES RIDES RIDES t-shirt.
If it's possible, Sean talks more than Eduardo does. By a lot.
On their way to the swings, Sean talks about finding a six pack of beer in Bobby's office mini fridge last summer. While they're waiting for the park to open, he talks about some girl that sucked him off on every dark ride, but he can't remember her name. While the swings ascend and Mark squints his eyes to look up at them, Sean talks about some maintenance guy that had it out for him and tried to frame him for—for something or other, the details don't matter, he says, but that guy was an asshole. When he's seemingly tired himself out, he asks Mark questions.
Where are you going to school? Whoa, okay, smartypants! What are you doing there? Oh, super cool, I used to code, well, my friends used to code and we made kind of a website thing one time, you should've seen it, it was—
On and on and on.
Mark doesn't mind. It's distracting, in a good way. And the work itself is much better than rides; his only responsibility is doing a pre-ride lap around to check seat belts, and Sean's only job is to press the GO button once he sees Mark's thumbs-up.
Other than that, they sit in the control booth together and talk. Well, mostly Sean talks. The hours fly by until it's time to break for lunch.
"You're good at this," Sean says on their way to the snack stall. "Do you want me to talk to Bobby about getting you on rides for the rest of the summer?"
Mark blinks at him. "You can do that?"
Sean grins. "Oh, yeah, we go way back. I'll ask him."
"Wow." It was that easy? Maybe he should have pushed back a little more when he'd first been hired to games crew. Then he wouldn't have been waylaid by Eduardo.
"I knew you'd be cool." Sean picks up his boat of nachos from the food window, and they head to a table. "I've been meaning to talk to you. I thought it'd be hard, though, with your guard dog around."
They each take a side of the picnic table. "My guard dog?" Mark asks.
Sean gives him a look. "Uh, Wardo. Seems like you two are pretty close."
Mark feels like he's been kicked. "Yeah," he says, then, after a breath, "I mean, we were."
Sean's attention goes from 50% nachos to 100% Mark. His blue eyes find Mark's immediately, piercing, examining. "You were?" he asks slowly.
Mark shrugs. He shouldn't have said anything—he doesn't want to get into it—but Sean persists.
"Did something happen between you two?"
Mark picks at his pretzel, flaking the coarse salt away with his fingers. "Uh, kind of."
"What was it?" Sean asks. Then, "I mean, you do not have to tell me, if it's personal or anything." But he goes silent, staring, waiting, and Mark has to say something.
"It was out of nowhere," he says, which is, in his opinion, at least partly true. "He just lost it on me."
Too vague, maybe, but Sean nods, his eyes wide. "No, I get it. He can be…" he starts, but something in Mark's expression must make him backpedal. "I mean, you know how he can be," he amends.
Mark's about done with this conversation, but Sean presses on, waving a nacho in the air. "You know, he probably had a crush on you."
Mark's blood runs cold. He forces his eyes up to meet Sean's. "What?"
Sean leans in, drops his voice low. "I had a friend, once, and he did the same thing. Got all weird with me, flipped out and keyed my car. Turns out he was gay. I guess he wanted to be with me and he was jealous."
"Oh," Mark says, dumbfounded. Sounds like there's more to that story, but there's more to his, too, so maybe that's fair.
"Mm-hm," Sean says, smug. "What do you think? It's possible, right? I mean, he dated Christy last summer, but that doesn't mean anything, you know." He stares at Mark, waiting.
Mark shifts in his seat. "I dunno. I mean, maybe." That should be it, but under the warm spotlight of Sean's attention, the words keep flowing. "I guess he always wanted to hang out, like, just the two of us. Um, at his party, he wanted to go swimming with just me."
Maybe he does have the opportunity to spin a story after all; if not with Dustin or Chris, with a new friend.
"Now that I'm thinking of it," Mark says, "He was always trying to get me alone. He started driving me to work, even though Dustin said he would. And he'd buy me food all the time."
"No shit," Sean says, awed. He laughs. "That makes so much sense! That's so fucking creepy." He claps a warm hand on Mark's shoulder. "Sorry you went through that, man."
Mark shrugs; Sean's hand falls. "It's okay," he says.
Sean props a foot up on the bench with him. "You know, I bet he had a crush on me, too. It's probably why he pretends to hate me so much."
Heat rises in Mark's chest; he forces it down. "Sure," he says plainly. "Yeah, maybe."
After lunch, the rest of Mark's day is more of the same. Sean doesn't bother to switch roles, so Mark does a few dozen more laps around the swings checking people's seat belts and asking people to take their sandals off, which is a drag, but not half as much of a drag as any of the game booths are, so he's surprised that, despite everything, he's not in too bad of a mood when he clocks out and mounts his bike for the ride home.
Over the weekend, he's forced by his parents to help clean the house for his sister's birthday, but otherwise he's got no plans, so he whittles away hours between the desktop computer and in bed, at horrendous hours that leave him no room to think about anything until his Monday alarm reminds him of his stupid fucking job and his stupid fucking friends and his stupid fucking ex-boyfriend who isn't even his ex-boyfriend.
He must look pathetic when he shuffles down the stairs, because his mom offers to drive him and doesn't once ask why she has to.
After Mark punches in, Bobby stops him before he can leave he office. He’s got the weekly schedule folded over his knee and a red pen in his hand, so Mark’s pretty sure he knows where this is going.
“Heya,” Bobby says, “So, Mark—”
“I can take extra hours,” Mark says, because it’s really not that big of a deal, it’s not like he’s doing anything else, and more cash in his pocket won’t ever be a bad thing.
Bobby’s expression folds into something soft. “Thanks, kiddo. Wouldn’t ask for ‘em if I didn’t need ‘em. Eduardo put me in a tough spot.”
Mark freezes on the downstairs steps, hand paused before the doorknob. “What?”
Bobby frowns. “He quit yesterday. No two weeks’ notice or nothin’. Though I guess we’ve only got a few weeks left, anyway.” Then, off Mark’s expression, “I figured you knew. Aren't you two close—didn’t he tell you?”
Mark doesn't stick around long enough to answer. When he races out, the door slams sharply behind him, and he sprints directly to the arcade.
Predictable as ever, Dustin and Chris hunch over Ninja Baseball Bat Man, faces blue from the light of the screen. Dustin jumps and leans in sync with his controls, and Chris shoves him with his shoulder when he gets too close.
Mark approaches on the side of the game. "Guys," he says, a little short of breath, "Eduardo quit."
Only then does he realize how unwelcome his presence is—Chris breaks his concentration to glare unabashedly at Mark, and Dustin refuses to look at him at all, dropping his gaze to the controls.
Mark's heart rate kicks into high gear. "What—"
"Mark," Chris says coldly. He looks back at the game, jostles the joystick a bit. "Maybe you have some idea why Alice asked me on Saturday why Eduardo didn't just hit on me if he was so 'desperate for a dicking'."
Mark's stomach drops down through his ass and into the Earth's core. "I—"
"And now he's quit," Chris says, slamming the buttons with the bottom of his fist. He turns to face Mark completely. "Can't imagine why. Wanna take a crack at that one?"
"Shit," Mark says. The edges of his vision blur. "Shit. I told Sean—I didn't think—"
"Fucking Sean," Chris snaps. "What were you thinking?"
"I didn't!" Mark insists, and when he put his hands out in defense, they're shaking. "I didn't tell him—I didn't say—"
"Whatever," Chris says. He looks at Dustin expectantly.
Dustin looks at Chris, then back to Mark. "Not cool," he says quietly.
Chris stares at him, incredulous. "Mark outed Eduardo and all you have to say is 'not cool?'"
"I didn't—" Mark repeats.
"But you did, though," Dustin says to Mark. "You did, because Sean knows, and he told everyone else."
"I know how it looks," Mark starts. "But I didn't mean for it—I mean, it wasn't like that."
Chris's anger is awful, but expected; Dustin's disappointment is harrowing—and a thousand times worse. He shakes his head at the floor. "Yeah, I don't know, man. It's fucked up. Eduardo didn't deserve that."
"He was so nice to you," Chris spits. "And even, like, about you, after."
"I'll apologize," Mark says, frantic.
"Don't!" Chris and Dustin say in unison. They share a look, then Chris adds, "The least you can do is leave him alone."
Mark looks between them. Chris is outright scowling; Dustin's back to not even looking at Mark.
"This is Sean's fault," he tries, but Chris's jaw tightens.
"Give it up, Mark." He grabs Dustin by the elbow and steers him away.
Mark doesn't bother to follow.
"Oh, hi, Mark." Sean's lugging a you must be this tall to ride sign out from the swing boat closet to stand at the start of the line. He sets it down and wipes his hands on the front of his shorts. "You helping me out today, too?"
Mark tamps down his vitriolic rage just enough to ask, "Who did you tell."
Sean recoils. "No one—what? What are you talking about?"
"Sean. About Wardo. Who did you tell."
Sean keeps a steady gaze on Mark, but his shoulders relax. "Oh, that. I only told Christy because she was so heartbroken about Eduardo dumping her. I mean, still, after a year—she's kind of, I dunno." He turns his finger in circles next to his head. "But she thought it was personal, and clearly it wasn't, right?"
"Alice knows."
Sean rolls his eyes theatrically. "Yeah, Christy's got such a big fucking mouth. Of course she blabbed. I can chew her out for you if you want."
"She blabbed—you blabbed first!"
Sean raises his eyebrows. "Uh, if we're getting technical, I think you did."
No, no, no. "You said he might've liked me. I said maybe, and you went and told everyone—"
"Whoa," Sean says, holding his hands up. "You gave me a little more than 'maybe', Mark."
Yeah, he had. He was bitter and ranting and he couldn't have known how badly he'd fucked everything up.
Mark shakes his head, defeated. "Everyone thinks Eduardo's gay now."
Sean gives him a look. "I mean, isn't he?"
Yeah.
"Fuck you," Mark says under his breath.
"What?" Sean asks, but Mark's already turned around and started his walk back to the fishing game.
Eduardo was right; Sean is a douche bag.
Maybe Eduardo was right about Mark, too.
Because it's a week day at the end of the summer, the park's a lot less busy. Ride lines are short, so no one wants to play games, and Mark has eight whole hours to think about how he's going to fix things.
He could go to Eduardo's place—but risk running into his dad? No, thank you. He could wait to see him again; surely he'll be back sometime to pick up his last paycheck—although he's undoubtedly rich enough that he won't need it. And with Chris and Dustin's help, he could strategically time his arrival for a time that Mark wouldn't be there. Worst of all, Mark wouldn't even blame him for it.
When the end of the day comes, he's got nothing.
On Bobby's overtime call list, Mark works every day the next week, and then for another week after that. It's grueling, punishing labor, especially without friends to depend on. It's impossible to go even a day without seeing Chris and Dustin, who don't even deign to look at him. Sean, once a prospective friend in his own right, is out of the question, so Mark spends his breaks hiding behind booths or out in the parts yard, alone.
With two weeks left of work, he gets the paycheck he's been waiting for all summer: the one that'll put him right at his budget for a new laptop.
Only then, staring at the envelope, does inspiration strike.
Harvard University
September 2002
Mark's doing fine.
No, Mark's doing good.
When his mom calls, he tells her that he likes it here. He tells her he's not surrounded by complete morons like he was in high school, and that's true. He tells her he's going to all of his classes all the time, which is less true, but there's nothing being taught in COMPSCI 50 that he didn't already teach himself years ago.
Besides, he can use all the free time he can get to work on his new project.
For convenience's sake, he takes up a near-permanent residence at the Kennedy School Library, in a partially secluded cubicle-desk to wire in and plug away at CourseMatch, which he'll surely get it up and running before next semester. It's nearly functional as is, but he's been putting some serious legwork into making it look pretty. His first college project deserves a good first impression.
After purchasing his laptop, Mark had spent his final Adventureland paycheck on a pair of over-the-ear headphones. It's a fine pair, but not good enough to drown out the louder sounds, sounds like someone walking up behind him and saying "Hey, Mark."
Mark's fingers freeze above his keyboard. Slowly, he turns around in his chair, and yet still doesn't believe what he sees in front of him. He slips his headphones down to rest around his neck. "Wardo."
Eduardo, in dress pants and a silvery button-down, is gripping the strap of his messenger bag like it's tethering him to the earth. He's gotten a haircut since Mark last saw him—not at Adventureland, but on the front steps of Eliot, which Mark can see from his window at Kirkland, for better or for worse. Big school, small world; especially when you live next to each other. It'd been about seven or eight times that Mark had seen Eduardo around campus, but he'd never even thought about approaching him. Even less did he think about Eduardo approaching him.
Eduardo doesn't look like he's going to punch Mark, which might be more than he deserves. He shifts from one foot to the other. "You got a minute?"
"Yeah," Mark says immediately. Without breaking his gaze from Eduardo's, he reaches a hand back to shut the lid of his laptop, but misses on the first try, flailing his hand at nothing, and then succeeds with a click.
The corners of Eduardo's mouth turn up, just a little. "You remembered," he says.
"What?"
Eduardo gestures around him—ah. The space itself, this hidden study nook behind the stacks. It had been Eduardo's recommendation, back when they were still talking to each other about Harvard stuff, looking forward to being there together.
"Oh, yeah," Mark says stupidly. "Thanks."
"You're welcome," Eduardo says. He looks up at the windows, then down at his feet while he rocks from his heels to his toes once, then again. Still looking down, he says, "Chris told me what you did."
Mark's end-of-summer project.
It'd been stupid difficult coming up with all those fake instant messages between him and Chris—over a week, Mark had come up with a dozen ways to ask if Eduardo might be interested in him and half a dozen schemes to get his attention, then painstakingly drafted kind but dismissive responses on Chris's part.
The hardest part was asking Chris about it. Mark was able to catch Chris at a neighboring booth, so all he had to do was corner him with printouts of his early drafts. It was nerve-wracking, watching Chris's eyes rake the pages as he came to understood the plan, and Mark thought he was going to puke before Chris finally looked up and said, "Do you have a pen? I don't talk like this." He spent the better part of an hour reworking his parts, and Mark's, too, making them sound more natural. He'd even added extraneous side conversations to make the whole exchange seem more legitimate. Mark thanked him, but Chris made it very clear he was doing this for Eduardo, not for Mark.
Whatever. When Mark came to work the next day with a flash drive, Chris took it home with him and downloaded hundreds of fake messages directly to his computer, formatted and spoofed to seem like they'd been sent at various points all summer, all documenting Mark's fake, pathetically unattainable crush on Eduardo. Chris had a few work friends over that weekend, said oh my god, guys, do you want to see something crazy, and the rumor mill took care of the rest.
"You're not mad that everyone at the park knows you're…?" Eduardo trails off.
Into guys? He'd gotten far fewer dirty looks for that than he did for being the person who'd lied to Sean about Eduardo as bitter payback for his unrequited crush. Besides, he only had to spend a week and a half being the butt of every joke before the end of the summer.
Mark shrugs. "I'm not going back."
Eduardo laughs through a breath. "Yeah, me neither."
Silence stretches between them. Mark's heart is beating so fast he's sure it's going to explode out of his chest.
Eduardo bites the inside of his cheek. "That was really cool of you."
Pride warms Mark's chest. "It was the least I could do."
Eduardo smiles. "That's true, too."
"I'm sorry about…" Mark starts, before he can change his mind. "All of. You know. That didn't get back to your dad, did it?"
"No."
"That's good."
"Yeah." Eduardo adjusts his bag on his shoulder. "So, you like Harvard?"
"Yeah."
"Great."
"It's nice," Mark adds uselessly, trying to prolong the conversation. "Um, I like the. Architecture."
Eduardo laughs out loud at this. "You like the architecture?"
Mark's face burns. "Yeah, I mean the landscape is—why are you talking to me?"
Eduardo's smile falters, then returns. "I might have an ulterior motive." He reaches into his pocket and produces a pack of Red Vines. Throws it on the desk where it lands next to Mark's laptop. "I thought I'd try bribing my way into being your friend again."
Mark looks at the candy, then back at Eduardo. "My friend?"
"If you want that," Eduardo says quickly. "I thought we could start—I mean, that's probably all I can give you, right now. Starting over."
Mark stares, dumbfounded, and Eduardo continues.
"I miss you," he admits. He looks halfway between shame and pride, nervous while he speaks with composure, as if he's practiced. "And, like, before any of the other stuff, I mostly miss being your friend. So, you know, if you want, we could—"
"Yeah," Mark says, and when Eduardo smiles, he can't help but smile, too. "Okay."
"Okay," Eduardo repeats, grinning, "Great."
"I didn't even know they sold these in the vending machine," Mark says.
"I thought the occasion called for something better then an Adventureland hot dog."
"Low bar."
"The lowest." Eduardo twists the ring on his finger. "So. Now that we're friends and everything, would you want to find a time to, like, catch up?"
"I'm free now," Mark says. He ducks under his desk to pull his backpack out, then rams his laptop in, crumpling a few syllibi at the bottom. Then he zips it up and shoves the Red Vines in his hoodie pocket. When he finally looks up at Eduardo, he's smiling, amused.
"It's a beautiful day," Eduardo says. His brown eyes sparkle. "We could go look at the architecture."
"Oh, fuck off," Mark responds, and they fall into stride together, taking the steps two at a time as they exit the library. Walking beside Eduardo is pleasantly familiar; even more so when they emerge into the warm, brilliant light of a day that still feels like summer.
Chapter 2: Epilogue
Chapter Text
Harvard University
November 2002
"It's raining," Mark says.
But raining isn't quite the right word. Pouring is a better one, deluging for another. Out the window, everything Mark can see is gray-blue behind the heavy downpour. Several sidewalk corners boast impressive puddles.
When he'd showed up to the party two hours ago, he hadn't thought that the weather might take a turn for the worst. His hoodie won't do much to protect him from the rain, but at least it's only a twelve minute walk to his dorm. He can probably cut that down to six if he runs.
Eduardo looks over Mark's shoulder with him. "Shit." He laughs a little, breathy. "Yeah, it is."
It was Eduardo's idea to go to the party. It's Eduardo's idea to go to most of the things that get Mark out of his dorm besides his classes, which he's still mostly going to. In the months since they've been friends again, Mark has gone to three seminars, two networking events, and six parties, which is impressive, even if the parties all kind of sucked. The other AEPi guys all seem to like Mark, so that's not nothing.
Eduardo didn't bring an umbrella, and his coat doesn't even have a hood. He seems to realize this just as Mark does, frowning at the rain. "Yeah, that's not letting up any time soon."
In front of them, a girl grabs her friend's arm and pulls her out of the door. They squeal and sprint across the sidewalk, cutting through the grass to the east side of campus with their hands over their foreheads to protect their eyes.
Eduardo looks at Mark. "What do you think?"
"We can't stay here."
"Yeah." Eduardo sighs. "Okay, let's go."
They burst out of the doors together and break for the houses. Mark can barely see; he has to count on what's immediately in front of him and find his bearing with the sounds of Eduardo's wet footfalls and laughter behind the wet squelching of Mark's own slides on the slick ground as they run. It takes fewer than thirty seconds for all of Mark's clothes to get completely soaked through. He's drenched and freezing before they even catch sight of their buildings, a sweet relief.
"C'mon!" Eduardo says, and gets a hold on Mark's forearm, swinging him toward Eliot with him. Well, he would swing him, if Mark's slides had better traction and didn't simply skim over the slippery sidewalk and force him completely off-kilter, falling into an impressive catch on Eduardo's part, grabbing Mark by the forearms and keeping him upright. "Sorry!"
"S'okay," Mark manages, and lets himself be pulled by an arm into Eliot with Eduardo.
Through the heavy wooden door, it's peaceful. The doorman looks them over with pity, and Eduardo wipes his feet on the doormat like he isn't dripping water from all his other clothes. They both leave a dribbled trail of rain through the hallways to Eduardo's door, which he rushes to unlock.
It's not Mark's first time in Eduardo's room, but maybe the third or fourth. They studied here once, stopped here before a party another time, so Mark's seen the warm, yellow light, the jealousy-inducing single bed.
"Why am I here?" Mark finally asks, while Eduardo peels his coat off. His own dorm was mere steps away, next door.
"It's closer," Eduardo says, softly.
"Yeah, I guess." Mark says. He's still bone-chillingly cold, in his rained-on clothes. "Can I borrow…"
Eduardo smiles, understanding. "Everything?"
"Uh, yeah."
"Mm-hm."
Mark peels off his hoodie, glances around for a spot to put it, and comes up with nothing, so he puts it on the ground. Eduardo's already taken off his shirt, so Mark watches the bare muscles of his back ripple as he searches through his closet, then makes himself look away.
When he's turned fully around and stripped off his own shirt, Eduardo nudges him with something. "Here."
When Mark reaches for the blue bundle in Eduardo's hands, it unfurls, revealing navy blue Games Games Games text across the front. He chokes out a laugh. "Really?"
Eduardo's grinning. "What, you don't want it?"
Mark stares down at the shirt. It's a little funny, he thinks. He's going to say something about having worn it enough this summer, but Eduardo interrupts him with a hand on his jaw and a mouth on his lips, pressing their bodies close for a kiss Mark couldn't escape if he wanted to.
He doesn't want to. Eduardo is soft and tastes like the fruit punch they'd had at the party. When he realizes Mark is kissing him back, Eduardo lets the shirt drop onto the floor between them and gets his arms around Mark to bring him closer, torsos aligned, faintly sticky with residual wetness. He is so warm, so familiar, so good.
It feels like a reward for all the thinking Mark hasn't done about kissing Eduardo again. He's been trying to be good: to keep their new friendship free of expectation, of assumptions that they'd return to their once-usual state of operations. His success has been varied, namely setback by a few ill-timed dreams about Eduardo's hands, his mouth, but Mark's shock in this moment is a testament to how little he'd expected to be kissing Eduardo again, so soon.
Their mouths separate, and Eduardo rests his forehead against Mark's.
"Um," he says, and laughs a little, "Was that okay?"
"Wardo," Mark answers, and kisses him again, softly.
"I don't know." Eduardo settles on a better question. "Do you think we should try again?"
Having notably not thought about it, this is not a question Mark's ready for. All he can depend on is the cavernous want in his stomach, the ache for Eduardo, the need for him, just as strong as it once was. "Can't hurt," he manages.
"Oh, it totally could," Eduardo says seriously.
"We've learned our lesson."
"I hope we have."
"Well, I want you," Mark says, and feels Eduardo shiver all over against his skin.
"Okay," Eduardo says, and his long lashes flutter shut. "Okay, yeah."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." He smiles. "Do you want to, um—"
Mark kisses him again, sliding his hands over Eduardo's shoulders. He nips at Eduardo's lips to make him gasp, then gets a hand in his hair and scratches at his scalp to make him moan, then breathe into the air around Mark, "I missed this."
"Me too," Mark says, but there hasn't been this, not yet. The closest they've gotten to this was still haunted by the shadows of others. Here, in Eduardo's bedroom, rain battering the window, no figure will darken the doorway and stop them.
Eduardo's fingers trace delicate, swooping patterns over Mark's hips, up to his waist and back down again. Mark takes the opportunity to appreciate the sight of Eduardo before him: his wet tousled hair, his dark eyes, his toned stomach and the tempting trail of dark, fine hair disappearing into his pants. He aches to touch—when he looks back at Eduardo, watching Mark ogle him, his gaze is hungry, waiting, and so Mark does it, brings his thumb to Eduardo's abdomen and traces slowly down the path of hair until he stops at Eduardo's belt.
Still watching Mark, Eduardo brings his hands down and slowly, too slowly, undoes his belt. He grabs at the free end and pulls it loose, holding it beside him and letting it drop to the floor, metal clinking against the hardwood.
And then they're on each other.
Mark can't go another second without kissing Eduardo, so he does, licking messily at his mouth. Eduardo brings his hands up to cradle Mark's face, lets one slide back into Mark's curls and hold him while their teeth click and déjà-vu sits bitter-sweetly at the edge of Mark's mind.
Bodies pressed together, Eduardo hardens against Mark's thigh while they move —and Mark's sure Eduardo can feel him, too; he's not doing much to hide it, looping his fingers in Eduardo's belt loops to roll their hips together.
Eduardo gives him a look like hang on and starts undoing his own pants, slowly, watching Mark intently like he's waiting to see if Mark will stop him.
He doesn't.
Eduardo steps out of the rest of his clothes, kicking them across the floor.
Mark couldn't be less surprised to find that even Eduardo's cock is beautiful, long and elegant and brilliantly dusky pink at the head, swollen with desire, bobbing when Eduardo sits on the edge of his bed behind him. Eduardo brings a hand to touch himself—not stroking, but passing his palm over his length to press himself against his stomach, enough to relieve him some, and his eyes are half-lidded, fluttering, when a soft, controlled moan escapes him.
"Fuck," Mark says. He might have forgotten all other words. Eduardo smiles at him, smug and desirous.
"What?"
"You're… fuck." He's definitely forgotten all other words. They've been replaced with a burning jealousy of Eduardo's hand, and when Mark surges forward to take its place against Eduardo's cock, Eduardo swats his hands away starts undoing Mark's pants, too.
Mark busies himself with feeling over the muscular skin of Eduardo's shoulders, watching the focused expression on Eduardo's face when he pulls Mark's shorts down around his ankles, then his underwear.
There is no time to think about being insecure, about wondering whether Eduardo is happy with what he sees, before Eduardo tips forward and settles himself on the floor before Mark, on his knees.
"Do you want me to suck you off?" Eduardo asks, so earnestly that Mark finds it a bit funny. How many times had Mark imagined this, dreamed this? Seeing Eduardo just like this, from above, his wide eyes and his wet mouth? Does Mark want to get sucked off—is Eduardo serious?
"Okay," Mark says, voice tight.
Eduardo looks up, meets his eye, smiles at him. "Just okay?"
"Yes," Mark says quickly. And stupidly, "Please?"
"That's very sweet," Eduardo says, and holds Mark's base with one hand while he takes his tip past his lips.
Mark can't stop the sound that escapes him, and he feels Eduardo smile around him, lips tightening,
"Shit," he manages, and quieter, "Wardo." He's grateful Eduardo's shoulders are there to hang onto; he might collapse otherwise.
Mouth occupied, all Eduardo can do is hum pleasantly in response, sending warm, tingling vibrations up Mark's length, especially when he moves to take him deeper, tonguing him to slick him with spit as he goes.
Okay, so he's probably—definitely—done this before? Mark will have to ask later, when he's able to form a coherent thought. For now, his thighs tremble while Eduardo bobs, unmistakably skilled, taking Mark to the hilt then back up to kitten-lick the head, finally looking up to meet Mark's eye.
Then Mark catches sight of Eduardo's free hand, down between his legs, stroking himself while he licks Mark base to tip and then back down again.
"Wait," Mark says, and Eduardo withdraws obediently, still looking at Mark. "I want you."
Eduardo's tongue passes over his bottom lip while he smiles. "Okay."
He pulls Mark onto the bed with him, then under him; Mark lays on his back, head on Eduardo's pillow and is engulfed by the overbearing smell of him, from the bed and from Eduardo himself, reaching over and past Mark to his nightstand from which he produce a small bottle of lotion.
Mark laughs quietly, earning him a humored glare from Eduardo. "Jerk-off lotion?"
"Yup," Eduardo answers, unashamed, and squeezes a bit onto the tips of his fingers. He rubs it with the tip of his thumb, warming it, and then strokes it firmly over his own cock, then Mark's, sending pleasure warmly up his spine.
"What are you—" Mark starts, but Eduardo takes both of them in one of his hands and strokes them together, against each other, and Mark interrupts himself with a low grunt. "Got it."
Eduardo looks deviously pleased. He flattens himself out more above Mark's body, holds himself up with one arm while he jerks both of them with the other. He gets close enough to kiss Mark, and does—the heady taste of cock still on his tongue while he sucks at Mark's, so vile and dirty it turns a corner right into being hot again, and Mark arcs up to meet him, to taste more.
"Wardo," Mark murmurs, and Eduardo kisses his mouth, his cheek, the side of his neck, whispers in his ear, "Mark," then licks the skin there, sucks at it, and twists his wrist tightly around Mark's cock.
"Fuck," Mark gasps, "I'm gonna—"
"I've got you," Eduardo whispers back, and Mark comes, all over his stomach and Eduardo's hand and probably his dick, too. Pleasure envelops him; distantly, he's aware that his legs are shaking. Eduardo's hand smooths soothingly over Mark's hip, then his thigh, then takes Mark's own hand.
"Can I?" Eduardo asks, and Mark nods, speechless, while Eduardo brings both of their hands together around Eduardo's own cock, his above Mark's, helping him find the rhythm that will bring him off.
It's a gorgeous sight, especially when Eduardo starts thrusting his hips to meet their hands, and it's not long before he, too, comes with a choked moan and contributes to the mess all over Mark's stomach.
"Fuck," Eduardo says, with finality, and grins, wide and open, at Mark. "You're…" He shakes his head.
"Covered in come," Mark finishes.
Eduardo rolls his eyes, grabs a few tissues from his side table and wipes gingerly at Mark until, while he's still sticky, nothing's actively wet anymore. Then he falls on his side beside Mark, claiming a piece of his bed, and props himself up on an elbow.
Rain still thrashes at the window, but the room feels warm and stuffy with their heated breaths, their sweat. Eduardo looks at Mark so fondly that Mark has to kiss him, and then Eduardo pulls Mark into his arms, wrapping his arms around Mark's back while their legs tangle together above the covers.
They kiss endlessly, for a few hours or minutes, and then Mark settles his head in the space between Eduardo's neck and shoulder to feel his heartbeat slow to calm.
Eduardo scratches Mark's back just gently enough to be soothing, comfortable. "I've been wanting to do that for a while," he says.
"M' too," Mark says, muffled by Eduardo's bare skin. "Let's do it again."
Eduardo presses a kiss into Mark's hair. "Maybe later?"
"An hour?"
Eduardo laughs. "I don't have any other plans."
They lapse into silence; Eduardo keeps scratching his back, Mark gets sleepy against his chest, and Eduardo finally asks, as if he'd been gearing up for it, "Are we going to do it right this time?"
Mark isn't sure how to answer. "I mean, you don't live at home anymore."
Eduardo's chest rises and falls with his next deep breath. "Yeah."
"And I'll try to be better about stuff," Mark adds, hurried. "Like, understanding. We can take things slow—"
"Little late for that," Eduardo muses.
"No, like, emotionally. We can just do this and be friends." Is that what Eduardo was getting at—what he wanted?
"Mm," Eduardo says, answering Mark's question with a resounding NO.
"And work up to the other stuff," Mark adds. "If you want."
"Of course I want that," Eduardo says. He leans away to look at Mark. "It's just… complicated, right?"
"I think it's pretty simple," Mark says. "We like each other, we'll make it work."
Eduardo smiles, and brings Mark back to his chest. So warm now, it's hard to imagine ever having been cold from the rain. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."
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