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Eduardo is consistent. That’s one thing he has going for him.
“You have that look,” Mark says. He’s flat on his back on the rug in the common room, feet kicked up against the couch’s cushions. He waves his hand around to prove the point, but it gets lost in the mix of smoke and the vague look Mark always gets when he wants to prove something but can’t quite seem to make words work for him.
“I have a look,” Eduardo says, mostly humoring him, but focused more on his phone than anything else. One of his cousins in Brazil is giving birth and he’s getting minute by minute updates from her husband.
Mark waves his hand around again, like swishing smoke around will make what he's saying any clearer. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, like. You work the big eyes and bad hair like nobody’s business.”
Eduardo laughs, because Mark stoned is even more ridiculous than Mark sober. He stretches down off the couch so he can bump their shoulders together. The floor isn’t remotely comfortable, but if he kicks his legs out, it’s not too bad.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Mark says, and Eduardo pats his arm in conciliation.
“I wasn't, Mark,” he says, and Mark nods, passing the spliff over before tucking his face down against the sleeve of his hoodie. Eduardo rolls his eyes and sets it in the ashtray on the coffee table, nudging at Mark when he ensures their continued safety. “Hey, hey,” he says, pressing a hand to the small of Mark’s back. He’s curled in on himself, already starting to breathe hard. “The floor is no place to get a good night’s sleep, man.”
“Go away,” Mark says, voice precise, and Eduardo would listen to him, except for the part where he has class with Mark in the bright and early morning, and a Mark that’s slept on the floor of the common room is a cranky Mark. Eduardo has dealt with enough cranky Marks in his lifetime to warrant taking this risk, and they've only known each other a month.
“C’mon, man,” he says, rolling his own shoulder against Mark’s to get him moving. “The floor is unyielding and I have a date with a newborn.”
Mark’s eyes crinkle with confusion, but Eduardo doesn’t even have to speak before his gaze darts down, noting the cell phone with a half-written message and the fact that Eduardo's not as wasted as he is. His mouth sets in a frown.
“Trying to trick me into being awake by pretending to have an affair with someone under-aged isn’t very mature, Wardo.” He rolls his eyes to qualify the point, but Eduardo’s pretty sure he catches a hint of smile on his mouth too. Success.
“I didn’t do that,” Eduardo says. “I was being serious.” He shrugs, rolling to his feet, and then holds a hand out. “I have a little niece or nephew being born right now, man. This is big news in my family.”
Mark takes his hand absently and says, “You weren’t clear,” as an afterthought more than anything else.
;;;
College is weird in a spatial way. Eduardo’s been on his own a lot; not neglected, but definitely as a result of his father’s money, his mother’s spending and the fact that he spent his formative years in Miami. Cambridge has the advantage because of the cold, and because Harvard is immense in the way its roots extend, the brand always touching something, somewhere.
He’s in The Raven, drinking his first coffee the morning when his phone chirps with a text. It’s sort of like a dance as he shifts down the architectural tome he’s been flipping through and tugs the phone out of his pocket.
What was it?
Eduardo debates the merits trying to decipher the message versus just asking. With Mark, playing stupid is always easier, so Eduardo sets his drink on the floor and types back:
What was what? Mark doesn't respond right away, so Eduardo tucks his phone away again.
The store isn’t all that big, but there’s a method to Eduardo’s madness; a floor plan he follows whenever he has a minute to spend perusing old books, and he’s flipping through a first edition of Galapagos when his phone buzzes again.
Mark’s sent: Wasn’t your cousin having a baby, or are you really screwing around with fifteen year olds? The “you idiot” isn’t spelled out in so many words, but Eduardo’s learnt how to read between the lines.
He taps out: I didn’t think you’d remember, and then deletes it to go with: boy. They named him João after his dad. He deletes that, too, eventually just shoving the phone in the pocket of his blazer and going back to his book. He’s distracted, though, and leaves without buying anything.
;;;
In high school, Eduardo briefly dated a very nice girl named Lucy. It didn’t last all that long; they’d gone to prom together, and it’s not hard to remember standing on the front stairs of her parents’ house, palms sweating from the heat and the flood of nerves he’d felt in his stomach when she’d walked out, hair down in loose curls around her shoulders.
They didn’t have sex that night or anything, Eduardo’s not a pig, but it had happened a few weeks later, a lazy afternoon spent by the pool in his backyard; one of the only ones in the neighborhood. He remembers touching her, fear and excitement mixing tightly in his stomach, and she’d kissed him even though it hurt, so that has to count for something.
It’s October, and he hasn’t talked to her since early-August, right before he’d gone to Brazil for the last couple of weeks of summer and she’d headed north to start orientation at Vanderbilt. They said they’d keep in touch, but they really haven’t, and Eduardo feels bad about the fact that he doesn’t miss her more.
Dustin is the one that asks, one of Mark’s friends from another early morning seminar, and the three of them are in the common room in Mark’s suite, sprawled out but not touching. “D’you have a girlfriend?” Dustin asks. He’s showing off, blowing smoke rings, and Eduardo doesn’t really want it to be, but he’s pretty sure that’s the funniest thing he’s seen all day.
“Um,” Eduardo says, wiping at his face. He feels too hot and exposed, like he’s back in Miami instead of the freezing cold climate of Massachusetts in the fall. “Not really,” he mumbles. Considering he and Lucy haven’t spoken in months it should be a pretty firm no, but he doesn’t correct himself.
“Katy from down the hall likes you,” Mark says, brows raised like a question and an answer mixed together, but Eduardo can’t even figure out where the first ends and the second begins. He stares and Mark stares back, and he kind of wants to say, how do you even know that? You don’t talk to girls, but his limbs are heavy and his mouth feels too full to argue.
Dustin interjects and says, “She totally does, man.” He laughs harder than necessary and says, “She likes your accent. You should hit that.”
It’s automatic at this point, when Eduardo says, “I don’t have an accent,” but no one is listening to him anyway.
;;;
Eduardo doesn’t end up going out with Katy, but it has less to do with her supposed appreciation of his accent and more with the fact that for people who aren’t Mark, school is actually crushingly difficult. By the time he pokes his head up again, it’s almost the minuscule amount of time they get off for winter break and he hasn’t even seen the mysterious Katy, let alone asked out her for dinner and drinks.
“I bet that’s how you do it, too,” Mark says from his desk. Eduardo’s on the floor, his back against the radiator, because it’s the warmest place in the room, and it’s no surprise to anyone that he’s always cold.
“What?” They’re studying, or at least Eduardo is studying. Mark is fiddling with his laptop, working out the bugs in CourseMatch before it goes viral.
“'Would you like to go for dinner and drinks?'” Mark pitches his voice up, pinching his lips together in what’s probably supposed to be an imitation. He looks completely serious, but Eduardo sees through it, can read the amusement in his eyes.
“If I actually sound like that, I’ll kill myself,” he says, and Mark does laugh outright at that, teeth worrying over his bottom lip, eyes flicking between his laptop and Eduardo on the floor.
“That would be a pretty stupid reason to die,” Mark says, finally, and Eduardo doesn’t mean to laugh, except for how he does.
“I’d get it done quickly,” Eduardo continues, shifting away from the wall to sprawl on the floor, looking up at Mark from upside-down. “But obviously not in this room. I know how you are about mess, man.”
Mark’s mouth quirks up, and it’s weird, seeing him from such an unusual angle. He’s surprised when Mark shifts down too, abandoning his laptop on the desk and making short work of the space between them.
“Is that what you did in Brazil?” Mark asks, voice quieter now that there’s less space. They’re not touching anywhere, but Eduardo can feel Mark’s heat against his knees.
Eduardo blinks up at him and says, “Did I—what?” Mark scrunches his face up, and Eduardo’s sure that his is similar; a mirror.
Mark rolls his eyes and with a sigh that sounds frustrated, says, “Did you ply the women in Brazil with cheap beer and bad 90s pop songs?”
Eduardo stares at him for a minute and Mark stares back, gaze intent and focused on him. Eduardo laughs to cover the nervous twitching in his belly.
“It wasn’t beer.” It’s a beat later than it should be, but Eduardo congratulates himself on managing to speak at all.
;;;
Eduardo spends the holiday by himself in Miami. His mother is somewhere in western Colorado recovering from one of her “episodes” and his father is in Brazil on business. They don’t call, because they’ve already done virtual Hanukkah gifts, and Eduardo’s not expecting much.
It’s not that bad—Joanne, his parents’ new cleaning lady, makes a really nice roast and since it’s way, way too much for him to eat by himself, he invites her to stay and partake with him. She flushes apologetically and says she has her kids and husband waiting for her at home, and even though he’s been in another state for four months, he still feels like a tool for not knowing; for monopolizing her time.
“It’s alright, Mr. Saverin,” she says, laying her palm flat against his shoulder. He flinches at the contact and tries to cover by coughing. She smiles at him, and in front of her, Eduardo feels incredibly small and young. “Thank you for the invitation.”
He wishes her and her family a happy holiday and heads up to his room to sleep the rest of the morning away. When he gets up, he feels guilty all over again at the sight of the spotless and gleaming kitchen and a note on the counter that says, I packed the remains of lunch in some Tupperware and put in the fridge. It should hold for the next few days.
He hadn’t even told her just to call him Eduardo.
;;;
On New Years’ he goes out, because he just can’t stand being in the house anymore. Chris and Dustin have called, a few kids from his dorm, too, and Eduardo’s sent them texts back, because he’s not really up for conversation. He hasn’t talked to Mark. They did ironic Hanukkah e-cards too.
The only call he does accept is from João, and they alternate between Portuguese and English as Eduardo navigates downtown Miami, heading to the beach, because it’s crowded, but dark, too, and that’s where he runs into Lucy.
She blinks up at him, curls framing her face and he mumbles, “Shit,” under his breath, because he wasn’t really expecting to see anyone he knew.
“You okay?” João asks in English, and Eduardo says, “Yeah,” and then hangs up, probably disproving that theory entirely.
“Eduardo,” she says with a smile, curling closer than anyone’s been to him in days. “What a surprise.”
“What can I say?” He smiles down her, conscious of the motion and using all his teeth. He probably looks cheesy, but she grins up at him too, so he figures it must work. “I’m a man of mystery.”
She laughs, the sound bright and twinkling, and says, “It’s the accent.” Eduardo doesn’t correct her. They walk and she burrows against his side, so he settles his arm down around her shoulders and it almost feels comfortable.
“How’s school going?” He asks eventually, because there’s a lull in conversation, and he can’t think of anything else to say.
She tilts her head as she looks up at him, not confused but questioning and finally says, “Fine. Harder than expected, but fun.” She grins and nudges their sides together. “You know, I didn’t think I would, but I really missed you.”
She startles him into laughing. “I’m glad it came as such a surprise,” he says, and she grins at him again.
When they kiss on the beach, it’s under fireworks, and she curls her fingers against the collar of his shirt, sand mixing with the cotton.
;;;
Eduardo ends up going back to Massachusetts a few days early because there’s no reason for him to stay in Miami. He and Lucy see each other a few times, but—she’s staying home for another couple weeks, and to be honest, she’s probably getting back together with her first semester boyfriend when school starts back up again.
He doesn’t think either of them are particularly broken up about it, although he sort of wishes he was.
The dorms are quiet when he gets in, which makes sense, because he’s a couple of days early. It doesn’t take him long to get his stuff unpacked and he’s halfway into a nap when his phone rings. Eduardo’s so startled by the noise that he doesn’t even bother to check the view screen.
“Um,” he says blearily. “Yeah?”
“Wardo.” Eduardo sits up straighter on his bed, rubbing at his face. It feels like longer than a week and a half since they’ve spoken.
“Mark,” he says.
“I’m outside your room.” Eduardo can practically hear Mark rolling his eyes. “Open up.” He sounds put out, like he’s been waiting, but Eduardo’s been here for hours already and he hasn’t heard any knocking.
Still, Eduardo’s up and opening the door and there Mark is, standing right outside, brows raised. “You’re really here,” Eduardo says, just as Mark’s asking, “Were you in bed?”
Eduardo blinks and says, “Yeah, it’s been a long day.”
“It’s like, 7 o’clock.”
“I was tired.” He feels exposed like this, in just his pajama bottoms and a ratty old shirt he’d found at home. Mark is in his standard uniform, like the cold doesn’t affect him at all. Eduardo wonders how his feet haven’t frozen off yet. “Do people just not get cold in New York?” He asks, but he’s not really expecting a response, falling back so Mark has room to come in.
“What?” Mark says, and Eduardo says, “What?” Already lost, because he’s exhausted and Mark always makes him think in circles.
“I don’t.” Mark says, and then, “Why are you back so early?”
Eduardo says, “It’s only a couple days.” He frowns. “How did you even know I was here?” He laughs and says, “Casing the res halls?”
Mark rolls his eyes. “I saw you. I came by.”
For some reason, that’s hilarious. Eduardo doesn’t giggle outright, but it’s a really close thing. “Well, hi,” he says. It seems fitting.
“Hi,” Mark repeats, confused, and Eduardo steps forward to hug him, feeling a rush of warmth and familiarity. He wraps his arms around Mark’s shoulders and squeezes. It’s not the first time they’ve hugged, but they’re not particularly demonstrative. Mark is still under his hands and Eduardo understands why. It makes him smile.
He pulls back to say, “That’s not really how you hug, man,” or even, “Dude, you put your arms up.” He pulls back enough to speak, but Mark’s staring at him with a guarded expression, mouth set in an uncertain line.
“What?” Eduardo asks, and Mark shakes his head, but then he gives Eduardo the shock of his life when he leans forward, breaching the distance between them and touching their mouths together.
It’s not a kiss. His first aim isn’t entirely correct, and their lips are off-kilter. Eduardo has a second of thinking, at least he’s not perfect at everything until the rest of the situation catches up with him.
“Um,” he says, and if he’s waiting for Mark to look bashful or blush, he’ll be waiting a long time. Mark just stares back at him, eyes unreadable.
He says, “I was thinking about that,” casually dropping it in conversation like they’re discussing the weather. Eduardo has a displaced thought about Lucy; the soft way she’d moaned into his mouth when he’d kissed her, her voice pitched higher than normal, her fingers curling against his sides like she just wanted to get closer. She was soft and warm and always smelled like coconut suntan lotion, even in December.
“You were thinking about kissing me?” He asks, incredulous. Eduardo’s pretty proud that he’s managed to get his brain back in working order. Mark keeps staring at him, and Eduardo doesn’t feel as composed as he wants.
“I just said that,” Mark says, and Eduardo just gapes, wondering if he lost his fucking mind at some point between Miami International and Logan.
“Yeah,” Eduardo’s trying to work out the logistics, but no matter which way he spins it, he’s still drawing a blank. “But saying it and doing it are—” He closes his eyes. “Jesus, Mark. Conversation is usually involved when decide to kiss your friends. You know, words?”
“Let’s not make this maudlin,” Mark’s voice is cutting, and Eduardo feels like he’s drowning in a puddle of water, in over his head for no reason at all, but not able to stand up on his own, either.
“Let’s not—” Eduardo manages, more surprised than he wants to be. “You kissed me. I’m allowed to be surprised.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Mark says, turning to leave, and this, Eduardo recognizes. His mother does it all the time, when she’s drunk out of her mind and belligerent and he doesn’t want to chase after her, but always ends up doing it anyway. He doesn’t want to chase after Mark, either.
“Okay,” Eduardo says when Mark’s at the door. “I’m going back to bed.” He turns away, still exhausted from his flight, and from Mark, and he’s unsurprised when the door doesn’t open or close. He can hear them both breathing.
“You’re being a dick about this,” Mark says.
Eduardo turns back around. He has a hard time speaking to people when he can’t face them. “I’m being a dick? I haven’t punched you in the mouth yet,” he adds, shrugging. “I’d say I’m doing pretty well, so far.”
Mark sneers; an ugly twist of his lips that exposes his teeth in something that is definitely not a smile. “I didn’t see you pushing me away,” he says, all confident, no tremor in his voice at all.
Eduardo closes his eyes, pinching at the skin between his nose, and that’s when Mark kisses him again. He has a clear advantage, and this next pass is better. Their mouths align, but their teeth clack together, and Eduardo opens his eyes to find Mark looking right back at him.
He pulls back with a gasp, wiping at his mouth with the back of his wrist. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” He asks, not half as calm as he wants be. His heart is jackhammering in his chest.
“I wanted to see what you would do.” Mark speaks easily, hands hanging by his sides, his fingers tapping a soundless rhythm against his thighs.
“You wanted—” Eduardo parrots the words back on a gasp, so ready to do something drastic; to punch Mark or at least to shake him, to get him as confused as he is. “Get out,” he manages, finally. “Seriously, Mark, I’m fucking wrecked. Get out and I’ll see you during finals.”
Mark blinks at him and says, “Fine. Whatever, Wardo.”
Eduardo wishes he’d punched him.
;;;
They have some time to study before getting right back into the finals period, and Eduardo spends most of that time in his room, reading over his Econ notes from weeks ago, trying to make sense of his scribbles.
“You know you’re like, the rockstar of that class, right?” Chris says, reminding Eduardo that he’s in the room with a nudge of their shoulders. “Greg totally wants to bone you.”
Eduardo laughs and says, “I think you overestimate my skills, man,” even though, yeah, okay. He’s pretty good with numbers. He says as much and Chris laughs, the mood in the room easy and quiet. Peaceful.
“Seriously, I think you were done with that last problem set before he’d even finished writing the equations on the board.” Chris shakes his head in mock-amazement and says, thoughtfully, “Maybe he wants a forge a psychic connection with you through your dick.”
“Will you stop,” Eduardo says around a mouthful of giggles. “Seriously. Our TF doesn’t want—it’s not like that.”
“Oh yeah?” Chris asks. “What’s it like, then?”
Eduardo focuses back down at his notes. “Whatever,” he says eventually, and what’s sad is that it’s the best come-back he can think of.
“Oh,” Chris says, laughing, “So clever.”
Eduardo shrugs and grins, saying, “It’s what you keep me around for. I’m a natural-born comedian, man.”
Chris raises his brows and says, “And here I thought it was for the accent.”
“Dude,” he rolls his eyes. “For the last time, I do not have an accent. I grew up in Miami!”
“So maybe it’s a hint of Cuban we can hear.” Chris is smirking, and Eduardo socks him in the shoulder because he can, and because Chris just laughs and leans back up and nudges him again. It’s easy. “That shit is sexy, Wardo, seriously,” he adds, and Eduardo doesn’t mean to flinch, but it happens anyway.
Chris is nice enough to pretend he doesn’t notice.
;;;
Eduardo’s studying. He’s busy. He hasn’t had much time to think about Mark or whatever the ridiculousness of last week was. Every time he turns a corner, he steels himself, preparing for the possibility of Mark being there, but he never is. The quad is big, and the square is even bigger, but sometimes it feels smaller than he knows it to be. Sometimes it’s suffocating.
On Wednesday morning, he gets done with his Econ final a full hour before their allotted test time, and when he hands his paperwork to Greg at the front of the room, he turns back to look at Chris and sees him smirking.
He sends a text when he gets out and says, Going home and passing out. Good luck with the rest of it. Chris won’t get it until he gets out anyway, but it’s worth sending. He’s on his way to Lamont to get a coffee when he runs into Mark, stumbling over his feet when he sees him like a kid.
“Whatever, sorry,” Mark says, re-balancing himself, and Eduardo tries not to stare or wonder if he’s missed this or not. His stomach tightens, but he’s not sure if it’s with annoyance or hesitation or something else entirely. If it’s up to him, his vote goes to the first two. “Hi,” Mark says, speaking again. He doesn’t drop his gaze, so Eduardo’s stuck staring back at him.
“Hi,” Eduardo repeats, like he’s learning the custom for the first time. He feels like an idiot. “Whatever,” he says, mostly to himself. “Whatever, man. How’s it going?”
Mark shrugs and says, “I’ve been doing some reading about final clubs.”
“You mean instead of studying?”
Mark actually laughs, like that’s at all funny, like Eduardo hasn’t spent the last week cramming. “Who actually needs to study?”
;;;
It’s easier to hang out after that. As easy as hanging out with Mark ever is, anyway. Eduardo tries taking himself less seriously. That helps a lot.
It’s shopping period, and Eduardo’s just sat through three Comparative English classes because the guy Chris has a crush on this month is probably going to be the TF for one of them. “That last one was just for fun,” Chris said, and Eduardo barely refrained from banging his head against the tabletop.
“Is he cute at least?” Eduardo blinks, looking over at where Mark is sitting at his desk, fiddling with his laptop. They’re in his room because they both have the afternoon free, and Eduardo’s just glad that it’s Friday and he’d gotten most of his picks squared away at the beginning of the week.
“Is who cute?” He asks, scrolling back through the conversation in his head, trying to remember.
Mark rolls his eyes as spins in his chair, and says, “The TF, Wardo. The guy you went to so much trouble for. Is he at least cute?”
Eduardo thinks back to the guy, remembers skinny legs and freckles. “Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “I guess he was alright.”
Mark says, “Not your type?” He makes it sound casual, but Eduardo watches the line of his shoulders as he spins in his seat. He’s sitting completely straight, holding himself tightly.
“No,” Eduardo says. “Not if Chris is going for him, man. That’s not my style.” He lays back, body flat against the rug and kicks his feet out, stretching his limbs. He thinks about saying, “There’s also the part where he’s a dude,” but he doesn’t, watching some of the tension in Mark's shoulders ease. He thinks about Geoff the TF again; the way he'd grinned and talked to them in his tight girl's jeans and multiple scarves. Objectively, he'd been alright looking, not bad. Nothing to write home about, really, but he could see the appeal. Mark spins to face him again, grinning in this way he never really does.
"So not impressive then," Mark says, but Eduardo has to ask him to repeat himself twice.