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Evgeny has just slid into his seat when his phone starts buzzing inside the pocket of his suit jacket. He can’t answer it, but the wedding hasn’t started yet, and -
i thought the wedding started at two? says the text message. It’s from one of Evgeny’s colleagues at the PR firm, Alex.
it does Evgeny sends back. It’s almost 2:15. well, it was supposed to but i guess it’s normal if these things run late?
get up and walk outside and i’ll call you Alex says.
Evgeny starts to text back, i’m not going to get up and leave a wedding but his phone starts ringing before he can send the text. He has to jump up and zip out of the hall, holding his phone to his ear.
“What?” he asks. “The wedding is going to start any second.”
“I don’t think there’s going to be a wedding,” Alex says, his voice careful and neutral.
“I’m here, it’s happening,” Evgeny says.
“Well, there are photos of the bride leaving the venue with one of her previous costars, so I don’t think - “ Alex says. Evgeny’s phone starts buzzing again.
“Sasha, I have to go,” Evgeny says, and thumbs out of the call with Alex and into the other call.
“Is it true?” the voice on the other end of the line says without preamble.
“Where are you right now?” Evgeny asks.
“Where I’m supposed to be!”
“Okay, stay there, I’m going to come to you,” Evgeny says. “We’ll figure this out.”
Marcus looks, for all intents and purposes, perfect. It’s nearly two thirty, and he should be married by now. The only thing that gives it away is the way his eyes are red and cheeks are ruddy from trying not to cry.
Evgeny’s phone hasn’t stopped buzzing in his hand.
“Okay,” Evgeny says, taking a deep breath. “She’s gone. I mean, we knew that. People saw her leave. The pictures are all over the internet already - “
Marcus slumps down onto the sofa.
“The best thing we can do right now is send everyone off to the reception, let them get good and drunk, and get you out of here,” Evgeny finishes. “And then we’ll figure out -”
“Better she leave now than later, right?” Marcus blurts out. Evgeny’s mouth snaps shut and Marcus covers his mouth with his hands. Marcus’s brother makes a distressed noise and sits down on the couch next to him, wrapping both arms around him.
At the risk of wrinkling his suit pants, Evgeny gets on his knees next to the couch.
“Unfortunately,” Evgeny says. “Look. This was a big waste of money and time, but it’s better you find out now before you have to pay alimony and divorce her or something. It’s a small favor in all of this that she left before you got married.”
Marcus wipes tears off his cheeks.
“Your dad and your brother are going to go out there and unfortunately they’re going to have to tell everyone the wedding is off,” Evgeny says, looking from Marcus to Martin then back. “And I’m going to get you out of here. Think of it as going on your honeymoon without her. And then someone else will do something scandalous and everyone will forget all about this.”
“What do we say?” Martin asks, letting go of Marcus to get up from the sofa. “When we go out there?”
“No details. Just that the wedding is off, but the reception is still on, everyone have a good time,” Evgeny says. “We definitely don’t want to say anything about her leaving. No details. If anyone asks, be vague.”
Martin nods, and Marcus’s dad squeezes Marcus’s shoulder as they leave. Evgeny sits there on his heels, looking up at Marcus, who is futilely wiping away silent tears.
“This sucks,” he says, and then laughs, watery.
Evgeny hugs him. “Come on, I’m getting you out of here.”
The door is half-open when Marcus arrives, and he pushes it the rest of the way. Alex is sitting behind his desk, and Nicke is sat in one of the chairs across, looking at his phone. There’s a third man that Marcus doesn’t recognize, and he stands up when Marcus comes into the room.
“Good to see you,” Alex says, standing up. “Did Andre offer you a drink when you came in? If not, we can have him grab you one.”
“Thanks for coming on such short notice, by the way,” Nicke says, locking his phone and shoving it into his pocket. “We wanted to do this in person.”
“Are you firing me?” Marcus asks, a little confused. Both Nicke and Alex laugh.
“No, you’re wonderful,” Nicke says. “But we have Evgeny here, and he’s just starting with us. And if you’re all right with it, we’d like to hand you over to him.”
“Because you’re … well,” Alex says. “We have some clients that make things difficult for us sometimes. And you’re not one of those clients, so we thought it might be best if you worked with Evgeny, ease him into things.”
“Sure,” Marcus says, shrugging. He’s been with the same PR firm since he came to America when he was nineteen and still playing bit parts with hardly any lines.
“It’s not like it’s simple,” Nicke says. “With your upcoming projects it will be more work than we’ve normally got with you, but you’re not a PR disaster.”
“I can be, if you want,” Marcus suggests. Evgeny laughs.
“I’d appreciate if you didn’t,” he says, his Russian accent thick.
“I’m just saying, if you want more work,” Marcus says.
“I only want work that comes with you being incredibly famous,” Evgeny tells him. “We’re scandal free since 1990.”
Marcus snort-laughs.
It’s well into the afternoon by the time they check into the resort and are escorted to their cabin. Their cabin - the cabin that was supposed to have been Marcus’s on his honeymoon with his new wife.
“I can sleep on the couch,” Evgeny offers.
“I think we’ve known each other long enough to share a bed,” Marcus says. He looks exhausted and unhappy.
Evgeny drops his suitcase onto the floor in the corner and walks over, sitting down next to Marcus on the bed. Evgeny doesn’t know what to say anymore. It was a long flight and both of them slept through parts of it, or kept their headphones on.
“Please don’t,” Marcus says as Evgeny moves to put his arm around him. “I’m so tired of crying and I know I will if you hug me right now.”
“Maybe you need to,” Evgeny says. “Get it out of your system.”
“I’m tired,” Marcus tells him again.
“I know,” Evgeny says. He’s also tired. What parts of their flight he didn’t spend sleeping he spent drafting Marcus’s statement. Now they just have to wait for everything to blow over. For people to forget that any of this ever happened.
Except, Evgeny knows that Marcus isn’t going to forget.
He hugs Marcus anyway, and Marcus curls into him. Evgeny can feel the tears soaking into his shirt again. He knows that Marcus was in love. He knows that Marcus was planning his life and his future, and now it’s all gone.
He moves the two of them so that they’re stretched out on the bed, and he lets Marcus cry, rubbing his hand slowly up and down Marcus’s back.
They fall asleep like that, and when Evgeny wakes up again it’s dark outside. He thinks that Marcus is still asleep, but then his stomach growls.
“Do you think we can still get food?” Marcus asks.
“This is a resort,” Evgeny says. “If we can’t get room service, what are you paying so much money for?”
Marcus laughs, and the sound makes Evgeny’s stomach twist. There’s a tiny part of him that’s glad that the wedding is off, that Marcus is single.
He’s been in love with Marcus for years.
It’s raining in the morning when Evgeny’s alarm goes off. He’s only set it because he knows they need to adjust to the time or they’ll never be awake to do anything during the day.
He’s not sure that Marcus wants to do anything during the day. At least, it doesn’t seem like it by the way he scrunches up his body and pulls his pillow over his head at the sound of Evgeny’s alarm.
“Let’s go and get breakfast,” Evgeny says. Marcus grunts from underneath his pillow. “Come on, we’ll get breakfast and we’ll start day drinking and we’ll go to the beach or the pool or something.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Marcus says, taking his pillow off his head. His eyes are puffy.
“We’re going to get you a facial,” Evgeny says. “You look like you spent yesterday crying.”
“I did,” Marcus says.
“Yeah, well you don’t have to look like it,” Evgeny says, getting up. He rummages through his suitcase, looking for something to wear.
“I want to stay in bed,” Marcus says.
Evgeny sighs and goes back over and climbs into bed with Marcus again, stretching out next to him and putting his face close to Marcus’s.
“Listen,” he says. “I know you want to wallow in this. But you can’t. You can be sad, but years from now you’re going to think, okay, this was better than marrying her and having her cheat on you later.”
“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” Marcus asks.
“I don’t know,” Evgeny says. “It just seems like it’s better to know now than later.”
“Are you being my friend right now or my PR manager?” Marcus asks.
“Both,” Evgeny says. He smacks a wet kiss to Marcus’s cheek. “Get up, let’s go get breakfast.”
Marcus sighs, but he gets out of bed.
It’s frustrating for Evgeny to sit across from Marcus while he’s quiet and picking at his breakfast as they sit on the patio with the rain falling around them. It’s the most romantic thing in the world, and Marcus is miserable, and Evgeny isn’t exactly enjoying it.
They go to the spa, and they go to dinner, and Marcus is quiet all day. They’re still sharing a bed and Evgeny wakes up in the night to find Marcus gone.
He wanders through their empty suite before going out onto the patio to find Marcus sitting at the end, staring out at the ocean. The rain stopped sometime after dinner and the clouds cleared off, and everything is lit by the moon and the lights from the pool area.
Evgeny goes over and sits down next to Marcus, the tiles warm underneath him. Marcus looks over at him, his eyes big and dark and his hair falling around his face, and all Evgeny can think about is how badly he wants to kiss him.
Evgeny’s pretty sure that that won’t go over well. He’s also pretty sure that Marcus is straight, given that they were at his wedding to a woman two days before.
Marcus leans over against him, his head against Evgeny’s shoulder. Evgeny loops an arm around his waist.
“I’m sorry I’m no fun,” Marcus says to him.
“I didn’t know we were here to have fun,” Evgeny says.
“I mean,” Marcus says. “I think this is supposed to be a fun trip.”
“It can be whatever you want it to be,” Evgeny says. “You’re the one who - “
“Please don’t say it,” Marcus says, and sighs. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
“No?” Evgeny says. “I like you the way you are.”
Marcus laughs. “I’m glad someone does.”
Evgeny thinks about telling Marcus he loves him.
“Let’s go do something tomorrow,” Marcus says.
“Like lay on the beach?” Evgeny asks.
“I think that sounds like a good plan,” Marcus says, and smiles at him.
Morning after morning while they’re at the resort, Evgeny wakes up with Marcus wrapped around him, his face pressed against Evgeny’s back or chest. It’s starting to drive Evgeny crazy, because all he wants is to roll Marcus over and pin him to the mattress, to kiss him.
He tries not to think about it too much. He definitely jerks off in the shower.
It takes a few days, but it seems like Marcus gets back to normal. They go snorkeling, they go shopping, they take a surfing lesson that Evgeny spends most of underwater and Marcus spends most of laughing at him.
Evgeny’s just glad that he’s laughing.
Ten days into their stay, the news that’s going to make people forget about Marcus’s aborted wedding breaks. Suddenly that’s what everyone’s buzzing about, and not paparazzi photos of Marcus’s ex with the man she left him for.
It makes Marcus quiet again, and Evgeny curls up next to him on the lounge on their cabin’s patio. Evgeny runs his fingers through Marcus’s hair. “You’re gonna be okay,” Evgeny says.
“I know,” Marcus says. “I keep waiting for it to stop hurting, though.”
Evgeny sighs. “But you’re going to be ready to go back to the real world,” he says, and Marcus nods.
“It’s been nice here,” Marcus says. “Everything went wrong, but I’m glad to be here. With you.”
Evgeny’s breath catches in his throat. A million things run through his mind at once, and then he says, “I love you.”
Marcus sits up and shifts until he’s looking at Evgeny, confused. “What?” he asks.
“I love you, I’m in love with you,” Evgeny says. “And it’s okay if you’re not in love with me, but I just needed to tell you because I can’t - I’m not sure I can keep doing this. I’m going to ask Sasha for someone to take over your account when we get back.”
Marcus frowns at him. “I don’t want that,” Marcus says.
“You deserve that,” Evgeny says. “You deserve someone who is objective and not invested in… you.”
“But I want you,” Marcus says. “You - “
Evgeny leans forward and kisses him. Maybe Marcus isn’t going to speak to him for the rest of this trip. Maybe Marcus is going to pack up and leave early, tell Evgeny he hates him.
He doesn’t. He fists his fingers in Evgeny’s t-shirt and kisses him back.
“Wait,” Evgeny says. “That’s not the reaction I expected.”
Marcus smiles at him. “I don’t know. Consider that maybe you don’t know everything about me.”
Evgeny laughs and kisses him again.
Sasha’s sitting at his desk, leaned back as Evgeny is explaining what’s going on.
“I should fire you for this,” Sasha tells him. “This is so wildly inappropriate -”
“Shut up, Sasha, you’re not going to fire him,” Nicke says from where he’s lounging in one of the other chairs in Sasha’s office.
“I would prefer he not get fired over this, if it matters,” Marcus says. Evgeny turns to Marcus and smiles. Marcus reaches out and squeezes his hand.
“Listen,” Nicke says. “I don’t think Evgeny should be fired. I’ll take Marcus’s account back. He’s more fun now that he gets in trouble and I’d love to orchestrate the PR around his coming out.”
“I don’t get into trouble,” Marcus says, frowning at Nicke.
“Getting left at the altar, disappearing off the map, then coming back dating a man is a lot of trouble,” Nicke says. “It’ll be fun.”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say thank you or you’re welcome,” Evgeny says.
“All of you get out of my office,” Sasha says.
All of them stand up to leave.
“Not you, Nicke, you stay,” Sasha says. “You two still leave.”
Marcus and Evgeny are both laughing as they leave.
Nicke walks around to stand behind Sasha’s desk, looking at his computer screen. The photos of Marcus and Evgeny show them looking tanned and happy, laughing - and are also clearly taken without their knowledge. “You have to admit,” Nicke says, “the photos are pretty cute.”
“Yeah,” Sasha says. “Fine.”
Nicke laughs and drops a kiss on top of Sasha’s head on his way out of the office.