Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/297960.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, M/M
  Fandom:
      Social_Network_(2010)
  Relationship:
      Eduardo_Saverin/Mark_Zuckerberg, Divya_Narendra/Eduardo_Saverin, Christy
      Lee/Eduardo_Saverin
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_High_School, Boarding_School, American_Football,
      First_Time
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-12-21 Words: 18515
****** Stars Forever ******
by justbreathe80
Summary
     “Eduardo,” Coach says. Eduardo didn’t even know that Coach Sorkin
     knew his first name. “You ready?”
     He takes a deep breath. He can’t ignore how the ball felt in his
     hand, the way that everything looks and feels completely transformed
     with the laces between his fingers. “Yeah, I’m ready, Coach.”
Notes
     Written for the 2011 tsnsecretsanta exchange
     WHAT IS THIS FIC EVEN. I decided to take two things I love (The
     Social Network and football) and mash them together. Liberties taken
     and much of this story is based on informed but less-than-expert
     knowledge of football, boarding school life, and Ivy League athletic
     recruiting. Suspending some disbelief might be in order.
     ivynights, I know that this maybe isn't exactly what you asked for,
     but I hope you enjoy it!
     Many thanks to altogetherisi for the read through, and many thanks to
     my darling riverlight for her writing support and beta.
The Saverins pack up and leave São Paulo the summer after Eduardo finishes the
second grade. He’s devastated to leave his family behind, his aunts and uncles
and all of his cousins, and his school friends too. He cries when his father
tells him, and his father simply says, “It’s not worth crying over, Eduardo.”
So, Eduardo goes, with his older sister and his parents, to Miami. He speaks
some English, but the first few months and the start of school are so hard. He
doesn’t understand half of what was going on around him, can’t follow the
conversations of his classmates. He’s lucky to be able to mostly follow what
was going on in class, with the help of the ESL teacher.
He's frustrated, though, and driving his father crazy at home. Not that his
father’s home much, but when he is, he’s scolding Eduardo for not sitting
still, for running through the house, anything he can find to criticize. One
day, Eduardo kicks a soccer ball into his father’s heavy cut crystal decanter
set, sending the whole tray flying, luckily only chipping one of the tumblers
in the process. His father screams at him, and Eduardo spends the rest of the
week in his room, except for meals.
It’s his mom’s idea to sign him up for Pop Warner football. American football,
which he knows absolutely nothing about. Eduardo has hazy, bright memories of
playing soccer and baseball with his cousins in wide, green backyards in
Brazil, but he has never even seen a football game before.
“Mãe,” Eduardo groans when his mother tells him, “I don’t even know how to play
football.”
“Eduardo,” his mother says gently, pulling him close into a hug. It’s hard to
be annoyed when she does that. “One of the other mothers in the neighborhood
says her son plays. I think if you don’t get some of your energy out in a
productive way, your father is going to kill you.”
So he goes.
And, surprisingly, he loves it.
He’s tall for his age, and strong, and he can run fast, so they have him
playing as a mostly as a cornerback and a wide receiver, and some special
teams. When he’s out on the field, he feels like everything slows down for him,
just enough that he can see what the quarterback is doing, where he’s looking,
see the players who are covering him, run the route he needs to run. The guys
on the team are great, happy, smiling American boys, and after a while, he
starts to feel like maybe Miami might become home to him someday too.
At first, they don’t tell his father - he never gets home until after Eduardo’s
home from practice anyway, but once he decides to stick with it, Eduardo’s mom
breaks the news.
His father is less than pleased.
Eduardo still doesn’t know what his mother said, but all he got from that point
forward were disappointed looks from his father, and reminders that he needed
to keep his grades up.
In his second year, his team makes it to the National Pop Warner Playoffs. It’s
exhilarating, and Eduardo feels addicted to the feeling of making that perfect
catch and running into the end zone.
By eighth grade, he’s a straight A student, playing for the freshman team at
the local high school (and taking math there), and trying to convince his
parents to send him to St. Thomas Aquinas in Fort Lauderdale for high school.
They have the number nine ranked high school football program in the country
and a strong college prep program, which will appease his father.
Like it had before, though, just as things are perfect, they go off the rails.
In March of that year, Eduardo’s parents sit him down. He doesn’t know why his
mother has such a sad look on his face. At first, he’s worried that maybe
someone back in Brazil died or something, but that’s not it at all.
“Eduardo, I hope that you’ll understand that we’re only trying to do what’s
best for you. We think that the discipline of the boarding school environment
will be good for you before you go off to college.” His father pushes the
brochure, with a picture on the front of rolling hills and fall foliage and
stately brick buildings, across the dining room table. Kirkland Academy, a
coeducational college preparatory school for boarding and day students since
1797, it says across the top. Eduardo rests his fingertips against the heavy
paper and looks up.
It’s only been five years, but Miami is home to him now. São Paulo has faded
into a sweet, sunsoaked memory. His team, his friends at school—everything he
didn’t think he’d have when they first came here—they are all in Miami. He’d
been to Boston once when his father went on business, but otherwise the
landscape on the front of the brochure might as well be a foreign country.
Eduardo’s mom is silent, but she reaches over to fold back the pages of the
brochure, to the page with Athletics emblazoned across the top. Eduardo glances
down at the picture of a tall, blond football player carrying a ball across the
goal line. He reads, “Kirkland Academy has one of the finest independent school
athletic programs in the nation.”
In that moment, it’s completely clear to him—he know that he has a decision to
make, probably the most important one he’s ever made. He could fight this; he
could refuse to go and make them drag him kicking and screaming. Or he could
take this opportunity, and trust his ability to make this work for him somehow,
the same way he had five years ago.
“It sounds great, Pai,” he says, forcing some enthusiasm into his voice. His
mom smiles, and his dad nods emphatically. It’s done.
Eduardo looks back down and flips back to the front page, taking in the bucolic
campus, trying to picture himself among the ivy-covered brick.
*****
Eduardo is used to the heat — he’s never lived anywhere with real seasons, but
something (maybe the teasing he’d gotten from his football buddies in Miami
about going to boarding school up north) had made him believe that New England
is cold all the time.
He couldn’t have been more wrong on that front.
Football tryouts start on a brutally hot and humid day in late August—not quite
Florida hot and humid, but Massachusetts is giving it its best shot. Eduardo’s
already sweating through his practice jersey and he hasn’t even started running
yet.
“Excuse me, Coach Sorkin?” Eduardo says tentatively, approaching the only
person out on the field not in uniform, but rather in a short-sleeved polo
shirt in Kirkland purple, and khaki shorts.
At first, Coach Sorkin didn’t say anything, just looked Eduardo up and down. He
tries not to squirm under the glare. “Yes, that’s me. And you are?”
Eduardo clears his throat and sticks out his hand. “Eduardo Saverin, sir.
Freshman, from Miami.”
“Hmm,” Coach Sorkin says, taking Eduardo’s hand and shaking it firmly. “So tell
me, Mr. Saverin, what position do you play?”
“I’ve played mostly cornerback and wide receiver, sir.”
Another pause, then, “Yes, that seems like the obvious choice. Well, join the
rest of the guys out on the field, Saverin.” Then, out of nowhere, Coach Sorkin
smiles.
Eduardo wouldn’t have said it was an evil smile, but an hour and a half later,
sore in every place imaginable and dripping sweat, he feels like he may have
been wrong. Still, it feels great — his club season back at home had wrapped up
in the early spring, and he hadn’t realized how much he’s missed being out on
the field, the physicality of those pre-season workouts before the real mental
work began.
“Coming back tomorrow, then?” Coach Sorkin says as Eduardo jogs past, and
Eduardo smiles at him as he wipes the sweat off his brow.
“Definitely, Coach.”
Over the course of the next week, he gets to know some of the other guys.
Cameron Winklevoss, senior and three-year starter at quarterback, has a hell of
an arm (so does his brother Tyler, for that matter) and seems to zero in on
Eduardo on most of the time they’re on the field together. He can’t help the
warmth that spreads through him when Cameron finds him on the sidelines after a
50-yard pass into the end zone and claps him on the back. “Nice work, Saverin,”
he says, and Eduardo is feeling better about this move already.
By the end of the week, he doesn’t feel like the absence of his Miami
friends—his team—aches as much as it once did. These guys are really solid; he
eats with them in the dining hall and lives doors away from them in the dorms
and Eduardo thinks that maybe, just maybe, this might work out for him after
all.
He’s sure of it when tryouts are over at the end of the week, and he’s made the
varsity team.
*****
School starts about a week after tryouts are over, and Eduardo gets swept up
into the frenetic schedule of boarding school life. His roommate, Chris Hughes,
is from North Carolina, crazy smart and quick to smile, and after hearing some
of the horror stories from the guys on the football team (one of the sophomores
has a roommate who leaves plates of food around for weeks on end, another has a
roommate who sleepwalks), he’s pretty sure he won the lottery on that one.
His classes are hard—he never had to put much effort in before, but he relishes
it. He’s never been one of those football guys who thinks that academics are a
waste of time, or what you need to do to get to the next step in the sport.
He’s never been around kids like the students at Kirkland, who all seem to want
to learn and are excited about it. So, he works his ass off in class, and works
his ass off on the field. He calls home every few days and tells his mother all
about football and everything else, and then gives his father assurances when
he reminds him of “what’s important, Eduardo, don’t you forget about it.”
The Kirkland team has been near the top of the Eastern Independent School
Conference for the last few years, and this year is no exception. They go 5-
3 through the end of October, and Eduardo slowly becomes the team’s leading
receiver. He feels a connection with Cameron when they go out on the field,
like everything narrows down to them and the space between them, and he racks
up 950 yards receiving during those first eight games.
The Homecoming game is huge at Kirkland—their modest stadium filled with
students and alumni in bright purple. They’re playing Dworkin School, and
Kirkland goes up 10-0 in the first quarter.
Then, the unthinkable happens. First, Cameron is sacked with 13:54 left in the
second quarter, and he doesn’t get up. And doesn’t get up. Finally, the
trainers help him up, Cameron limping and wincing in pain, and off the field,
and Tyler stops throwing on the sidelines and gets into the game.
And proceeds to throw four interceptions in the next ten minutes.
“Goddamnit, Winklevoss!” Coach Sorkin screams as Tyler comes off the field,
head hanging. It’s clear to everyone with eyes that Tyler knows that things are
going to shit. Eduardo has been open each time, running a route and cutting at
the last minute to avoid the safety, but for some reason Tyler threw to the one
receiver with tight coverage every time. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“I don’t know, Coach, I’m sorry —” Tyler dropped down onto the bench, grabbing
a water bottle.
Coach Sorkin doesn’t back down, and crouches down in front of Tyler. “Saverin
was wide open on all of those plays! Have you lost your mind?”
Tyler finally looks up, and Eduardo groans. He can tell that his teammates are
seeing the same thing he’s seeing by the way everyone has gone as quiet as you
can go on the sidelines during a homecoming game. “I don’t have it, Coach. I
can’t see it.”
Coach Sorkin is quiet, calm and still, and no one says anything at all. They
watch as the clock ticks down on the first half, the defense busting their
asses to keep them in it. Then, Coach nods, stands up and claps Tyler on the
shoulder. “Okay.”
Eduardo can feel his own eyes widen as Coach Sorkin strides right up to him,
purposefully. “Um,” he says, because it’s like they’re in the Twilight
Zone—nothing is making any sense at all.
“How’s your arm, Saverin?” he says quietly, and Eduardo is confused. He’s not
really sure what he’s asking.
“It’s fine, Coach.”
Coach Sorkin rolls his eyes. “Your throwing arm. How’s your throw?”
Eduardo swallows hard. “I—I don’t know—I’ve never played quarterback.”
“Well, you can’t be worse than what we’ve got, and we all know that at least
you know what the hell is going on on the field.” Coach turns to Eduardo’s
gathered teammates. “Olsen! Get over here and take some throws from Eduardo. We
may need a miracle in the second half.”
Billy jogs over, a shocked look on his face, too, and tosses the ball to
Eduardo, who catches it firmly. His heart is pounding, threatening to
jackhammer its way right out of his chest. He almost hopes that he can’t throw
for shit, because he’s not sure he could go out on the field and not puke. They
walk over to an empty area next to the field, and Eduardo fits his fingers into
the seams of the ball, spaced evenly, feeling the stretch of his hand.
He takes a deep breath, looking at Billy and thinking about the trajectory of
the ball, how far away Billy is, the angle and the force. Then he lets it go.
The ball spirals cleanly through the air, and Billy doesn’t have to take a step
in any direction to catch it in his hands.
“Again?” Billy calls across the space between them, and Eduardo tries his best
not to look at the huge smile on Billy’s face, not to feel the curious,
anticipatory eyes from the sidelines of the field on them. He nods and Billy
tosses it back.
They do it five more times, Billy moving back and forth, until Eduardo makes a
perfect throw almost seventy yards. Then, he feels Coach Sorkin’s hand on his
shoulder. It’s halftime; the teams have already headed back to the locker
rooms, and the fans are flooding out to the concession stand.
“Eduardo,” Coach says. Eduardo didn’t even know that Coach Sorkin knew his
first name. “You ready?”
He takes a deep breath. He can’t ignore how the ball felt in his hand, the way
that everything looks and feels completely transformed with the laces between
his fingers. “Yeah, I’m ready, Coach.”
Eduardo goes in at halftime, calls plays and makes four drives into the end
zone, rushing one in himself. The final score is 28-10, and Eduardo has never
felt this way after a football game in his entire life. Everything around him
looks different, and his arm is tired, yes, but he can’t wait to do it again.
Coach Sorkin makes him the starting quarterback at the beginning of his
sophomore year, after the Winklevosses have graduated and gone off to Harvard.
Everything about football changes for him, in that moment. He starts to see
this as more than a hobby, but something that maybe, just maybe, he’s good at.
More than good, even. Gifted, he overhears Coach Sorkin say to one of the
assistant coaches about him. He knows his father wants him to follow in his
footsteps, become a businessman and do everything that’s expected of him, but
suddenly, this whole new world his open to him. The idea of playing college
football becomes not just a nice idea, a pipe dream, but a reality.
Sophomore year, Kirkland runs up a 9-2 record before getting booted in the
second round of the EISC playoffs. Eduardo passes for 3900 yards over those 11
games, and is named an All-Conference player. He has many conversations with
Coach Sorkin about how to navigate the recruiting process, about D2 and D3
programs that have strong academics and excellent reputations, and makes a plan
for attending a camp the summer after junior year to increase his chances of
being recruited. Then, he passes for more than 400 and rushes for more than a
100 each of five consecutive games his junior season. That gets him his first
D1 coach visiting him after a game. From Harvard.
There’s a part of him that doesn’t really believe that he can make this
happen—that he can do what his father expects and have football too, but now
the Ivy League is recruiting him. Over the next few weeks, he has informal
meetings with Penn, Dartmouth, and Brown. Stanford even sends him a letter,
although Eduardo is pretty sure he can’t hang in the Pac-12.
It’s crazy, and maybe even a little stupid, but maybe, maybe he can have all of
it.
*****
He spends two weeks of July at a football camp at Yale, and it’s a welcome
respite from what had become an awful summer at home. He fights with his father
every single day, about how football is distracting him, about how it’s time to
get serious, to grow up. To stop playing games. He’s convinced that his dad
isn’t even going to let him go to the camp, and he comes up with a lie, to tell
his dad that he’s going to take a class, anything. But his father lets up just
before he’s scheduled to leave. Eduardo can’t get out of there fast enough.
It doesn’t seem to matter that his report card was flawless—every night in and
out of season spent up way past when he long since should have turned out his
desk light, Chris groaning at him to “go to bed already, Jesus, Eduardo”—and
he’s signed up for every AP class Kirkland will let him take for his senior
year. His advisor and Coach Sorkin had actually met with him before he left for
the summer, to discuss whether or not he really wanted to take on the six AP
load he’d registered for. He assured them that he absolutely did.
He loves school and he loves his courses at Kirkland, the rigor and the culture
of debate and discussion in the classroom. He wouldn’t be happy dropping down a
level or taking four academic courses like some of the other guys on the team,
just getting by. Eduardo doesn’t want to sail through—furthermore, he can’t.
Harvard has always been his dream—the only time what he wanted and what his
father wanted seemed to be the same thing. And he has to make sure he gets
there, even if football can’t take him.
Football is just the icing on the cake—really tasty, amazing icing, but icing
nonetheless.
He’s also decided that he’s going to enjoy this year—while his academic
schedule is brutal, he feels like he needs to get everything out of Kirkland
that he can, academically and socially, before he leaves.
He’s dated some over the past three years. It’s not all that hard to find
people who are interested, honestly. He had a girlfriend, a senior named Amy
from California, for most of sophomore year, who was smart as hell and now at
Stanford, but it had fizzled out before she graduated. Amy had wanted more
attention than Eduardo had left over to give.
Divya happens during the fall of junior year, which catches Eduardo somewhat by
surprise. Divya is the team’s senior feature running back, and Eduardo had
always liked him—the way he was quick to poke fun, to laugh, to anger. After
practice one day, Eduardo finds himself alone in the locker room with Divya,
who appears to be showered and dressed and ready to go, but still hangs back.
“Hey, Narendra, can I help you with something?” Eduardo says, laughing.
Divya’s loitering around the end of the long, wooden bench where Eduardo is
seated, his hands stuffed in his pockets. When he looks up at Eduardo, he’s not
smiling.
“Um, is everything okay?” Eduardo says, concerned, because this isn’t an
expression he’s ever seen on Divya’s face. He’s usually laughing at something
or someone, or yelling. This is altogether different.
Then, Divya’s pulling his hands out of his pockets and moving toward Eduardo,
moving his head side to side like he’s scanning the room. “Tell me if you don’t
want this, okay?” he says, voice lower than Eduardo’s ever heard it.
“Don’t want what?” Eduardo says, completely confused, but before he can get an
answer out, he gets Divya leaning over him, and Divya’s warm lips pressed to
his.
Oh. Oh.
It’s like something he didn’t even know was there lights up inside of him, a
light bulb, a flame that he isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to put out, because
he honestly had no idea at all. No idea that this was something he ever
wanted—something that could feel like this. It’s so completely different from
the way it felt to press Amy into the mattress of his dorm bed those few times
they could sneak some time alone.
So he does the only thing that makes sense, and uses the lapels of Divya’s
jacket to haul himself up off of the bench, pressing their bodies together. He
pushes his tongue against Divya’s lips, wanting more, now, and feels the heat
pool at the base of his spine at Divya’s groan and push back, the close heat of
his body.
When they finally separate, both out of breath, Divya smiles. “I guess that’s a
yes then, huh?”
Eduardo laughs, hauls Divya a little closer so that their lips are almost
touching. “Hell, yes.”
Neither of them is particularly interested in coming out to anyone else, so
they keep it quiet. Chris knows (after catching them together in Eduardo’s
bed—Eduardo had thought Chris would be out late with his boyfriend), but
Eduardo trusts him, and bears the brunt of Chris’ eye rolls and under-his-
breath comments about closeted jocks for the rest of the semester.
When Divya gets into Dartmouth, an unseasonably warm late March afternoon, they
meet under the bleachers, sharing lingering kisses and pressing each other into
the cold metal until Divya finally pushes him away, gently. “This has been a
great year,” he starts, and Eduardo isn’t stupid. He’s very far from stupid,
and he knows exactly where this is going.
“But?” he says, slinging his arm around Divya’s waist, tugging him in closer.
“I want things to be different in college, Eduardo. I want to be myself, and I
don’t think I can do that if I’m still hanging on to this. To Kirkland.”
Eduardo nods, because he’s not ashamed of himself. He has grown to both accept
himself, and to accept the way it needs to be if he’s going to ride this
football thing to the next level. And if he’s going to keep his father on his
side as long as he can. He can’t expect Divya to stay in the closet for him.
He cares about Divya. He likes him, but he’s not stupid enough to think that
they are some great romance. It’s been fun, and he’ll miss him.
“Hey, no worries, okay? I had a great time this year.”
Divya smiles. “Me too.”
*****
When he arrives on campus for pre-season his senior year, he’s dating Christy
Lee, president of the Student Government Association and captain of the varsity
women’s lacrosse team. The truth is, she sort of ambushed him at an off-campus
party in April, crowding him up against the wall and saying, “Eduardo. You and
me, what do you think?”
He’d had three beers in twenty minutes, and he wasn’t capable of thinking much
at all. So he’d just nodded, drunkenly mesmerized by the curve of her mouth,
and that had been that.
To be honest, he’s still technically with her because he hasn’t had the time to
break up with her, with two-a-days and college applications and talking to
coaches taking up nearly every minute. She called him forty times and texted
sixty three the week before Eduardo came back to school—so much that he had to
turn off his phone because his father was giving him dirty looks about how much
it was ringing.
He really needs to make time for it though. He’s pretty sure Christy might
actually be insane, if the phone calls and borderline stalking are any
indication.
He’s taking AP Calc BC, AP Econ, AP Spanish, AP Lit, AP Chem, and AP Comp Sci.
As each syllabus piles up in his bag, he’s starting to regret that decision
somewhat, but if there’s anything he knows about himself, it’s that he can work
through almost anything.
Two weeks into the semester, though, he gets back his first comp sci exam, and
the 24 on the top doesn’t even really register for a minute. There has to be
some mistake. Maybe it’s not out of 100?
After class, Eduardo hangs back, approaching Mr. Fincher’s desk tentatively.
“So, I’m assuming you’re here to drop my class, Mr. Saverin?” Mr. Fincher says,
hands clasped in front of him on the wooden desk.
“What? No! I don’t want to drop the class.” Eduardo tries not to be offended.
He knows that Fincher has no reason to know that Eduardo isn’t really the type
to give up, but it will take more than one 24. He knows that no one at Kirkland
expects Eduardo to work all that hard—they just assume that the star
quarterback will always take the easy way out, and there are plenty of faculty
who are willing to help him do that.
“Okay...then what can I help you with?”
“Well,” Eduardo says, scuffing the toes of his black dress shoes against the
floor, “I was hoping I might be able to get some extra help.”
Mr. Fincher looks at him skeptically, then sighs. “Help, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know Mark Zuckerberg?”
“Yes, he, uh, he lives in my dorm.”
“Well, Mr. Zuckerberg owes me a favor, so I’ll call it in for you. I’ll ask him
to meet you at study hall in Carlson tomorrow night.”
Eduardo nods. “Thank you so much, Mr. Fincher. I promise my next test will be
much better.”
Mr. Fincher rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Get out of my classroom, Mr.
Saverin.” Then, “And make sure you beat Cabot on Friday night.”
*****
Eduardo can remember the exact moment when he first laid eyes on Mark
Zuckerberg. Mark had transferred to Kirkland at the beginning of their junior
year, and Eduardo was sitting in Mr. Saunders’ AP U.S. History class when a
curly-headed guy in a navy blue hoodie, jeans, and flip flops shuffled into
classroom and sat down in the empty seat behind Eduardo.
“Hey, man,” Eduardo said, turning around and sticking out his hand, “you’re
new, right?”
“That’s quite the observation,” the guy said, tone flat, but cutting.
Eduardo laughed—he wasn’t sure what else to do. He pulled his hand back when he
realized that his gesture wasn’t going to be reciprocated. “Thanks, I do my
best. My name’s Eduardo.”
The guy didn’t say anything, but finally, he sighed and said, “Mark
Zuckerberg.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mark Zuckerberg. Welcome to Kirkland.”
And although they’ve taken virtually every class together from that point
forward, they’ve barely spoken more than those few words to each other. Mark
slouches his way through Kirkland, sitting in the backs of classrooms, chewing
on his hoodie strings and sometimes deigning the class with his (brilliant)
answers to questions, which are always delivered covered in a healthy layer of
sarcasm.
Eduardo, on the other hand, sits in the front of each class, taking notes,
raising his hand, and trying to soak in everything.
Mark is a computer genius—rumor is that what got him into Kirkland in the first
place as a junior. Rumor also has it that Mark got shipped off to boarding
school after nearly hacking into a Department of Defense mainframe and getting
the FBI on his doorstep. Mark started The Facebook, which most Kirkland
students use religiously—an online sort of whiteboard for your dorm room door.
It had expanded onto other prep school campuses too.
Eduardo is popular, which sometimes still surprises him, a football player, and
chair of the Kirkland investment club.
They live in completely different worlds, even on a small campus, and yet,
Eduardo has never really been able to stop himself from searching out where
Mark is when he walks into any room. He’s been intrigued by him—by the way he
held himself back from Eduardo like no one else ever did—since that first day.
Mark’s mocking comments to teachers and snide remarks to classmates make him
laugh.
And now, he’s waiting for Mark to meet him in the Carlson lounge, where they
both live, to try to figure out how to understand computer science, if that’s
even possible.
Mr. Fincher had told Eduardo to meet Mark at seven. It’s seven fifteen, and
Eduardo’s about to start working on his English homework when Mark drops into
the chair opposite Eduardo.
“You’re late,” Eduardo says, closing his copy of The Great Gatsby (he’s already
read this one before, so he doesn’t bother to mark the page).
“Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?”
“Not as far as I know. How about you?” Eduardo grins, and can’t help but be
satisfied by the pinched look on Mark’s face. Like he wasn’t expecting that
comeback at all.
“Are you ready or what?” Mark says sharply, tapping on the surface of the table
with a pen he pulled out of his pocket. He doesn’t even have any books with him
or anything; Eduardo’s not feeling particularly encouraged.
But then, Mark pulls Eduardo’s textbook between them and starts to talk a mile
a minute. Eduardo blinks and struggles to keep up, but when he finally adjusts
to Mark’s pace, he realizes that what Mark is saying actually makes sense.
“Wait, wait,” Eduardo sputters, pulling out his notebook and not missing Mark’s
over-exaggerated eye roll. “Just let me—”
“Am I going too fast for the star quarterback?” Mark asks.
Eduardo returns the eye roll, because he’s so tired of that stupid stereotype.
Anyone who knows anything about the game knows that you have to be smart to
play football, especially if you play the quarterback position. Eduardo
memorizes a huge play book every August before the season starts, and he’s
responsible for seeing everything on the field and calling the plays. Even the
guys on defense, or the offensive line, have to know exactly where to go and
what to do at all times. The idea that football players aren’t smart is just,
well—stupid. While some of the guys on the field aren’t much more than football
smart, Eduardo is. He’s at Kirkland because he rocked his SSATs, and he’s never
gotten anything lower than an A in his life.
Well, until now, that is.
“That’s a new one,” Eduardo grumbles, scribbling away on his paper, trying to
get down everything Mark’s saying.
Mark lets out a noise that almost sounds like a huff. “I’m not the one who
failed their first AP Comp Sci exam.”
Eduardo puts his pen down, and looks up at Mark’s blank face. “Listen, what
you’re saying makes sense—I haven’t understood a word that Fincher has said
yet, so if you could please just keep going, I would really appreciate it.”
Mark is still, long enough that Eduardo’s convinced that this is a terrible
idea, yet again, but then he breaks. “Okay, just try to keep up.”
The hour goes quickly, and they agree to meet again the following week. Mark
doesn’t actually seem that annoyed about it. Eduardo turns in the problem set
that Mark helps him with, and he gets a 96.
After a couple more sessions, even what Fincher says in class starts to come
together for him, and he feels like he’s well on his way to erasing the damage
that 24 has done.
About three weeks into their tutoring sessions, Mark asks Eduardo meet him
after dinner, in an empty classroom in the science building. Eduardo isn’t sure
why Mark wants to meet there but he goes anyway. When he arrives, Mark’s got
his laptop hooked up to the A/V system in the classroom, and an open window
with a blinking cursor open on the large screen at the front of the room.
“What’s this?” Eduardo says, approaching Mark at the front of the room.
The corner of Mark’s mouth is turned up and his teeth are pressed against his
lower lip, like he’s fighting a smile. Eduardo’s eyes are drawn to the curve of
his lips, then drift up to the cut of his cheekbones. His face feels hot, all
of a sudden.
Well, shit. He hadn’t really seen that one coming.
“It’s a test. Well, more a test of my teaching skills than of your programming
ability, but I want you to build a program, and I want to watch. I figured this
way I could at least be comfortable and not leaning over you while you do it.”
“I’m not sure, Mark—” He’s been getting As in the class, but that’s not
this—programming from scratch, in front of Mark.
“You know, for someone who’s such a football hotshot, you don’t have a lot of
confidence.” Mark folds his arms across his chest and stares Eduardo down.
It’s not how he means to react, but Eduardo’s laughing before he can stop
himself. “Okay, first, I have plenty of confidence. Second, think about how you
would feel if you had to play football in front of me, and third, did you just
say hotshot?”
“Shut up,” Mark says, “and get started, hotshot.”
Mark sits in the front row and sprawls his legs out underneath the desk,
telling Eduardo what he wants him to do. Eduardo puts his fingers on the keys,
closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, then starts.
He doesn’t know exactly how much time passes—everything reduces down to Mark’s
cool, calm voice giving him instructions, to the sound of Eduardo’s fingers on
the keyboard, the way he knows this despite his own reservations.
And when Mark is finally quiet and Eduardo finishes typing the last line, he
looks up. Mark isn’t even trying not to smile anymore. He’s actually grinning
at Eduardo, no longer lounging in the seat, but sitting straight up and leaning
forward, clasping his hands on the desk in front of him. Eduardo flexes his
fingers and looks down at his watch. They’ve been here for more than an hour.
Wow.
“Come on, don’t chicken out on me now,” Mark calls out to him.
“What?”
“Don’t you want to see what you just did? It was pretty great, if I do say so
myself.”
Eduardo moves his finger over the mouse pad and pauses over the button that
will turn the lines of code he just typed into something real and tangible,
splayed across the screen for Mark to see. “Come on, you saw the code, what
does it matter?”
Then, Mark’s pushing himself out of his chair and walking over to press himself
close to Eduardo (who feels a little lightheaded—he can’t tell if it’s from the
non-stop coding or the proximity). He knows exactly where the feeling is coming
from when Mark’s hand curls around his on the mouse. “Because,” Mark says, his
breath hot against Eduardo’s ear, and it takes everything he’s got not to
shiver, “coding isn’t about the code. It’s about creating something, it’s about
how you can turn what seems like nothing into something. You did this, and now
you should see what you made.”
Mark’s finger is pressing down on Eduardo’s, but in the end, Eduardo’s the one
who clicks it. He stands there, watching what he made—what they made—and soaks
in the heat of Mark’s body, pressed against him.
*****
While it seems that Mark has always been at Kirkland, they’ve been in different
orbits for the last year, but now, they’ve taken to seeking each other out.
It happens the first time when Mark takes the open seat next to Eduardo’s in AP
Lit, pulling out his textbooks and sighing. Eduardo knows that this is the
course Mark has the least use for, if his biting remarks to Ms. Delpy are any
indication.
“Hey,” Eduardo says softly, leaning over to tug on Mark’s sleeve. “You sure it
won’t hurt your rep to sit next to me?”
Mark glances over. “Sometimes, it’s amazing that you can function with all of
that stupidity.”
“Whatever, you know you love me.”
“Ugh, you wish.”
Eduardo would believe it’s just a fluke, but then it happens in Econ, and in
Spanish, until Eduardo’s spending most of his courses trying not to laugh out
loud as Mark keeps up a written commentary about the teachers and their
classmates, leaning across to scrawl, in his terrible handwriting, on the
margins of Eduardo’s meticulous notes.
So, he takes a chance one day at lunch (which has absolutely nothing to do with
how much he enjoys looking at Mark’s mouth lately) and plops his tray down next
to Mark in the dining hall.
“You know, I’m not technically required to be tutoring you all day.” Mark
stares at him, carefully taking a bite of his turkey sandwich before he sits it
back down on his plate.
“I’m just here to eat my lunch, Mark,” Eduardo says, grinning and picking up
his own turkey sandwich, because prickly Mark is never less than entertaining.
“Do you want me to move?”
Mark rolls his eyes. “No, I just wouldn’t want any of your football buddies to
see you sitting with me.”
“Mark,” Eduardo drops his own sandwich carelessly onto his plate, “I couldn’t
care less about what anyone thinks about me or who I choose to be friends with.
Have I ever given you the impression that I do?”
At that, Mark takes a moment, seems like he’s really thinking, instead of just
firing off the first thing that comes into his mind. “No, you haven’t.”
“So. Relax. I know that it would be shocking to anyone who has ever met you,
but I actually enjoy your company.”
Mark doesn’t seem to know what to say. Eduardo smiles down at the uneaten half
of his sandwich. This is the first time he’s ever caught Mark completely off-
guard and shut him up, and it feels good.
“Well, I—” Mark starts, then clears his throat. “You’re not so bad either, most
of the time.”
And Eduardo knows that the grin on his face is just ridiculous, but it’s
getting harder and harder to control himself around Mark, and harder and harder
to care about that control.
Mark smiles, just a little bit at the corner of his mouth, before turning his
attention back to his lunch.
The lunchtime thing becomes a pattern, and after a while, it becomes a
foursome—Dustin, Mark’s old roommate, and Chris join them most days. Eduardo
hadn’t really realized, so focused on football and coursework for the last
three years, that he’s never really had friends like this.
*****
Eduardo’s been able to start to figure himself out since he arrived at
Kirkland. Getting away from Miami and his father has given him the space he
needed to grow into the person he is, to start to figure out what makes him
happy and how he can balance that with the expectations of his family.
Sometimes, he tries to imagine what his life would have been like had he stayed
in Miami, and he finds that it’s hard to imagine at all. Kirkland wasn’t what
he wanted, but it ended up being exactly what he needed.
And ever since his relationship with Divya, Eduardo has been comfortable with
his sexuality. Sure, it’s not like he’s joined the GSA on campus or told really
anyone at all, but he’s not ashamed of it. In part, he wants to see this
football thing through, because the closer college gets, the more the idea that
football isn’t just a hobby, but that it could be his life, takes hold. He
knows that no NFL team has ever drafted an openly gay player before. He doesn’t
want to cut himself off from the dream before he even has a chance to realize
it, so he’ll wait if he has to.
It isn’t like he doesn’t find girls attractive, or that he doesn’t like
Christy, per se, but he knows that it’s not something he wants to take any
further than they’ve gone. They haven’t had sex (Eduardo lost his virginity to
Divya in a New Hampshire hotel room after an away game—it was a bit awkward and
amazing and all in all a positive experience), but they’ve fooled around when
they could find the opportunity. The problem is, Eduardo’s not sure he even
likes Christy that much. Sure, she’s smart as hell and beautiful and fierce,
all qualities that he finds attractive.
It may be the fact that Christy is crazy. Not just kooky, but full-on, probably
clinically insane. She’s clingy (hell, stalker might be a better term) and
overwhelming and she kind of scares him sometimes.
Eduardo needs to break up with her.
So, even though he knows it’s going to be ugly, and that he may be on the
receiving end of the crazy for a while longer, he calls her and asks to meet
her, on a Saturday afternoon after another win (this time, not even really a
contest—54-7). He hopes the adrenaline will help him push through the
conversation.
After all, he’s a pretty self-aware guy, and he knows that his attention is
already elsewhere.
*****
The Kirkland Pioneers are undefeated going into the last game of the season,
against rivals Eliot School. Eliot is the only other undefeated team in the
EISC, and Eduardo knows that it’s going to be their toughest game of the season
by far. Eliot always gives them a good game.
He also knows that the Harvard coach is planning to be there (as well as some
other coaches, but they hardly matter anymore, honestly) and he knows that he
has to perform. At the end of October, he submitted his test scores,
transcript, and extracurriculars to the coach for review, and he’s hoping that
his likely letter might come after this game.
Eduardo doesn’t get nervous before games—nerves are only for those who aren’t
prepared—but he finds himself a little bit more on edge than usually in the
days leading up to the game, poring over film of Eliot’s previous wins and
running play after play in practice until he’s so exhausted he wants to drop.
Except he can’t, because there’s still the pile of homework every time he gets
back to his room.
So much for the fun he was hoping to have during his senior year.
On Tuesday night, he meets with Mark, their tutoring sessions having evolved
(or devolved, one might say) into talking, sometimes out loud (but quietly, so
as to not incur the wrath of the faculty monitor), sometimes in frantically
scribbled (in Mark’s case) or carefully written (in Eduardo’s) notes across
Eduardo’s blank notebook pages.
Mark’s not a big talker, but Eduardo learns, over those few weeks, about Mark’s
family, about the real story behind why he transferred to Kirkland—the rumored
version was mostly accurate)—and his plans for The Facebook, for expansion.
Eduardo tells Mark about Brazil, his dad, about football, about his big dreams
of the NFL and how scared he is that it will happen. Pretty much the only thing
he doesn’t tell him about is Divya (or about how he can’t stop looking at the
way Mark chews on his pen in class, or the way his eyelashes shadow his
cheeks).
That Tuesday, Mark goes over Eduardo’s Comp Sci homework, finding a few
mistakes for Eduardo to fix. Eduardo’s palms are sweaty, and he’s not really
sure why. He knows that he’s been enjoying this time with Mark in more than a
purely friendly way for a while, but he’s managed to keep himself as cool as
possible. Still, what he’s about to ask feels like a big deal, somehow. He
doesn’t know why it’s so important to him that Mark be there, but he’s pretty
sure this might be the biggest game of his life.
“So,” Eduardo says softly, after the homework is done and stashed in Eduardo’s
bag. Mark doesn’t really look up, but Eduardo has learned to look for the signs
of Mark’s attention, which he almost always gives to Eduardo. “Are you planning
to come to the Eliot game on Friday?”
Then, he’s sure he has Mark’s attention, because Mark has drops his pen onto
the page he’s doodling on and is looking up at Eduardo, eyes wide. “You’re
kidding, right?”
“No, not the last time I checked.”
“Of course I’m not planning to go. Why would I do that?” Mark turns back around
to his paper, resuming his drawing.
Eduardo playfully cuffs Mark on the back of the head, and Mark lets out a quiet
squeak. “Because I asked you to, dumbass.”
“Well, thanks for the invite, but I’ll pass.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, dropping his voice even lower and leaning close, close
enough to feel how tense Mark is. “This is a huge game for me. It would mean a
lot to me if you would grace us with your presence.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything for long enough that Eduardo
is sure that he’s made a huge misstep, said something that tears apart this
fragile friendship they’ve been building. But then Mark turns back, and they’re
probably too close now, but Eduardo does not even care, especially when Mark
says, groaning, “Okay. I’ll go. I’ll hate it, but I’ll go.”
Eduardo claps Mark on the shoulder, letting his fingers, briefly, massage the
hard line of muscle there. He smiles and wishes he could take a picture of
Mark’s helpless smile back.
*****
12:31 left in the second quarter, and Eduardo already knows he’s not going to
be able to walk the next day. They’d watched film to prepare and been told all
about the Eliot defense, their ability to rush the passer, but their sheer size
is still a shock when Eduardo walks up to the line of scrimmage the first time.
It doesn’t get any better the third or fourth or fifth time. They come out
blitzing and pass rushing like mad, and Eduardo can barely stay on his
feet—sacked three times, he can’t remember the last time that happened—for the
first quarter. He’s hurried at the tail end of the quarter, then tackled as
soon as he throws an incomplete pass to Danny. He feels the pain (a twisted
ankle, maybe? The angle had been weird on the way down) shoot up his leg as he
limps off the field.
Eduardo spends the next two minutes screaming at the offensive line, which has
done virtually nothing to protect him for the last fifteen minutes, even though
he knows that the match-ups are just a disaster. He needs them to believe that
they can do it, or he’s not sure that his back up, a shy freshman named Aaron,
won’t be in the game by the end of the first half.
Luckily, the pep talk works, and from then on, the o-line does a much better
job of at least allowing Eduardo to stay on his feet, shake off the earlier
hits, even though he gets forced out of the pocket way too many times for his
liking. Nothing seems to be right—the wide receivers and tight ends aren’t
running the routes Eduardo calls for, and the defense is barely hanging on, the
Eliot offense racking up an insane amount of yardage.
The crowd, clothed almost exclusively in Kirkland purple, is almost eerily
quiet as the team makes its way off the field for half-time. It’s 14-3 Eliot,
and Eduardo has to hope that they can somehow pull off a miracle.
When he gets to the locker room, he pushes his hand through his sweat drenched
hair, getting it out of his face, planting his feet against the floor and
swallowing past the pain in his ankle. Coach Sorkin looks calm, but Eduardo has
had three and a half seasons to figure out what’s coming.
“Gentleman, let me be clear. Eliot is a good team—very good. But we are better,
and we should be embarrassed about the way that we played the first half of
this game. I will not settle for anything less than everyone’s best.” He
pauses, and there isn’t a sound in the locker room. “If that’s your best, then
we should just pack up and go home now.”
Silence.
“Is that your best?” Coach Sorkin shouts.
Eduardo takes a deep breath, pushing away the aches in his joints, the way his
head is throbbing. “No, sir!” he shouts in unison with his teammates.
“Are we going to go out and win this goddamn game?”
“Yes, sir!” they shout, and Eduardo smiles. He can feel the energy building in
the room.
Coach Sorkin smiles too, and yells, “Well, let’s get out there and do it,
ladies!”
Kirkland receives the kickoff for the second half, and Eduardo marches the team
down the field, feeling truly himself for the first time in the game. Feeling
the inherent trust you have to have in the guys in front of you, to keep you
safe, the faith in the guys behind you to be where you need them to be when the
time comes. He gets them all the way down to the 7 yard line, and when, after
the snap, he sees the wide open center of Eliot’s defensive line, he makes a
run for it and scores Kirkland’s first touchdown of the night himself. Eduardo
doesn’t do what he does for the admiration of others, but he does allow himself
a moment to let the sound of the home crowd wash over him as he makes his way
off the field, his teammates surrounding him.
The defense comes out next, and looks like they’ve been taking some of whatever
the Eliot defense was hopped up on at the beginning of the game. The Eliot
quarterback looks confused and hesitant, a deadly combination on the field. In
the end, it doesn’t even end up being that close. The score is 38-21, and
Kirkland goes 5-0 to start the season.
*****
A dodged sack late in the fourth had tweaked his ankle more than before, and
he’s wincing and walking slowly back to the locker room, dripping with sweat
and feeling the adrenaline course through his veins. He knows from experience
that he’ll make it through the next hour or two, high on the win, and then
spend most of Saturday with bags of ice strapped to some part of his body,
popping Advil.
It’s completely and totally worth it.
The Harvard coach is at the game—Eduardo hadn’t really thought about it while
they were on the field, but he’s grateful that they were able to come back the
way they did in the second half. Coach Sorkin had helped him arrange a meeting
for after Eduardo had a chance to get cleaned up, and Eduardo hopes—god, he
wants so much—that this will be the beginning of his college career, football
and otherwise.
Eduardo’s the last one to make it to the locker room door, walking slowly to
keep from doing any further damage to his ankle, and by the time he gets there,
much of the crowd has dispersed. In fact, the only person he sees when he gets
there is Mark, in his ubiquitous hoodie and jeans and flip-flops, slouched up
against the wall next to the door with his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
He can’t help himself—he’s overwhelmed with joy and cloudy from the pain, and
he wants this too much to pretend any more. He smiles at Mark, even though that
hurts too and watches as Mark smiles almost helplessly back at him.
“Hey,” he says, crowding perhaps a bit too far inside Mark’s personal space.
God, he smells good.
Mark looks down at where Eduardo is keeping the weight off his left ankle, then
back up to his face. “They beat the shit out of you out there.”
“Um, thanks?” It’s not like he can argue that particular point.
“I mean,” Mark stammers, and Eduardo tries not to laugh. “You just—I—you were
amazing out there. You are amazing, I mean.”
“Thanks,” he says softly, lowering his voice so only Mark can hear. “Thanks for
coming.”
“Thanks for making me come.” Mark’s almost whispering, and Eduardo can’t help
but move in even closer, looking around quickly to see that no one is watching,
and brush his hand through Mark’s hair, at his temple, letting his fingers
tangle in the soft strands.
Eduardo knows it’s a risk, but he’s had plenty of evidence to suggest that risk
comes with a big upside. He’s wanted this, if he’s honest, since that first
week of junior year when Mark walked into that classroom. And Mark proves him
right when he takes a handful of Eduardo’s purple jersey in his hand and tugs,
hard, pulling them both into the shadowed, dark space between the brick walls
of locker room and the concession stand.
They end up pressed tight against each other, Eduardo’s back against the
concrete wall, Mark hard and hot in front of him. He can feel Mark’s breath
against his mouth and it’s driving him crazy.
“Are you going to kiss me or what?” Eduardo says, challenging, loving the glint
in Mark’s eyes before Mark pulls him closer and presses their lips together.
Eduardo lets the wall take his weight as Mark licks against the seam of his
lips, until Eduardo lets him in. Mark’s tongue pressing into his mouth,
tangling with his own, makes his knees weak (or maybe that was from the hits he
took before?) and he winds his arms around Mark’s neck and holds on. The kiss
seems to go on forever, hot and heavy but slow, like everything is drenched in
honey and will never, ever end. It’s as good as Eduardo had hoped it would be,
the times where he’d allowed himself to think about it. Mark’s actually pretty
good at this—either through experience or a steep learning curve, but either
way, Eduardo’s not complaining, not when Mark’s teeth are closing around his
bottom lip.
He’s not sure how long they stay there, but soon enough his ankle is screaming
at him and he remembers that he’s got something that he’s supposed to do.
“Shit!” he exclaims, pulling reluctantly away from the kiss. Mark tries to
follow him with his mouth, and Eduardo hates to, he really, really does, but he
stops him with his hands on Mark’s shoulders. “I have to meet with the Harvard
coach in, I don’t know, fuck, what time is it?”
Mark looks dazed as he looks down at his watch. Eduardo can’t take his eyes
away from Mark’s red, bitten lips. “Um, 9:30?”
“Shit. Listen, I really, really would love to stay here, but I have to go. This
is kind of a big deal and I have to go, like, five minutes ago.”
Mark nods and steps back to give Eduardo some space. Eduardo is suddenly aware
of the inability of football pants to cover anything, and he has to close his
eyes and take a few deep breaths to calm himself down.
He opens his eyes, and when he looks at Mark, he sees something like doubt,
like worry, sweep across Mark’s face. He knows he has to leave, shower, get
dressed, and book it to Coach Sorkin’s office in record time, but he also knows
that he doesn’t want to fuck this up. So, Eduardo wraps Mark up into a hug,
Mark’s body tense and rigid against his.
“This is—this is amazing. I don’t want you to think this isn’t what I want.”
“I’m not a girl, Eduardo,” Mark shoots back, but the way his muscles relax into
Eduardo tells a different story.
“I’ll come to your room, after I’m done, okay? Is that okay?”
Mark doesn’t say anything, and Eduardo’s worried that he misstepped somehow,
damaged whatever this is, but then he feels Mark nod against his shoulder.
“Yeah.”
He squeezes Mark one last time before planting a kiss on the corner of his
mouth. “Now I really, really have to go.”
*****
An hour later, he’s crossing the quad, almost jogging (ankle be damned) from
the athletic complex to the dorms, holding an envelope in his hand containing
his likely letter to Harvard.
Holy shit.
He had showered and dressed in record time, and booked it to get there just as
Coach Black was walking through the front door with Coach Sorkin. His brain
felt a little jumbled, and the Advil he’d popped back in the locker room hadn’t
started to kick in.
They’d sat in Coach Sorkin’s office, him behind his desk, arms crossed over his
chest, while Coach Black told Eduardo that they would be happy to have his
athletic talent and academic ability on the Harvard campus in the fall.
He wants to call his parents, wants to tell his dad that somehow, he’s managed
to achieve the dream that they both had for him. He wants to tell his mom that
he thinks this might be it for him, this football thing.
But what he wants more than anything is to get back to Carlson, to find Mark.
Mark answers the door before Eduardo’s managed to even finish the first knock,
and all of the trepidation that had built up during his walk across campus,
brain no longer clouded, vanishes, because Mark was waiting for him. He is
waiting.
“Hey,” Mark says, not opening the door all the way, eyeing Eduardo almost
warily.
“Are you going to let me in?” Eduardo says, clutching the letter in his hand,
knowing that he can’t even begin to get the huge smile off his face.
Mark shrugs. “I don’t know, are you ever going to stop smiling like that? It’s
creeping me out.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says sternly, and watches as Mark unsuccessfully tries to hide
his eye roll by ducking his head. “I meant what I said before.”
“That you wanted to come to my room for sex?”
Eduardo swallows hard, because, well, that’s definitely something he hopes is
still on the table. But, “Don’t be deliberately obtuse. It’s not a good look on
you.”
Even though he can feel the weight of Mark’s glare, Mark opens the door and
lets Eduardo in.
“So...” Mark says, fidgeting, which isn’t something Eduardo’s seen him do
before. It’s kind of adorable, actually. Mark’s nervous.
The room is messy—a laptop open on the desk, another open on the end of Mark’s
bed, dirty (or clean, who knows) clothes strewn across the floor. Eduardo can
see about twelve empty cans of Red Bull from where he’s standing in the
doorway. It feels too hot, almost, even though it’s late October and the
weather has been unseasonably cold. He stuffs the letter from Harvard in the
back pocket of his jeans, suddenly and completely not thinking about football
or college or anything else but the fact that Mark is right there, nervous and
quiet, waiting. It only takes a few steps to cross the distance between them,
and that’s enough to bring everything from earlier in the night racing right
back.
“So,” Eduardo says, wrapping his arms around Mark’s neck, and backing him up
toward the bed. “Is this okay?”
Mark nods, swallowing, his breath coming harder and faster against Eduardo’s
cheek. He’s surprisingly pliant, allowing Eduardo to move him, press him
against the edge of the bed until his knees give out and he sits down, hard.
“Ow,” he grumbles unconvincingly, reaching out to close the laptop that’s still
balanced precariously on the end of the bed and setting it on the floor.
Eduardo sits down next to him, realizing that his own palms are sweaty. Shit,
he’s nervous too, and he doesn’t know why. It’s not like he’s inexperienced or
freaked out or anything.
Maybe it’s because he knows somehow that this is a big deal. Mark’s a big deal,
and he doesn’t want to fuck it up.
He turns to face Mark and grasps his hand. “Have you—I mean—do—have you ever
done this before?”
“Held someone’s hand?”
“I mean, have you ever had sex?”
Mark squirms a bit, like he’s trying to get away, but Eduardo holds onto his
hand even tighter, not letting him. “Um, I’ve fooled around before, but just—”
He looks up at Eduardo with wide, open eyes that make Eduardo feel a little
breathless. “Never with a guy before, and not much with girls, truthfully.”
“Okay.” Eduardo tries to keep his tone non-judgmental, neutral almost. He
doesn’t care at all if Mark has slept with every other guy at Kirkland (well,
okay, that’s a lie). He just wants this to be perfect, and he wants to know
what he’s working with.
“Well, are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
“Have you? Before?”
Oh. Right. “Yes. Only with one guy, fooled around with others, never all the
way with a girl.”
“Oh, okay,” Mark says, sounding a bit disappointed, like maybe he hoped that he
might be Eduardo’s first. It’s sweet, actually. Although he’s grateful that
someone here will know what they’re doing.
All of the energy, the hot tension in the room that had been there when Eduardo
walked in is starting to dissipate, and Eduardo’s dick is letting him know how
unhappy it will be if he finds some way to derail this whole thing. His heart
doesn’t seem too thrilled with it either, pounding loudly inside his chest.
“Listen, I’m glad we got that out of the way,” Eduardo leans into Mark’s space,
brushing his nose and lips against the soft skin behind Mark’s ear, breathing
him in, feeling him shudder, “but if you’re okay with it, can we move on?”
Mark doesn’t answer, but he figures the hand clasped at the nape of his neck,
directing Eduardo toward Mark’s mouth, is answer enough.
This kiss has none of the illicit fear of the one they shared by the locker
room, but somehow, there’s more urgency. Maybe because they both seem to be on
the same page, they both want to get to the next part. Eduardo brings one hand
up around Mark’s back, tugging him in closer, and presses the palm of his other
hand to Mark’s chest. They’re twisted around each other awkwardly, still
seated, but Eduardo doesn’t want to stop, not ever.
Mark’s the one who gives up first, and pulls away with something that sounds
enough like a growl to make Eduardo feel like he’s melting. “Maybe we can try
something a bit different?” he says breathlessly, his lips swollen.
“Yeah, okay,” Eduardo says, untangling and kicking off his shoes, before laying
down on Mark’s bed, which smells like him, like sheets gone a bit too long
between washing and red vines. He smiles at Mark and gestures to him,
beckoning.
The weight of Mark’s body on top of his own is fantastic, and Eduardo can’t
help but wrap his own legs around the backs of Mark’s thighs.
Mark looks turned on, intent, which is hot as hell. He also looks a little
nervous still, which Eduardo can understand, and he won’t say anything—he knows
that Mark doesn’t do things he doesn’t want to do.
“That feels good,” he says breathlessly, trying to reassure in a roundabout
sort of way. “You feel good.”
“Yeah?” Mark rasps, his voice different than Eduardo’s ever heard it before,
and it sends a shiver up his spine. He arches his hips, which in turn makes
Mark groan and bury his face in Eduardo’s neck. “I don’t really know what I’m
doing.”
Eduardo can’t imagine anything that Mark would want to do that he wouldn’t
happily go along with right now, to be honest. “Do whatever you want.”
Mark picks up his upper body and looks at him, and Eduardo doesn’t break eye
contact except for the brief second it takes for him to pull his shirt up over
his head and toss it among the other clothes on the floor.
“Jesus, seriously?” Mark whispers, his hand shooting out to run his fingertips
along the dip of Eduardo’s sternum, down the line of his stomach. “How is that
fair?”
Eduardo hums at the touch, feeling a bit embarrassed by the praise, but
preening a little too. “Anything else you’d like to see?” he says coyly, and
then Mark is there, clasping his hand over Eduardo’s mouth, over his surprised
laugh.
“Be quiet, I’m working here,” Mark says, and reaches between them to work open
Eduardo’s belt.
*****
It’s messy, uncoordinated, hot, and there’s a part of Eduardo who wants to
control it, to show Mark what he knows from the hours he spent with Divya, the
few other brief encounters with guys he’s had over the last year. Somehow,
though, he can’t make himself do anything, because it feels way too good to
stop at all.
Mark’s hands are planted on the bed next to Eduardo’s shoulders, bracing
himself, and Mark has his hand wrapped around both of them, their pants open,
not off—hell, Mark doesn’t even have his shirt off. It’s driving Eduardo crazy.
The rhythm isn’t quite right, and Mark can’t quite fit his hand around their
width, but the slide of his cock against Mark’s is maddening. In fact, it’s
almost better that it’s not perfect. That fact is keeping him grounded and
present, cataloging the harsh panting of Mark’s breath against Eduardo’s face,
the way he looks when he pushes forward into the clutch of his fist.
“Is this okay?” Mark grits out, thumb catching on the head of Eduardo’s cock
(he’s pretty sure it’s an accident, but Christ, who cares when the world goes
white behind his eyelids). His brain helpfully supplies pointers for how Mark
could adjust, change his grip, his angle, to make it smooth and perfect.
But all he says is, “Yes,” because, after all, this is blowing his mind.
Eduardo wraps his arms around Mark’s back and tugs, making Mark lose his
balance and bear his whole weight down on Eduardo. It feels so good, even
though Mark stops what he’s doing for a moment.
“Sorry,” he murmurs into Mark’s ear, smiling when he feels Mark slide against
him once again, groaning. Mark goes still, for just a moment, then lifts his
head to look into Eduardo’s eyes, smiling.
Mark runs his hands down Eduardo’s sides as his hips move, catching the rhythm
just right now, and there’s nothing Eduardo could say about it, even if he
wanted to. This is perfect. So perfect that he doesn’t even realize he’s so
close, doesn’t have a warning before he’s digging his nails into Mark’s back,
hard, and crying out, feeling it get wetter and hotter between them. Hearing
and feeling Mark’s cries as he picks up the pace and comes, too, messy and
slick and amazing.
They’re both shaking, hard. Eduardo can’t remember it ever being like this with
Divya—with them, it always felt great. Eduardo never left their encounters
anything less than completely satisfied. He hadn’t even realized that you could
feel something else until this exact moment. He wants to stay exactly where
they are forever, even though they’re both a disastrous mess, and Mark’s
starting to get heavy. He wants to stroke Mark’s back, like he’s doing now,
until they can both breathe again.
He has no real idea what that means, but he knows it’s different than anything
he’s experienced before.
It’s a long time (or at least it feels like it, Eduardo really has no idea)
before Mark levers himself up and rolls off, but he stays pressed up against
Eduardo’s side.
“Wow,” Mark says, and Eduardo smiles, wraps an arm around Mark’s shoulders and
tugs him in closer. They’ll have plenty of time to clean up later (thankfully,
Eduardo had the foresight to check in for the night before he came to Mark’s
room—if he stays the night he won’t have to worry about getting in trouble.
Coach would flip out.)
“Yeah,” Eduardo replies, “definitely.”
There’s a part of him that feels like they should talk now, since they’ve
decided to do this and haven’t really dealt with what that means exactly. He
doesn’t want to ruin this moment, though, so he keeps his mouth shut. There’ll
be time for that later.
*****
In the morning, Eduardo wakes first, even though Mark has his shade pulled down
so tightly that there’s no way to know what time it actually is. They’ve
shifted in the night—Mark’s now curled up behind him, one arm wrapped around
Eduardo’s waist, his hand pressed hot against Eduardo’s stomach and face open-
mouthed against the back of Eduardo’s neck.
He doesn’t want to—he just wants to stay exactly where he is for the
foreseeable future, actually—but he gently pries himself from Mark’s arms,
smiling at the annoyed grunt he gets as Mark settles back down to the bed,
curling his hands into the blankets.
Eduardo looks around for a few minutes until he finds a scrap of paper and a
pen on Mark’s chaotic desk, and scribbles, Have to make a call. I’ll come back
when I’m done. E. He puts the paper on the small space next to Mark on the
twin-sized bed and reaches over to push Mark’s hair off his forehead.
When he gets back to his room, he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and
dials the familiar number, feeling more nervous than a homecoming game, a
meeting with a Harvard coach, and a Comp Sci midterm combined.
His father picks up.
“Hello, Pai.”
“Hello, Eduardo,” his father says, voice even and giving nothing away. As
usual.
He takes a deep breath. “Pai, I called to tell you some big news. I’m going to
Harvard in the fall. I just found out yesterday—they were impressed with my
academic credentials and want me to play on the football team.”
There’s a pause, then, “I see. Well, I suppose that’s something that football
has done for you. Congratulations.”
It doesn’t feel like a congratulations should, sharper and harder, but he
forces himself to smile so that he doesn’t sound like he heard that. “Thank
you.” He’s ashamed by the fact that he can’t stop himself from saying, “I hope
you’re proud, Pai.”
The silence is deafening across the line. Eduardo isn’t sure if his father is
still there, until he hears a deep breath. “Let’s see how you do once you get
there, shall we?”
Eduardo curls his hand around the phone, harder than he intends to. He doesn’t
even really mean to say what comes out next, but he can’t help himself. “I’ve
always done everything that you asked,” he says slowly, measured, trying not to
get emotional and make his father lash out for that.
“I suppose you’re right, son, but that doesn’t mean I can’t expect more.”
Eduardo hadn’t wanted to go to boarding school when they were sitting around
that table, four years ago, but he knows now that leaving his house—and leaving
his father—had been the best decision he’d ever made. It isn’t that his father
doesn’t love him; he knows that even though his father does everything to make
Eduardo doubt it. It’s that his father thinks that withholding praise and love
and affirmation will make Eduardo stronger, tougher, will make him work harder.
He believes that’s the best way, and Eduardo can’t say that it hasn’t made him
push himself all of these years, even when he didn’t have to or want to.
He knows now, though, that he has to be who he is, to do what is expected up to
a point and what he loves after that, and coming to Kirkland has helped to
loosen his father’s hold on Eduardo’s life, on Eduardo.
“Okay, Pai,” he says, because he’s learned that his father is also who he is,
the same way that Eduardo has learned to be, and they have to try to learn to
live with that. “Can I speak to Mãe, please?”
“Yes, she’s right here,” his father says, his voice a bit softer, less guarded.
“Goodbye, Eduardo.”
As usual, his mother is overjoyed with Eduardo’s news, telling him how proud
she is and how exciting that he’ll be playing college football, and it’s enough
for Eduardo to say something out loud that he hasn’t said to anyone except
Mark, afraid of what it might mean to put it to words outside of their Thursday
sessions. “Mãe, players from Harvard sometimes play in the NFL. The Buffalo
Bills quarterback went to Harvard.”
“Oh, querido, that’s incredible. You just work hard and I’m sure that if you
want that, you can have it.”
It isn’t until she says that that he really believes it’s true. But now that
it’s there, between them, it’s heady and exciting and maybe, just maybe, real.
*****
Mark’s still curled up, half of his face mashed into his pillow and his palms
spread against the sheets, barely moved from the spot Eduardo left him in. It’s
seven, and Eduardo needs to try to get an hour in at the gym before his first
class.
It’s not really surprising, though, that climbing back in bed with Mark beats
out lifting weights.
When Eduardo pushes himself back under the covers, Mark stirs and blinks open
one eye. “Hi,” he says, not moving, tentative almost.
“You didn’t even notice I left, did you?” Eduardo waves the note in front of
Mark.
“I was tired. Someone kept me up late last night, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” He smiles helplessly back at Mark, and he can catch the eye
roll in the one he can see. “So, I have to tell you something. It’s about my
meeting with the Harvard coach yesterday.”
“Okay.”
“I’m in. I’m going to Harvard in the fall.”
Mark pushes himself up quickly, suddenly more awake than he seemed just a
second before. “Really?”
Eduardo sits up too, facing Mark. “Yeah, really.” Mark looks down at the
wrinkled sheets between them, bottom lip captured between his teeth. It’s not
really the reaction he’s hoping for, to be honest.
“Is everything okay?”
Mark looks up. “Yeah, it’s just—I’m applying early action to Harvard. I just
sent in my application last week.”
He knows, objectively, that his reaction is stupid. That his heart trying to
break its way out of his chest, the way the room feels way too warm all of the
sudden, doesn’t make any sense. They’re high school students. Whatever they are
doing now should be left where it is.
The trouble is, he doesn’t want that to be the case at all.
“Really? Are you serious?”
“Do I ever say things I don’t mean, Eduardo?” Mark says, exasperated.
“Well, actually, you do, when you’re being an asshole, but that’s beside the
point. You want to go to Harvard?”
“It’s the best.” Mark shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest, still wearing
the worn t-shirt he’d had on the night before.
“So, we could be going to college together.”
“Ugh,” Mark groans, throwing himself down on the bed and smashing his face into
the pillow. “That is such a cliché, I can’t even stand it. Besides, it’s not
like we’re dating or anything.”
Wow, that one hurts, an almost physical ache, like a twisted ankle. He thought
they were on the same page, that what they’d been doing day after day had just
been dating without formally declaring it so. “Oh, okay. I mean, if you don’t
want to.”
Mark sits back up. “Don’t be silly. Who wouldn’t want to date you? Gorgeous,
smart, nice, football star. Terrible catch, obviously.” He glances down, and
when he looks back up, he looks Eduardo right in the eye. “I just assumed that
you didn’t mean it like that. I mean, last night was fun, don’t get me wrong,
but I just didn’t think you’d want that. With me, that is.”
Eduardo can’t help himself. He practically jumps on Mark, tackling him down
onto his back on the bed, straddling his hips. “You know, for someone so smart,
you’re really fucking stupid.”
A kiss cuts off whatever Mark is about to say in response. When they pull
apart, Eduardo braces himself on one hand, brings the other up to cup Mark’s
cheek. “I want this. I can’t—I understand if you want someone who can tell
everyone they’re with you, which I can’t, not right now, but I want to be with
you.” He smiles and ducks his head, because this is just embarrassing. “I think
I’ve wanted that since the first time you cut Mr. Saunders down to size in AP
U.S. History.”
Mark turns his face into Eduardo’s hand, and says, “I don’t care if anyone
knows. And I’m not stupid. I know better than to turn this down.”
Eduardo can’t understand it—how Mark could possibly think that he’s the lucky
one, not Eduardo—but he doesn’t have much time to think about it as Mark sticks
his hand under Eduardo’s shirt and slides his fingertips slowly up the line of
Eduardo’s spine.
*****
It’s entirely possible that something terrible is about to happen, because
everything in Eduardo’s life is going so well that it can’t possibly last.
Kirkland makes it all the way to the league championships, Eduardo has a solid
A in Comp Sci, and things with Mark...well, that may be the very best thing of
all.
If Eduardo’s being honest, which he tries to be as much as possible, at least
with himself, he’s been attracted to Mark since the very beginning, since he
tried to talk to him that first day. He’s cranky, rude, biting, and the
smartest person Eduardo knows. He’s also, at times, unexpectedly sweet,
sneaking kisses outside of Eduardo’s door at night when no one is around,
bringing Eduardo crazy hard math problems during study hall, and showing up at
each of Eduardo’s home playoff games, a navy blue speck in a sea of Kirkland
purple.
It may be hard to see if you’re not looking, but Eduardo is looking. And he
knows that Mark cares about him, fiercely, through every little thing that he
does.
He also hasn’t put any pressure on Eduardo to tell anyone about them. The only
other person on campus who knows that Eduardo likes guys is Chris, who’s his
neighbor this year and gives Eduardo a look every morning when Mark stays over
that lets Eduardo know that they’re not nearly as slick as they think they are.
He gets the same look from Dustin, when he creeps out of Mark’s room in the
mornings.
For the first time, though, Eduardo wishes it could be different. The way he
feels about Mark makes him want to stop in the middle of the quad during the
busiest passing time and shout that Mark Zuckerberg is his boyfriend. It’s a
stupid thing to think, but it sounds amazing. To be able to really and truly
have everything he wants. None of the other guys, not even Divya, have ever
been worth it.
He’s one hundred percent sure that Mark is worth it. If he doubts it, all it
takes is seeing Mark’s face, the surprise and nearly hidden affection every
time he sees Eduardo. It makes it hard to remember why he wouldn’t want
everyone to know.
*****
It’s a bone-chillingly cold, rainy New England day when the Kirkland team
huddles outside of the athletic center at four a.m. before boarding the bus for
the seven hour drive to St. Vincent St. Maria Academy in Virginia. No matter
what the outcome, this game will be the last one of their season. The last high
school football game of Eduardo’s career. There was a time when Eduardo was
certain that this would be the end of his football career completely, but
thanks to the likely letter still sitting on his desk back at his room, his
career’s getting a much-welcomed extension.
The weather is altogether different when they arrive at the SVSMA campus—it’s
still the height of fall this far south, and the leaves that had long since
fallen in Massachusetts are still bright red and gold on the trees.
This is the championship game for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic prep school
league, and Kirkland has never in its two hundred year history made it to the
game. Eduardo knows—the whole team knows—that SVSMA has been one of the best
teams in the country for the past twenty years.
It’s clear as soon as they step on the field, the wind blowing and bringing the
temperature down to more of what they’ve been used to back at school, that they
are outmatched. The SVSMA defense is fifty percent bigger than the Kirkland
offensive line, and Eduardo just tries his best to stay on his feet.
With 0:45 left in the fourth quarter, the score is 24-20 in favor of SVSMA, and
Eduardo can’t make much progress up the field on what he knows will be his last
drive of the game. They’re on their own 45, and he has a third down and 12.
David, the junior center, flicks a perfect snap, and Eduardo drops back in the
pocket. The linemen are doing well, giving Eduardo the time he needs to look
downfield, to evaluate all of his options.
Finally, he spots Charles, a sophomore and new addition from the JV team, all
the way in the end zone. There’s a cornerback rushing toward him, and Eduardo
has to make a split second decision.
He’s not Catholic, and his mother would be appalled to hear it, but he still
finds himself whispering under his breath, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord
is with thee...
He hurls the ball, high and arching, over the field. And waits.
The ball’s maybe a bit too high (he mentally runs through the adjustments he
could have made to have it be perfect), but Charles is doing a great job of
adjusting and keeping his eyes on it. Time slows down and Eduardo keeps his own
eyes on trajectory of the ball—he knows when it’s about halfway down the field
that Charles is going to catch it.
The question is whether or not the defensive back will make it to the end zone
before the ball does.
The rest of the offensive unit is blocking like crazy, but the answer is yes.
Charles catches the ball cleanly, and as soon as the ball is in his hands, he’s
tackled, hard, to the ground, by the streaking cornerback.
The whole stadium goes quiet, still, until the ball rolls from Charles’ grip
onto the ground.
Eduardo’s heart sinks as he hears the riotous cheers from the crowd, as the St.
Vincent St. Maria team goes wild on the field. It was a Hail Mary, and a good
one, but in the end, it wasn’t enough to win.
The rest of the team walks off the field, heads down. The end to their perfect
season isn’t so perfect, but Eduardo’s somehow not as disappointed as he’d
expected to be with the outcome. It’s been an amazing season—an amazing year so
far in every way—and more than he ever could have expected.
In the locker room, Coach Sorkin gives them a speech about their season, about
how they shouldn’t judge the weeks that led up to the game by the outcome. It
sounds, in Coach’s own way, like he doesn’t really care, but Eduardo has come
to know him in the last few years, and knows that he means every word.
“I know that it’s not by any means traditional to give out a game ball in a
losing game, but the hell with tradition, right?” Everyone laughs. “I’d like to
give this to a player who just played his final game in Kirkland purple, and
one who has had a huge and long-lasting impact on this team and this program.
And I don’t know if you’ve all heard, but he’s also heading to Harvard in the
fall to play for the Crimson.” He stretches the ball out toward Eduardo.
He’s embarrassed—he’s never been comfortable being a star, and has never asked
for that kind of position. He’s come to the field every day in practice and
every Friday night to do his job and help his team win. Becoming a starting
quarterback had never been his dream. That had never been why he played
football. He played for love the game, and for the team.
He takes the ball that Coach Sorkin offers, and smiles at the room, sweat still
dripping down his face, his skin still buzzing with adrenaline. “Thanks, Coach.
I just wanted to say that it was a great season, and a real privilege to play
with each and every one of you. So, thanks, and if any of you end up playing in
the Ivy League, I’ll see you on the field.”
There’s applause after that, and Eduardo knows it’s silly, sentimental even,
but he stashes the ball in his bag as they’re leaving, for safe keeping.
*****
The ride back from Virginia is quiet, none of the anticipation and bravado that
had marked the trip down, and Eduardo sleeps hard through most of it, the
trials of the season finally catching up to him. When he arrives back at his
room late, tired and weary, his bag slung over his shoulder, he finds Mark
asleep in his bed.
“Hey,” he whispers, dropping his bag next to the door and kicking off his
shoes. He feels exhausted and wants to shower, but he hasn’t seen Mark in three
days, and all he wants is to be there with him, underneath the sheets.
Mark grumbles as Eduardo tucks his cold toes under Mark’s thighs, but he
doesn’t move away. Eduardo takes that as a sign that it’s okay to wrap his arms
around Mark, to bury his face into Mark’s neck.
“Sorry about the game,” Mark says hoarsely, pressing a gentle kiss into
Eduardo’s neck.
“Thanks. I feel okay, actually. Happy.”
Mark pulls away and looks at Eduardo incredulously. “Only you can be happy and
positive about losing.”
Eduardo shrugs. “What can I say? I have other things to make me happy.”
“You’re a complete sap. I suppose it’s cute,” Mark says grudgingly, and Eduardo
can’t help but pull Mark close again, letting the heat of Mark’s sleep-warm
body relax him. “Are you just going to fall asleep?”
“Yes. Sex later.” Eduardo’s eyes are closing of their own accord.
“If you’re lucky,” Mark whispers, and Eduardo can feel it against his ear, all
the way down to his toes.
*****
It’s hard not to be popular when you’re the starting quarterback at a school
where athletics are king, but Eduardo has never really bought into his own
hype. He has a lot of friends in a bunch of different spheres of campus—guys on
the team, people he’s met in his classes, Chris, some students he’s lived on
the same hall as over the years, people from other clubs he’s a part of. He’s
never really been the best friend type, but rather one who seeks out company
when he needs or wants it. To be honest, Chris is the only person who knows his
most intimate secrets, and that’s partially because they’d lived together for
three years and it was impossible for Eduardo to keep things from him.
Eduardo also knows that Mark is in many ways the same. He comes off as socially
incompetent at times, but he’s been friends with Dustin since junior year, and
he almost always has other people, from the fencing team or math team or just
around the dorm, sitting with him at most meals when Eduardo joins them. It’s
something they understand about each other; they both want to be around other
people sometimes, but they also both have a hard time opening up.
With everyone but each other.
In the end, that’s what makes Eduardo’s decision, in a sort of roundabout way.
Taylor, one of the team’s offensive lineman and a day student, decides to host
a part at his house when his parents are out of town. This is strictly
forbidden by Kirkland; as upper class students, they’re allowed to sign
themselves off of campus and they’re allowed to go to the homes of day
students, but off-campus parties are off-limits. Still, if they all obey curfew
and don’t come back wasted, the school usually looks the other way.
At lunch on Saturday, Eduardo nudges Mark, where they’re sitting probably way
too close for plausible deniability. “Want to come with me to Taylor’s party
tonight?”
Mark swallows his mouthful of pasta. “What for?”
“Um, well, it’s a party, so...I’m guessing bad beer and substandard music?”
“Wow, that sounds awesome, Eduardo.”
Eduardo places his hand on Mark’s knee, under the table, and squeezes. What he
really wants to do is run his fingers up Mark’s inseam, but he’s pretty sure
that Mark would object on some level to hand jobs in the dining hall. And
besides, he’d rather get Mark spread out on the bed for that. “I’d like you to
come, if you would.”
He turns a look on Mark that he knows works almost every single time, and he
smiles once he hears Mark’s groan and his, “Fine, ugh, just stop with the face.
How is it that you can make me do things I hate when you look like that?”
Because you love me, Eduardo’s brain so helpfully provides. They haven’t said
that yet, not even when they’re naked and sweating and close in the dark, or
pressed next to each other on Mark’s bed watching a movie, or during the study
hours where they still keep up the pretense of tutoring. They haven’t said it,
but Eduardo knows that he feels it, and thinks that Mark does too, if the kind
of ridiculous way Mark is staring at him is any indication.
They both sign themselves off-campus around six, and arrive at Taylor’s house
when the party is already in full swing, kids spilled out onto the front yard.
Eduardo’s not the biggest fan of parties; he likes to have a few drinks, loosen
up, and talk to his friends, but that’s about it. This party is actually pretty
tame, even though it seems that everyone Eduardo knows is there. Mark has his
hands stuffed deep into his pockets, looking at the floor.
“You know, eye contact usually helps with that whole human interaction thing.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “You’re hilarious. I have been to a party, you know. I
went to public school.”
A few guys from the team have made their way over to them, clapping Eduardo on
the back. This is a celebration of sorts, of their season. “Hey, man,” Billy
says, gesturing over at Mark, “how’d you get Zuckerberg to show his face here?”
“Um, I asked him?”
Billy laughs. “I just didn’t really think it was his scene. In fact, what’s the
deal with you two? I see you with each other all the time now.”
“We’re friends,” Mark cuts in, arms crossed now and looking annoyed, even for
him.
Suddenly, it’s like the bottom drops out of Eduardo’s stomach. He looks at
Mark, who’s going along with what Eduardo has asked for, who is perfect in his
own way, and who is both Eduardo’s best friend, and not his friend at all. He
knows that he can just say that Mark’s his tutor, that they’re friends, but
it’s that thought that makes everything slot into place, makes the next move
easier than he thought it would be. He knows, objectively, that he can make a
smarter decision, at least wait to get to Harvard to throw open the door to his
personal life, to let anyone who wants to see in. He also knows that this year
has been incredible, but football has only been one part of it. The other part
has been all Mark.
So, in the end, it’s not that hard to make the decision, to reach out to wrap
his fingers around the fabric of Mark’s sweatshirt and tug him close. Mark’s
eyes are wide, wider than Eduardo’s ever seen.
“So,” Eduardo murmurs, quiet enough for only Mark to hear. Around them the room
has gone quiet, the only sound the music playing in the background, and
someone’s turned it down. “If you don’t want me to kiss you, you need to say so
right now.”
“What?” Mark says, eyes wide, “What do you mean, Eduardo, of course you can
kiss me, you idiot, but—” That’s all Eduardo needs reach forward, take Mark’s
face in his hands, and kiss him, in front of nearly every member of their
class. He makes it a good one too, doesn’t hold back, tangling his tongue with
Mark’s and holding Mark up when his knees seem to give out. When he finally
pulls away, he looks around to see shocked faces, Billy Olsen’s mouth hanging
open, and some smiles.
“So, Billy,” Eduardo says, still breathless, still holding on to Mark, “does
that answer your question?”
“I’d say so,” Billy somehow manages to say with his mouth still hanging open
like a fish.
Eduardo waits. He waits for the inevitable other shoe to drop, but instead, he
gets Charles, Taylor, and David coming up and standing next to him and Mark.
Eduardo knows his face is bright red, burning, he can feel it, but he’s not
sorry. It feels like every single victory on the field wrapped up into one.
Billy comes to join them too, after he recovers, and if anyone else has a
problem, they don’t say anything after that. In fact, someone turns the music
back up, and it’s like Eduardo and Mark’s little sideshow didn’t happen.
“You’re a lunatic, you know that, right?” Mark whispers in his ear, hands
wrapped around Eduardo’s waist.
“Yeah,” he replies, leaning down to press a soft kiss to Mark’s cheek.
“It’s a good thing that it’s hot,” Mark says, and then, “how long until we can
get out of here?”
It feels good to laugh, like it’s the first time in a long time he’s been able
to do it honestly and completely, and he holds out his hand to Mark. “We should
at least stay for a little while. What do you say?”
Mark shakes his head before he takes Eduardo’s hand, and they make their way
deeper into the crowd.
*****
That night is different, which makes sense after what went down at the party,
the fever-bright rush of the revelation. Over the last few weeks, they’ve spent
a lot of time together, most of it without clothes on. Mark has proved to be a
particularly fast learner, which is not at all surprising.
Still, there are things they haven’t done. Eduardo’s been hesitant to push,
even though he wants, god, so much, and Mark hasn’t said anything at all, even
though Eduardo talked him through a pretty spectacular blow job the week
before, and he hadn’t hesitated then. He doesn’t know why he’s so worried.
They both check in for the night, and at about 11:30, Eduardo creeps down the
hallway to Mark’s room, letting himself inside. Mark’s sitting at the desk,
typing furiously, and Eduardo is proud that he can now understand about a
quarter of what’s flying by on the screen.
“Mark?”
“Hmm?” Mark says absently, not looking up.
Eduardo knows that when Mark gets in the zone, doing some redesign for The
Facebook or his music player or some other project he’s working on, it’s hard
to pull him away. He’d be annoyed if he didn’t find Mark’s focus insanely
attractive.
Besides, he’s learned some methods that are a surefire way to get Mark away
from the computer. He pulls his shirt off first, tossing it just a couple of
feet from the side of Mark’s chair, then goes to work on his belt, making sure
that Mark can hear the way the buckle clangs against itself and the way the
leather sounds as it’s pulled out of the loop.
He doesn’t say anything, but he knows he’s won when he feels fingers curl into
the waistband of his boxer briefs, hot against the skin at Eduardo’s hip.
“Okay, okay, I’ll finish up.” Mark sounds exasperated, but he’s also up from
his chair and pushing Eduardo toward the bed.
He’s not exactly sure how it happens—it’s hard to follow everything with Mark’s
hand sliding up and down the length of Eduardo’s cock, Mark’s mouth sucking and
biting at the juncture of Eduardo’s shoulder and neck—but Mark has lost his
clothes too.
Eduardo wraps his legs around Mark’s back, and asks for what he’s wanted for
weeks, since well before the first time they were in this same position.
Mark looks up from where his hand is still teasing Eduardo, strokes not quite
enough to catch a rhythm or get him anywhere. “Are you sure?”
“God, yes, I’m sure, Mark. Just fuck me.” Eduardo turns, losing Mark’s hand
around him, but finding his pants that he’d carefully thrown toward the bed
during his earlier striptease. He presses the condom and packet of lube into
Mark’s hand. “I trust you.”
“See, that’s the scary part,” Mark says under his breath, but he comes through
as he always does, slicking up his fingertips and sliding one back behind
Eduardo’s balls, pressing slowly inside.
Eduardo doesn’t really need it to go this slowly, but it feels delicious, the
way Mark is being careful and thorough, and Eduardo’s always enjoyed this as
much as getting fucked, the way it feels to be opened slowly on someone’s
fingers, one by one. Mark has amazing hands, ones that Eduardo has seen flying
across a keyboard and wrapped around a foil (as well as around other things),
and Eduardo can’t help himself. He lets his legs fall open, wanting to tell
Mark, without words, that he can take anything he wants. “Not that this doesn’t
feel good,” Eduardo gasps, “but you can move on whenever you’re ready.”
Mark’s not coordinated, and he makes a mess of Eduardo’s stomach as he pulls
his fingers out. For a moment, he looks confused, unsure of his next move, and
it’s endearing to watch as he nods to himself, resolute, and tears open the
condom.
It’s been a while since Eduardo has done this—not since Divya, and they called
things off last May—and it feels huge, intense and scary. It’s an addicting
feeling, better than any post-game adrenaline rush, one he hasn’t really been
able to get out of his mind since the first time he did this. The feeling of
taking someone inside of you wasn’t one he’d given much thought to before, but
the first time, in that hotel room with Divya, he remembers feeling overcome by
it
This is the same in some ways, but completely different, because he never felt
about Divya the way he feels about Mark. With Mark, it feels like he’s been
cracked open completely, exposed. It’s hard to take, and Eduardo doesn’t ever
want it to stop.
Mark’s soft groans wind around Eduardo’s own as he thrusts, long and slow and
hard, enough so that Eduardo can feel every inch splitting him apart. He wraps
himself completely around Mark’s warm, slick body, his heels hooked around
Mark’s thighs and his arms around Mark’s neck.
It doesn’t happen right away, but after a few minutes that are lighting Eduardo
up anyway, Mark finds the right angle, the exact right spot, and Eduardo put
one of his fists against his mouth, because he’s not sure he can control the
sounds he’s making. He can’t think of anything worse than being interrupted at
that moment by a faculty member.
Mark’s whispering to him, encouraging, telling him things that Eduardo can’t
imagine Mark would say in the light of day, even though he never hesitates to
show Eduardo how he feels. Eduardo can’t help the way the words, the promises
that Mark makes that are maybe ones he can keep, are making his toes curl.
The friction of Mark’s stomach against his aching cock is enough to get him
close to the edge, especially with the way that Mark is sliding mercilessly
against his prostate. “Mark, just—” he whimpers, not too proud to beg, because
he needs to come as soon as humanely possible, yesterday if that can be
arranged.
“What?” Mark scratches out, voice gone sex-heavy and hoarse.
“I don’t know, I just—you’re making me crazy,” he pleads.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Mark replies, voice faltering halfway
through when Eduardo clenches around Mark inside of him, trying to move him
along.
Eduardo pulls Mark closer. “Come on, fuck me,” he says softly, locking eyes
with Mark’s, which are shockingly blue, even in the dim light coming in from
outside the dorm.
That gets a hard thrust which Eduardo can feel tingling along his arms where
they’re wrapped around Mark, and everything goes from slow and languid to fast
and purposeful in an instant.
Eduardo knows he’s probably too loud, can hear the noises coming from his mouth
but can’t stop them, his body stretched taut and tight like the string on a
violin. When he comes, it’s like a cymbal crash, loud and sharp and ringing in
his ears.
Mark’s still moving inside of him, and it’s almost too much, too sensitive as
Eduardo breathes heavily, shakes, and tries to come down, but he doesn’t want
it to stop, preferably ever. And when Mark comes, Eduardo holds onto him,
pressing their mouths together and swallowing Mark’s shallow, desperate cries.
Later, when they’re lying next to each other, Eduardo wearing Mark’s boxers
since they were the first thing he swiped off the floor, Eduardo hears “I love
you,” from above his head, where Mark is curled around him, so softly he almost
feels it more than he hears it.
Everything goes still in that moment. He wants to say it too—he’s been wanting
to for a few weeks now, knowing for sure that the way his insides seemed to
melt every time he got within ten feet of Mark must mean something like love.
He wants to say it and he wants Mark to really hear it, to believe that
Eduardo’s vision of his future is rapidly expanding by the minute, every minute
he spends with Mark.
So, he makes the decision, rolling over to straddle Mark’s hips. Mark looks
startled, like he hadn’t expected Eduardo to hear him at all, and that somehow
makes it even more important for him to say it now.
“I love you too,” he says clearly, eyes searching Mark’s face. Mark’s not
giving away much of anything, except a small smile that tells Eduardo
everything he needs to know.
Maybe, just maybe, this is the beginning of something that Eduardo hadn’t even
known he could have. He’d always been scared of this, somehow, protecting
himself from whatever impact it could have on his eventual goals. There’s a
part of him that knows that while football is something he loves, he won’t get
to have it forever. It may make him the world’s silliest, most hopeless
romantic, but he’s starting to think that maybe Mark is something he can try to
have for even longer.
*****
The Harvard campus shows off in October—even though Eduardo’s more than used to
the New England fall colors by now, it still doesn’t fail to impress him as he
makes his way across the quad.
Eduardo thought he knew what he was getting into, playing Division I football,
but it’s more than he ever could have expected it to be. He’s not even starting
yet, except on special teams sometimes (he’ll spend another year behind Cameron
Winklevoss, so he just practices hard and stays fit and waits), but the
practices are brutal, long, and the work outside of practice is so much more
challenging.
He loves it.
He loves the classes he’s taking, which are full of incredible minds and push
him to think in completely different ways. It’s demanding and he’s not sleeping
as much as he used to (which wasn’t much at all to begin with), but he doesn’t
really care.
In October, the team will travel to New Haven for the annual Harvard-Yale game.
Eduardo is still having a hard time believing it will actually happen, but his
parents are planning to be there for the game. His father had called a few
weeks before, telling Eduardo that he had business in New York that week and
they thought they might like to come. It still hasn’t sunken in yet. Mark’s
planning to be there, too, even though he’s complained about it, and Eduardo’s
still trying to figure out if this might be the right time to tell them.
Eduardo and Mark aren’t living together—they’re probably not ready and they
both know it isn’t the wisest choice—but they did ask to be in the same house,
and ended up three doors away from each other. Eduardo’s over there a lot, and
Mark’s roommate, Kevin, grins when he answers the door, making Eduardo smile
sheepishly, and calls back into the room that Mark’s boyfriend is here, making
Mark roll his eyes.
The guys on the team know about Eduardo, about Mark, and almost everyone has
been amazingly cool about it, inviting them both when the team gets together
off the field, no different that if Mark was Eduardo’s girlfriend. He gets a
few sidelong glances in the locker room, but he’s learning that what he gets in
return for that—Mark at home games, at the end of the day after a midterm, soft
and unguarded in sleep—is absolutely and completely worth it.
There’s at least one moment every day where he’s positive this is all going to
disappear, go up in smoke. Football, Harvard, and most importantly, Mark—it
seems like more than he can possibly deserve, way too good to be true. So he
holds onto it tightly, the way Mark’s face goes soft when Eduardo walks into
his dorm room and pulls him away from frantic Facebook coding (Mark has been
working with Dustin, who’s at MIT, to expand to colleges, and it’s moving fast,
so fast) to get dinner, the way Mark’s eyes go dark when they finally have a
room to themselves, and the way that Mark is always there on the sidelines,
during every game, wearing a red Harvard hoodie.
*****
 
New England Patriots select openly gay QB Eduardo Saverin in the third round of
NFL draft
April 29, 2016
Harvard Crimson
Jamie Calderon, Staff Writer
In the 2016 NFL draft, Harvard saw its highest draft pick in years. With the
73rd pick, the defending Super Bowl champions, and the winners of two of the
last four championships, selected Ivy League star QB Eduardo Saverin, who is
coming off a sensational season, leading Harvard to 10-0 to take the Ivy League
for the third year in a row. The Patriots are looking to groom a new
quarterback under Tom Brady, who won the league MVP last season for the fourth
time and doesn’t seem to be slowing up much at almost 39. Still, Saverin fits
very well into the team’s system and Coach Bill Belichick had nothing but
praise for him. “Eduardo is an impact player, and despite coming out of a
smaller program, we have every reason to believe that he can make his mark on
the field in Foxborough. He’s smart, tough, and a team player. He has great
potential.” Saverin, who will graduate in May, on track for summa cum laude
with highest honors in Economics, is originally from Brazil and Miami, and
became a quarterback for the first time partway through his freshman season at
Kirkland Academy in western Massachusetts.
He’s also, notably, the first openly gay college player selected in the NFL
draft. While there are now a small number of openly gay professional athletes,
the stigma still keeps athletes from coming out before they’re drafted. When
Belichick was asked about Saverin’s sexuality, he said, “It doesn’t matter.
Eduardo’s coming to the Patriots to play football. I will personally make sure
that he’s able to do that, every day.”
Saverin didn’t seem fazed by the question when asked. “I love football, and I’m
overjoyed about this opportunity to play for a great team, but ultimately, I
need to be who I am. If that meant the NFL didn’t want me, I would do something
else with my life. I’m happy to show others that they can be themselves and be
in this league, too.”
Saverin has been dating fellow Harvard College senior Mark Zuckerberg since
their senior year at Kirkland. Zuckerberg is creator and CEO of Facebook (which
he built back in his Kirkland dorm room and made into the 800 million member
social network it is today — Saverin provided some of the capital used to
expand beyond prep schools during their senior year there). When asked how Mark
felt about him being drafted by the Patriots, Saverin laughed. “Mark likes
football more than he’d ever admit, but ultimately, I think he just wants me to
be happy. I’m just glad that he agreed to keep the company in Boston — I know
he was hoping I’d be drafted by Oakland or San Francisco he could be in Silicon
Valley. He told me that it could have been much worse, like Indianapolis or
Jacksonville, so I think everything will be okay.”
The Crimson would like, on behalf of the Harvard community, to wish Eduardo the
best of luck with his NFL career.
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