Chapter Sixteen #2
“Oh. Oh, yeah, that’s fine.” The words left Sebastian quickly, and the edge of Marcos’ mouth twitched up before he nodded again.
“Alright. I’ll be there around seven.”
Marcos left after that, bag over his shoulder, footsteps even across the changing room floor. He didn’t look back. Sebastian watched him go and couldn’t stop the smile creeping onto his face once Marcos disappeared through the door.
The rest of the afternoon dragged.
Sebastian drove home with both hands on the wheel and his mind somewhere else entirely.
He tried music, then turned it off after two songs because his brain stopped listening after the first verse.
He tried thinking through the Friday-night game, but the tactics kept breaking apart under the thought of Marcos standing in his doorway in a few hours.
When he arrived at his apartment, he cleaned everything that was already clean.
The kitchen bench had nothing on it except a bowl he took from one side to the other before putting it back where it started.
The couch cushions were fine, but he rearranged them anyway, then messed one up slightly because he didn’t want the apartment to look like he had spent the whole afternoon preparing it.
He stood in the middle of the living room with no idea what he was doing.
He didn’t know what was going to happen tonight. He didn’t know exactly what Marcos would want to do.
He made sure he was ready for anything, regardless, then immediately felt stupid afterward.
By six o’clock, he was sitting on his couch in somewhat nice clothes: a blue button-up shirt, loose-fitting jeans, and white socks.
He had dressed like he was not trying too hard, which meant he had tried too hard for at least twenty minutes before landing on something that looked casual enough to lie for him.
An hour to go before Marcos was meant to arrive.
Sebastian drummed his fingers on his thighs, looking around his apartment.
The light spilling in from the window had started to fade as night crept in, softening the edges of the city beyond the glass.
His reflection sat faintly over the view whenever he looked too directly at it, dressed, waiting, and too obviously aware of himself.
He sighed and checked the time again, before his eyes went to the door, then he dragged them to the black of the television in front of him. With a small shrug aimed at no one, he loaded up his racing game and got into a few races.
That helped more than he expected.
By the third race, he had leaned forward, elbows on his knees, focus narrowing to corners, timing, and the engine noise through the speakers. His shoulders loosened. His hands remembered something other than waiting.
Then a knock came at the door.
Sebastian felt his heart jump.
He paused the game, placed the controller on the coffee table, and got to his feet.
The apartment seemed too quiet as he crossed from the living room toward the hall, fingers flexing at his side as he went.
It was stupid to feel nervous about opening his own door.
It was more stupid to stop there with his hand hovering over the handle as if the few inches of wood between them changed anything.
He inhaled deeply and opened it.
Marcos stood before him with his hair curling tightly, wearing a plain white T-shirt and dark grey dress pants.
The effort of the pants hit Sebastian first, because Marcos looked good in training gear, in jerseys, in whatever he dragged on after a shower, but this was different.
It was neater. His lips were drawn into a tight smile, which crinkled the sides of his eyes, and he gave Sebastian an awkward wave, his hand barely rising above his waist.
“Hi,” Sebastian said softly, before stepping to the side for Marcos to walk in.
Sebastian kept his gaze locked onto Marcos as he stepped over the threshold and squeezed by, slipping past him and into the hall. Marcos’ shoulder almost brushed his chest.
“Shoes off,” Marcos mumbled to himself as Sebastian turned to watch him.
“Do you not do that at your house?” Sebastian asked as Marcos lined his shoes up neatly against the wall.
“Not really,” Marcos admitted, stepping further into the apartment.
Sebastian followed loosely behind him, letting his eyes run over him again. The white shirt stretched over his back when he moved, pulling across his shoulders, and the dress pants sat close around his legs without looking uncomfortable. He didn’t lift his feet fully now that he was only in socks.
Marcos spun around, fingers running over each other. “So…”
“So…” Sebastian echoed, taking a step closer. “You smell nice.”
“Do I not normally?” Marcos asked, raising a brow.
“No. I mean, yes, you do. But it’s like a different kind of good.” Sebastian and shook his head. “You smell like cologne and not sweat.”
“So, you think I smell good when I sweat?” Marcos questioned, and Sebastian groaned.
“Just sit down.”
Marcos smiled, his hands relaxing from constantly working at each other, and he walked over to the couch and lowered himself onto it, his gaze landing on the television.
The smile helped, but it didn’t erase the tightness underneath. Sebastian could still see it in the careful way Marcos sat, not too far back, not too settled, like he had not quite given himself permission to be comfortable.
“Did you want a drink? Or something to eat?” Sebastian asked, walking to the kitchen.
“Just water,” Marcos called over the couch. “I saw this last time. You like racing games?”
Sebastian poured two glasses of water, looking back at Marcos, who had picked up the controller. “No, I just like the background music.”
“Do you have a favourite car?” Marcos asked, ignoring the sarcasm.
Sebastian placed the waters on the coffee table and sat next to him, allowing his leg to fall against Marcos’. “RX-7. Easily.”
“Eh, Mazda.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Sebastian knocked into Marcos.
“Integra is better,” Marcos said easily, and Sebastian snatched the controller out of his hand.
“Eh, Honda,” he mimicked, and Marcos laughed.
“I mean, we could race. See which is better.”
“You’re fucking on, Reyes.”
Sebastian jumped to his feet and grabbed his second controller, tossing it to Marcos, before taking his seat again and setting up the game.
It gave him something to do with his hands and something to look at that wasn’t Marcos’ mouth, which lasted until the loading screen came up and Marcos’ knee bumped his again.
The race started badly for Marcos. He clearly knew what he was doing, which was almost annoying enough to be attractive by itself, but he handled the first corner poorly.
Sebastian took the inside line cleanly and nudged ahead while Marcos muttered something under his breath in Spanish that Sebastian didn’t catch and probably wasn’t meant to.
Sebastian grinned at the screen.
Marcos shifted beside him and leaned his shoulder into Sebastian’s, causing Sebastian’s fingers to slip off the joysticks.
His car drifted wide. Sebastian corrected quickly, but Marcos had already slipped ahead, the nose of his car cutting across the track as if he’d planned it instead of using his body to cheat.
Sebastian knocked his knee into Marcos’ thigh.
Marcos laughed as Sebastian stretched across, trying to get in his line of sight.
By the second lap, neither of them was sitting properly.
Marcos had one leg tucked under him and one foot braced against the floor.
Sebastian was half-leaning into him, shoulder pressed against his arm, still trying to block his view with his own body without losing sight of the screen.
Marcos shoved back, not hard enough to hurt, but enough that Sebastian’s hip slid against the couch cushion and his car clipped the side barrier.
Sebastian cut himself off before he wasted breath on a complaint and dragged the car back into line while Marcos’ grin widened without him taking his eyes off the screen.
The final stretch became less about racing and more about whether either of them could sabotage the other without making their own car useless.
Sebastian got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble.
Marcos got Sebastian’s knee hooked over his thigh, pinning him awkwardly while Sebastian mashed the accelerator and cut around the last corner.
Sebastian crossed the line first.
“Easy,” he said as his body twisted on top of Marcos.
“Mad cheater,” Marcos muttered, wiggling himself free, but not completely.
They were still a little entangled. Sebastian’s shoulder was against Marcos’ chest and one of Marcos’ legs was trapped partly under his. The game music kept playing, bright and stupid through the television speakers, while Sebastian let himself stay.
Marcos looked at the screen, then down at the controller. “I didn’t know you liked gaming.”
“Yeah, well…” Sebastian lifted a shoulder. “We don’t really know each other.”
The words landed more heavily than he had meant them to.
Marcos hummed, lifting his hand and running it down Sebastian’s arm. “I guess. I’ve spent most of my life thinking you were a stuck-up prick.”
“Wow.” Sebastian pulled away, raising his eyebrow. “Is it because I’m better at football than you?”
“Okay—”
“And apparently racing games, too.”
“See,” Marcos said, shaking his head with a smile. “This is why I thought that.”
“Fair point.” Sebastian leaned his head on the back of the couch. “You’re pretty arrogant yourself.”
Marcos squinted one eye. “Are you saying I’m not smart?”
“You don’t know what arrogant means?” Sebastian tilted his head. “You’ve called me arrogant before.”
“I’ve just heard people say it. Tried to learn from context.”
“Yeah. To be fair, you did use it wrong.”
“You gonna bully me for technically being trilingual?”
“There’s a third language you know?”
Marcos nodded and moved his hands in a specific way in front of his face.
“Sign?” Sebastian asked, reaching his hands out and touching Marcos’. “For fun?”