Page 24

Nate

I am feral for Marcos. He looks exactly the same as he did the last time I saw him: brown eyes closed off and a little wary; heavy, dark brows and an angular face.

Lovely brown skin broken up by black hair.

He looks thinner, maybe, a little less bulky in the shoulders like he didn’t stay on top of his workouts over the summer.

I have the nearly unquenchable desire to hug him.

To squeeze the shit out of him, and tell him I missed him.

And I did. I really did. I missed him with the fervor reserved for a long-lost love coming back from war. I missed him way more than I should have, given we barely know one another and the sum total of our relationship can be filtered down to blowjobs and text messages.

But I’ve never been one to shy away from or question my feelings.

I want what I want. I want Marcos. It took a little work, but he’s here.

The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, and he’s here .

I couldn’t stop smiling even if I wanted to.

Squeezing his hand a little harder than is probably necessary, I tug him to a stop and set down our gear.

He reaches for the chairs, but I shake my head.

“I’ve got it.” Popping one open, I put the other right next to it before reaching for the actual fishing stuff. The gear is rented for a few hours, and the man at the sporting goods store told me the best time of day was mid-morning. “All right, so I’ve never done this before.”

“Me either,” Marcos agrees, squatting down and fiddling with one of the rods. The motion makes his boardshorts slide up his thighs, and I’m distracted by the dark hair glinting in the sunlight. Would it be weird to reach down and touch? Probably.

“Well, I’m sure we can figure it out.”

And we do. In hardly any time at all, we’ve got the lines in the water and the poles anchored in the sand.

Marcos settles in the chair next to mine, legs kicked out and toes buried in the sand.

I scoot my own chair closer to his and splay my legs wide enough that my knee bumps against his.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, watching the lines and listening to the waves.

The sun glints off the water, and I watch as a pelican dives for a fish.

“I love it here,” I tell Marcos. He tilts his head and meets my eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, home is great, but?—”

“No ocean,” he fills in.

“No ocean,” I agree. Knocking my knee against his, I rest my head against the back of the camp chair and smile at him. “And no Marcos.”

He shakes his head, and pushes his knee back against mine.

Marcos’ hands are resting in his lap, and I can’t think of a way to engineer one of them back into mine.

I’m honestly floored he let me hold his hand at all.

The Marcos from last semester certainly wouldn’t have.

Nor would he have gone on a date with me, I realize.

Maybe I need to capitalize on his good mood, and ask him to move in with me.

What if he’s never this agreeable again?

One of the lines jumps, and Marcos sits forward in his chair. After a few seconds of watching, the line remains taut and he relaxes back once more.

“Damn. Thought we had something for a second,” he says.

“Big fishing guy, huh?” I ask, and he shoots me a sly look.

“Yeah. Lucky guess, I suppose,” he muses. Reaching over, I use the pad of my thumb to brush some sand off of his cheek. He startles slightly, but doesn’t pull away. Another win.

“Please.” I scoff. “Did you really think I’d leave today up to chance? I interrogated Max about you.”

He laughs. A short, somewhat harsh sound that has a smile breaking out over my face in response. He looks at me, dark eyes crinkled at the corners with delight.

“I wasn’t expecting you to admit that,” he confesses. I shrug.

“Honestly, I figured Max would tell you. Asking him was cheating, I suppose, but I didn’t want to finally convince you to go out with me, only to blow it on a shitty date.”

“You wouldn’t have blown it,” he mutters, but once more gets distracted by the possibility of a fish on our line.

I’m not doing a good job of paying attention, too distracted by Marcos to have any real desire to catch a fish. If all we did was sit here and talk, I’d be happy. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to be sitting; leaving the poles anchored. Oh well.

“I think…” Marcos trails off, standing and walking over to me ss with one of the rods. Huffing, he comes back and drops into his seat. “Never mind. Thought we had something.”

We don’t. Nor do we end up catching anything the rest of the time, either.

It doesn’t matter, though. What matters is everything I manage to learn about him, and the way his voice is low and somewhat melodic, particularly when he drops a Spanish word or phrase into the conversation.

The way he discards his shirt once it starts sticking to him with sweat, and I see the strip of hair trailing down from his belly button.

How could anyone care about catching fish when Marcos has a happy trail and it’s staring them right in the face?

I take off my own shirt as well, and feel rather proud when Marcos’ eyes glue themselves to my torso. People are always telling me how handsome I am, and while it usually embarrasses me, today I’m shamelessly hoping Marcos notices and agrees with those people.

“How long do we have the equipment for?” he asks, idly drawing designs in the sand with the heel of one foot. I check my phone.

“Not much longer. I could only get a couple hours,” I admit. Renting fishing gear is apparently a lucrative business. It was far more expensive than I’d been expecting. I glance up at him, catching his eyes on my face. “Did you want to grab something to eat once we pack up?”

He clears his throat and looks away, staring at the ocean.

“Yeah. Sure,” he replies, not really sounding sure at all.

“Only if you want to,” I tell him, stomach sinking. Maybe he’s not having as much fun as I am.

“I want to,” he says quickly, standing up and reaching for one of the poles.

I get up to help him, trying not to read into the way he angles his body away from me so that we don’t accidentally brush against one another.

I remind myself that it’s probably not personal, and that last year he specifically told me he wasn’t big on contact.

Let him come to you , I reproach myself firmly, even though my fingers itch for him.

It doesn’t take us long to pack up the gear, and stow it in the bed of my truck. Marcos trails after me when I go to return it at the sporting goods store, and waits patiently for me next to a display of camouflage shirts.

“All done,” I tell him, waving my receipt in the air before tucking it into my wallet.

“Want to split that?” he asks, but I shake my head.

“Nope. I’m wooing you, which means I’m paying.”

He laughs—the same quick, startled sound as earlier. This time, when I hold my hand out to him, it takes him a couple seconds to slide his fingers through mine, as though he needed to think about it first. He sighs in relief, and squeezes my hand a little tighter.

“Wooing,” he repeats.

“That’s right,” I agree as we walk back out into the sunshine. “I missed out on the flowers, since Max didn’t know and I didn’t want to get the wrong thing.”

He snorts. “I don’t need flowers.”

“Of course not. But the point isn’t that you need them. The point is that it’s romantic as fuck. Wooing, remember?”

“Ah, yes, right. Sorry.” He sounds amused, and huffs another soft laugh when I open the door of the truck for him.

I crank the air-conditioning in the cab, cognizant of the morning we just spent out in the sun.

My skin feels tacky with salt, and we smell like the beach.

When I glance over at Marcos, I can see sand still clinging to the finer hairs on his arm.

It makes my head hurt a little bit—looking at him.

It’s strange to want someone so fucking much.

Strange and a little alarming. What the hell am I supposed to do if he decides he doesn’t want me back?

When I park the truck in front of the Mexican place Max recommended, Marcos’ mouth is twisted in a lopsided grin.

“Max didn’t help me on this one. This was all me,” I boast, and he laughs because he knows I’m lying.

The beach was fun, but the problem with that was how hard it was to keep Marcos in my direct line of sight.

We were seated next to each other, and there was the constant movement of the actual fishing.

Here—at a tiny plastic table, with him sitting directly across from me—I don’t have that problem.

I move my leg to the left and press it against his; when I reach for my water glass, my fingers brush his arm.

His dark eyes and handsome face are right in front of me—no craning my neck to find them.

Perfect.

Not to mention, I get the pleasure of sitting here and listening to Marcos conversing with the owner in rapid Spanish, voice musical and smooth as it wraps around the words.

I might not have any idea what he’s saying, but damn if I don’t like the way he says it.

When the owner leaves, he meets my eye a touch sheepishly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you out of that conversation.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Sorry? Christ. That was the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard. Please, leave me out of any and all conversations as long as I can listen to you speak Spanish.”

He shakes his head mutely, eyes holding an equal amount of humor and disbelief.

“Well, she was just telling me about her husband and what they’re going to make us to eat,” he says, filling me in. “I try not to do that around people, though.”

I shrug. “Seriously, it’s okay. It’s pretty embarrassing that I don’t speak Spanish, honestly. A lot of the guys that work the ranch speak it. Axel tried to teach me when I was younger, but.” Another shrug.

“Axel?” Marcos asks.