Mark says nothing, as Eduardo says to the bartender, “One gin and tonic.” Mark types at his laptop. There’s a new code push this evening, and even though Mark is here and Berlin, he’s not going to miss it.

He types, backspaces, and types again.

The gin and tonic comes. Eduardo extends his arm to receive his glass. He sips, slowly, still sitting. Mark finds an error in his code and swears, fixes it. He messages Dustin about how it’s going on his end, writes a new function rapidly, goes to his internet browser and refreshes, pleased as it works.

Eduardo drinks out of his gin and tonic. He’s doing something on his phone, but only for a minute as he pockets it away. Mark lets his gaze flicker over, but Eduardo doesn’t falter – doesn’t glance at him once. Mark returns to his coding, as Eduardo finishes his drink, sets it down on the bar, and then leaves.

Mark’s assistant, Chris, and his mom would be disappointed that he spent this function coding. Mark’s in a nice suit and tie and sitting at the open bar with his computer on his lap. Eduardo Saverin had sat next to him for ten minutes, ordered a drink, and then left without saying a word to him.

To be fair, Mark didn’t say anything to Eduardo, either.

Chris’s wedding is exactly how Mark expected it to be – classy, in a ballroom, a light layer of floral decoration, tinted blue. Mark claps from his chair, where he’s sitting next to Chris’s grandmother and some-cousin removed. They’d all come up from North Carolina, and Chris’s grandmother hugs Mark and thanks him for roping her grandson into something big, big enough that Chris could have the power to marry the love of his life. Mark tells her it’s no problem.

Mark sits with Dustin, old classmates from Harvard, and some-other cousins removed. Dustin tries to flirt with one of Chris’s aunts, so he’s gone from the table; and then Chris’s uncle, who is also at Mark’s table, starts sneezing and says he thinks he’s coming down with something.

Mark doesn’t want to get sick, so he stands up and leaves.

Chris and his husband are dancing in the middle of the floor, Chris with his head tucked into his husband’s neck, smiling. Their hands are twined together, and Mark can only feel happy for them. He skirts around the dancefloor, trying to find someplace empty enough for him to awkwardly sit or stand. It feels like a high school dance all over again–or an AEPi party. There’s really no difference.

Most tables have people crowded around them, talking and drinking with each other. There is a table that’s a little more sparse, that only contains three people engaged in a discussion together. They’re old classmates from Harvard.

Mark makes his way to sit with them.

They don’t pay him any mind. Mark had brought his drink over, takes a sip and checks his phone. He doesn’t have any new messages.

He lifts his head up to look around the table, and says, “Eduardo.”

Eduardo turns from where he’d been talking with his old classmates. “Hello, Mark,” he says. “How are you?”

Mark hesitates for a moment–“Fine,” he says. “How about you?”

“I’m good,” Eduardo says. The other two classmates are watching them intently, but Eduardo’s face is carefully blank. “Happy for Chris and Sean, you know?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, glancing out to the middle of the ballroom again. Chris has his eyes closed against his husband’s chest. “They seem really happy.”

“Probably because they just got married,” Eduardo says with a tilt of his mouth.

Dustin appears out of nowhere, red-faced and hair tousled. “I thought you were flirting with Aunt Martha,” Mark says to him, to which Dustin shakes his head.

“Aunt Martha is–something came up,” he says. Then, as if he’s just noticed him, “Oh, hi Eduardo! It’s been a while, huh?”

“It has,” Eduardo says pleasantly. “I haven’t seen you since the last function–Google, right? You were wearing that blue suit.”

“I didn’t see–yeah,” Dustin says, bewildered. “I was there, I saw you, I–” He glances between Eduardo, and Mark, and then Eduardo again. He rushes to say, “What’s up, man?”

“Mark and I were just talking about how happy Chris and Sean look,” Eduardo says, nodding toward the dancefloor. “I want to be that happy someday–I was engaged once, but that didn’t quite work out–it was a friendly breakup, of course, but–”

“You were engaged?” Dustin yelps. His eyes are wide like he doesn’t know where to begin with Eduardo, from that he and Mark are sitting together, that he said Mark’s name, that neither of them are screaming at each other.

Mark doesn’t know how to feel, himself.

Eduardo chuckles. “It’s not something I could bother your lives with,” he says, but his tone is light. “Chris knew–”

“Chris knew?”

“We email sometimes,” Eduardo says, shrugging.

Mark says, “Do you want my email?”

Eduardo looks at him carefully.

“Sure,” he says, after a moment.

He passes Mark a napkin, asks one of Chris’s uncles for a pen. Mark scribbles his email down on the napkin, and Eduardo pockets it in the front of his suit jacket. Dustin is staring at the both of them like they each grew a third head.

Dustin says, “Wait, hold on. What. What the fuck is happening, Wardo?”

Eduardo smiles at him wanly. “What are you talking about? Mark just gave me his email.” His expression is crafted like Dustin’s the one who grew a third head. “I look forward to emailing him, by the way. It’s been awhile since we’ve spoken,” he says to Mark.

Mark says, “Yeah.”

They’re interrupted by one of Chris’s cousins, who wants to dance with Eduardo, shyly giggling and asking him to the dancefloor. Eduardo graciously says yes, and lets her guide him away by the hand. Mark and Dustin stare after them.

“What the fuck,” Dustin repeats.

Mark shrugs.

Mark does some research and discovers that Eduardo has helped funded some successful startups in Singapore. He hacks into Chris’s email and discovers that Eduardo has a pet cat, a nice penthouse suite, and calls his parents once a week.

His name isn’t in the news, but it’s on the Facebook masthead, as if that means anything anymore. Mark waits for Eduardo to email him.

From: Eduardo Saverin
Subject: (no subject)

Mark –

I forgot that you gave me your email address; I just found it in my jacket today while I was doing laundry. Sorry about that.

The airport is fucking freezing. Mark tugs his hoodie tighter and wonders if whoever’s in charge of the air conditioning is just making up for that it’s summer in California. He adjusts his backpack over his shoulders, making his way towards his gate. He never looks forward to going to Shanghai–it’s always more publicity to get China to welcome Facebook. Mark will talk, China will say no. It’s predictable at this point.

He walks to the gate, eager to take his laptop out and work. On his way to his own gate is Eduardo, sitting in the waiting area of a few gates down, working on his own laptop, on his phone, smiling and talking to whoever’s on the end.

Mark slows.

He sits next to Eduardo, and pulls his laptop out.

He works, listening to Eduardo speak. “Yeah,” Eduardo’s saying, tapping at his keyboard. “No, the numbers are higher than–I know, it’s ridiculous. No, it’s not that bad. I don’t think–no, Wanda, it’s fine. Yeah.” He laughs. “Stop. It’s okay.” He taps his phone to hang up.

Mark fishes, “Girlfriend?”

Eduardo sends him a sidelong smile. “Assistant,” he says. Nodding toward the gate counter, he says, “You’re going to Singapore too?”

Mark shakes his head. “Shanghai,” he says, looking pointedly a few gates down.

Eduardo hums thoughtfully and works at his laptop. “Okay,” he says.

Mark types a few things on his own computer, but his mind keeps wandering. He turns to Eduardo again. “Did you check your email?”

“I’ll do that right now,” Eduardo says, and Mark watches from the corner of his eye as Eduardo pulls up Outlook on his computer, clicks on Mark’s most recent email. Its subject is Re: Re: Re: (No Subject). Eduardo spends a few minutes typing something, and then clicks his computer’s mouse.

Mark’s mail app dings with a new notification.

Mark opens his email and snorts. Eduardo doesn’t respond, but Mark thinks that he can see a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth. Mark types out a reply, and Eduardo says, “You can respond to my email later, if we’re sitting right next to each other.”

“I could,” Mark says, but sends the email anyway.

They sit in silence. Between them, the only sound is their fingers clacking on their computer keyboards. The airport announcement goes, “Flight D56 to Singapore is boarding.” Eduardo closes his laptop and puts it in his briefcase.

Before Eduardo leaves, Mark says, “I’ll call you.”

Eduardo asks, “How are you going to do that if you don’t have my number?”

Mark shrugs. “I’ll email you mine,” he says. That way Eduardo will have the choice to call him. If he wants to call him.

Eduardo pauses. Then he pulls out a notepad from inside his jacket, and clicks a pen on with his thumb.

“Here’s my number,” he says, scribbling digits down on a piece of paper. “So you don’t have to wait for my email.”

“You could respond to my email right now,” Mark says, taking Eduardo’s number.

Eduardo quirks his lips. “This is easier, I think,” he says, and then turns to board his flight without saying goodbye.

Mark looks at the numbers on the paper that Eduardo had given him. He folds the paper delicately, and puts it in his hoodie pocket. He puts his laptop away and lugs himself to the Shanghai gate. He spends the next thirty minutes working on Facebook, eyes flickering over to his mail application every once in awhile, like a tic. Just in case.

Mark: Do you want me to apologize to you?
Eduardo: I stopped wanting anything from you years ago.
Mark: I don’t think that means you forgive me.
Eduardo: No. I don’t need to forgive you.
Mark: Oh.
Mark: For what it’s worth, I would like you to want something from me again.
Eduardo: We’ll see.

“Hey,” Mark says, three days later, at his hotel in Shanghai.

“Hey,” Eduardo says back.

The other end is quiet. Mark doesn’t know if Eduardo is waiting for something.

He says, “I’m coming to Singapore tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Eduardo says.

Mark books a hotel. His assistant is suspicious about him going to Singapore, but Mark is upfront with her–he’s there to meet with a friend, and it doesn’t go over her head that that friend is Eduardo.

Chris emails Mark asking him if he knows what he’s doing. Mark ignores it. Dustin messages Mark on World of Warcraft if he’s lost his mind, if he wants to walk into a death trap. Mark ignores him, too.

When he’s at Singapore, he hears nothing from Eduardo. Mark had been the last one to say something; he’d expected Eduardo to respond to him, or to instigate, asking Mark to come over. Mark looks at his phone, refreshes his email application, gets nothing new.

Mark taps his number on his contacts.

“Hey,” Mark says into his phone. “Can I come see you?”

“Sure,” Eduardo says. His tone is neutral. “I’ll meet you at the Marina Bay?”

That’s where Mark’s hotel is. Mark doesn’t know if Eduardo had guessed, or had found out somehow. “Yeah,” Mark says.

Eduardo meets him outside. He’s wearing black slacks and the sleeves of his dark-blue button up are rolled up to his elbows. “Hey,” Eduardo says, and Mark nods at him mutely.

They walk outside. It’s evening, and Eduardo leads him to the large garden, where some other people are walking–families, couples. Eduardo walks them to the supertree grove, which Mark had come to once before, his first time in Singapore and doing publicity here. It’s different in the dark, though, lit purple, sprouting up into the sky, disappearing into the darkness.

Eduardo sits them down at the base of one tree. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” he says, gazing upward.

Mark feels his heart stuck in his throat. The profile of Eduardo’s face is lit violet.

Mark thinks about apologizing.

Eduardo turns to him, like he can read Mark’s mind.

His hand is on Mark’s cheek, jaw, thumb stroking him softly. Mark’s eyes flutter closed, and he drinks in the sensation. The quiet. Their warm skin pressed together.

The gentle softness of Eduardo’s lips on his.

“Okay,” Mark says, when Eduardo pulls away.

Eduardo’s expression is hard to read in the dark, but Mark thinks it might be a good one. “Okay?” Eduardo says.

Mark nods. There is a pause–Eduardo, waiting for him to make the first move. There’s purple flickers in his eyes, and Mark’s breath catches.

“Yeah,” he says.

Eduardo’s smile is bright, real.

Mark dives in for more.

From: Mark Zuckerberg
Subject: Re: (no subject)

It’s okay. How are you?
MZ

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ideas sleeping furiously

by aroceu

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