My uncle is deep in the horse trade.
Marcos
Did you make that sound illegal on purpose?
Nate
Horse cartel.
Marcos
A subset of the horse mafia.
Every message I send gets an immediate response. It’s heady, being the recipient of his undivided attention. Dangerous, too, as I already know it will be a difficult thing to lose once it’s gone.
9
Nate
I manageto convince Marcos to video chat with me two times over the remainder of the summer. We text almost daily, although the content is never anything crazier than things I’ve said to Micky. Everything between us points to friendship and nothing more, and I can’t pretend that I’m not a little disheartened by it.
And still confused as hell, I realize, as a dark-haired man crosses my path on my way to class and I nearly dislocate my neck to see if it’s Marcos. It’s not him, and I’m hit with such a profound wave of disappointment, I feel almost sick with it. Suddenly feeling twitchy with nerves, I step off the path and pull out my phone. We’ve been back at school for almost a month. I want to see him.
Nate
Hey are you in class right now?
Marcos
Heading that way, yeah.
Nate
Can we meet up?
Maybe after practice?
I can come to you or meet wherever.
He takes so fucking long to reply, I anticipate the answer before it even comes. I groan when he declines, saying he’s too busy today, but maybe another day. A group of girls walk by laughing, and I look up to see a couple familiar faces. I try to return the smiles, but I also don’t want anyone to stop and try and make small talk with me. I don’t want to talk to girls or other guys or anyone else. I want to talk to fucking Marcos.
“Hello, my friend.”
Turning around, I see Vas walking up the sidewalk toward me, one hand raised and a pleasant smile on his face. I try to give him a real smile back, but I’m just not feeling it.
“Hey, Vas.”
“Are you going this way? I shall walk with you.” He gestures toward one of the English buildings. I shake my head.
“No.”
“Ah. Well, that is fine as we shall see each other later at practice, yes?”
“Yeah,” I agree, wishing practice was right-the-fuck-now. I feel like I could run a half-marathon and still not be tired enough to go to sleep. Tucking my phone back in my pocket now that I know Marcos won’t see me today, I wipe my hands on my legs. “You heading to communications? My friend mentioned you guys had a class together.”
What my roommate actually mentioned was finding Vas annoying, but Atlas could make himself annoyed at the sky for being blue. He’ll get over it eventually, and fall in love with Vas just like the rest of us.
“Oh, are you meaning Atlas?” he asks, and waits for my nod before he continues. The smile dims only a little before he fixes it back into place. “I do not think he enjoys me very much.”
