Under the Same Stars(47)

“Did you have fun?” I asked Marco after he’d settled in the chair across from me.

Because I’d barely spent any time with him tonight. He’d cooked dinner with Da and then talked about everything under the sun with Dad during appetizers. He and Samira had even been whispering back and forth earlier.

“Yes.” Marco grinned. “A lot of fun.”

“Good,” I said, grinning back. “I think it’s safe to say that if you showed up out of the blue, no one would be particularly mad about it.”

“Well, your dad—Harry—and I did talk about me working here,” Marco replied. “Every now and again, I need a change of scenery to write.”

“Wait, write?” I asked.

“I’m working at Ember & Ash a few nights a week,” Marco said, “but one of my lit professors asked me to be his research assistant this summer. He writes historical fiction, in the same vein as Amor Towles.”

I gave him a blank look.

Marco gave me an incredulous one. “You don’t know who Amor Towles is?”

“I’ve never been a big reader,” I admitted, intrigued that he seemed to be. “Only when we’re at the beach.”

“Fair enough,” Marco said. “But A Gentleman in Moscow? You really haven’t heard—”

“Okay, yes.” I snapped my fingers. “It’s on Dad’s bookshelf. Someone gave it to him for Christmas one year.”

Katie, I realized. Freaking Katie.

“How is this fitting in with summer soccer training?” I asked.

“It’s not.” Marco shifted in his seat. “Soccer and I have parted ways.”

I gasped. “What? You quit?”

He nodded.

“Why?”

“Because playing a Division One sport is a huge time commitment,” Marco said, “and while I’ll always love soccer, Princeton has broadened my horizon. I’ve discovered some new interests and opportunities, and so I’ve decided to hang up my cleats to see what else is out there.” He paused. “I’m researching World War One this summer for my professor, but I’m also trying my hand at writing a book. Simon convinced me to take a fiction-writing course with him this past spring, and I loved it.”

I smiled and launched a throw pillow at him. “Who are you and what have you done with Marco ?lvarez?”

Marco easily caught the pillow and shrugged. “This is Marco ?lvarez, Mads. I feel like I’m finally him.”

I was quiet for a moment, thinking of Marco in his hoodies in high school—always carrying a soccer ball (or sometimes actually dribbling in the hallways), fist-bumping his teammates while carrying on conversations with a gaggle of girls, and being voted Homecoming King his senior year. He was, as in every story, The Man.

He looks so different, I noted. From his lightweight summer button-down shirt to his tortoiseshell glasses and fresh haircut to the fact that he was a reader and even writing a book! It struck me that Marco now seemed more present, calmer. We’d chatted after sports when we were in school together, but I doubted Marco really remembered those conversations. He never made it seem like he wanted to leave, but he still always ended up racing off somewhere, late for something. Things were different now. We were getting closer. I somehow knew in my bones that he’d truly heard every word we’d exchanged in the past several months.

We were really friends.

I shifted on the couch. “What is your book about?”

Marco smiled but shook his head. “Nobody knows.” He thought for moment. “Sometimes I’m not even sure I do yet.”

“Well,” I said, “as long as there’s a spirited and sweet field hockey player in it, I think you have a winner.”

Marco raised a single eyebrow. “Did you just refer to yourself as sweet?”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. “A lot of people tell me I’m sweet,” I said, then challenged him. “Are they wrong?”

“No, because opinions are subjective,” he answered. “I don’t find you sweet, though. You aren’t sweet to me.”

I felt pinpricks at the corners of my eyes. What was I then? Sour?

“You are kind,” he continued. “You are caring, you are respectful, you are polite.” He paused. “But you’re also sarcastic, clever, flirty—”

My pulse leapt. Flirty? I thought. Did he just say flirty?

“Intimidating, loud, and easy to rile up.”

I gave him a look. “Easy to rile up?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “You have certain buttons that are really fun to push.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. What was I supposed to say to that? Pushing buttons. He sounded like a fourth grader on the playground, so I responded in the same manner.

“Well, you’re annoying. Of course I get irked.”

Marco tipped back his head to laugh. I tried to scowl, but it was impossible. I might not have been sweet, but the sound of his laughter was. Stars twinkled up in the sky, the soft breeze swirled around us, and the crickets stopped chirping, as if wanting to listen. “How is your dating scheme going?” he asked a few beats later. “Are the bridesmaids still setting you up with guys?”

I snorted. “Setups have been suspended until I decide otherwise,” I said, and then told him about my ice-skating date with Chad and the blowup at Katie’s bridal shower.