Page 16 of Stand By Me

He chuckled and took his cup back. Andie had been his first friend here, and she introduced him to Carina later on. The three of them had been thick as thieves ever since, and weathered many dating disasters.

"When do I not listen to you? Sober-you, at least. Drunk-you is too wild for me."

Andie scrunched her nose. "She's too wild for me, too, trust me."

"She gives the best hugs, though."

"Hey, sober-me gives the best hugs, too!" Andie protested and pulled him up to prove her point.

Mario ended up laughing into her hair as she squeezed him hard.

His week was definitely improving now.

* * *

When Clay showed up the next morning a minute before nine, something was different about him. He seemed tired, the lines around his eyes more pronounced and his movements a little stiffer. He still looked good, of course, but then again, Mario didn't think he'd ever seen Clay look bad, now or in the past.

Martinez didn't come this time, but there were two other guys with Clay instead, both in jeans and T-shirts, with messenger bags slung over their shoulders and wired glasses on. They were the embodiments of geek stereotype, pretty much, but Mario didn't judge. Outside of work, he'd fit the description, too, if he didn't have perfect vision and thus no glasses to complete the look.

"Hey," Clay greeted him with a smile—dimmer than last week, but still there—before introducing his two companions as Eddie and Todd, communications specialists.

As it turned out, Clay's job today was similar to what Mario had done last week—walking Eddie and Todd through the areas previously covered and responding to their questions as needed. It resulted in Mario and Clay having plenty of time to talk.

"Going on four years now," Mario said when Clay asked how long he'd been at the Smithsonian. "I started off doing kid tours, but I moved to the PR office two years ago and really like it there. They let us create cool games and events for the kids. And I still get to talk to people about dinosaurs, which is fun, since practically everyonelovesdinosaurs. And the kids…" He shook his head. "They ask the greatest questions, I swear."

"You have to have the patience of a saint, though." Clay leaned against the railing as Eddie and Todd sat cross-legged a few feet away, laptops open, working on something between the two screens. "I bet most questions are one and the same, aren't they?"

"Well, yes, but that's why I try to feed them trivia, too. Kids love it. No matter how small or silly the detail is, it's like you gave them the greatest treasure they get to share with their parents or friends." Mario smiled. "I hardly ever got jerks. I guess they don't care about dinosaurs."

"Their loss."

Clay turned towards Mario, who held his breath, unable to help that quickening of a heartbeat or that shiver down his spine as the moment stretched between them. Desire, in recent years, wasn't so complicated, but seeing Clay again had sent Mario back in time—back to when every emotion was either shaky and uncertain or big and wild, but rarely anything in between.

What it would be like to reach out and touch, to run his fingers over Clay's face? Mario curled them into his palm to stop himself, but he couldn't help wishing…

"Okay, I think we're set here," Todd spoke up, his voice like a jarring sound of pressing the brakes too hard.

Mario's head swerved towards them hard enough to hurt and he saw Eddie glaring from his seat on the floor at Todd, who stood up and rolled his shoulders.

"Eddie?" Clay prompted, most likely noticing the man's expression, but Eddie got up, too.

"Yeah, we can move on."

With their moment broken—again—Mario suddenly had no idea what to say to Clay. On one hand, he could make a move now, offer his phone number, maybe even suggest coffee, or drinks, or—anything, really. On the other, if he'd read it all wrong and Clay wasn't interested, they would be forced to spend the rest of this tour in awkward silence, with Mario too embarrassed to mutter a word.

Besides, Clay could say something as well, couldn't he?

Thankfully, Todd had some questions about keycards, so Mario had to focus on actually doing his job here for a while, which slowly helped him relax. By the time Todd was satisfied and hurried after Eddie to a new spot, Mario was able to return to Clay's side and smile at him easily.

Inquiring about his time abroad outside of work seemed as safe topic as any, but when he learned that Clay had picked up both German and French, and half of his to-be-read pile were books in one of those languages, Mario couldn't help but gawk in awe.

"Wow. I don't think I'd be able to get through a book in Italian, and I've been hearing it my whole life."

"You probably would, if you tried," Clay told him. "We have it easy with so many people speaking English abroad, and we end up not even trying, but it's not that hard, if you put your mind to it. Though, to be fair," he added, "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't make an effort either, if I had stayed in the States."

"You made enough of an effort to learn not one, but two languages," Mario pointed out.

"It's less impressive when you're there." Clay shrugged. "Besides, I had a lot of time on my hands."

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