The Rivera house was in a rare state of profound, almost sacred, quiet. Rosa was at the market with Lucía and Isabel, Valeria and Diego were out, and the usual soundtrack of thumping music, chaotic laughter, and Spanish-language TV was absent. In Marco's bedroom, the only sounds were the hum of the central air and the soft scratch of Alex's pen on a legal pad.
She was spread out on his bed, textbooks and printouts creating a fortress of academia around her. A neuroscience paper on synaptic plasticity was proving stubborn, but the quiet was a gift, allowing her to focus deeply.
The en-suite bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam and the clean, sharp scent of Marco's soap. He emerged, a towel slung low around his hips, his hair dark and dripping onto his shoulders. Water droplets traced paths down the defined lines of his torso, vanishing into the terrycloth.
He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching her for a moment with a soft, proprietary smile she couldn't see. Then he broke the silence.
"Mami. Come here for a second."
Alex didn't look up, circling a complex equation. "Mm? What is it?"
"Come to the bathroom. I wanna show you something."
She finally glanced over, pen poised. His expression was a familiar blend of mischief and excitement, the one that usually preceded him introducing a new stray animal or attempting a disastrous kitchen experiment. "What is it now? Did you clog the sink with another one of your hair experiments?"
He just grinned, a flash of white teeth. "No. Better. Come on. You gotta see it."
With a long-suffering sigh that was only half-genuine, she capped her pen and carefully extricated herself from her paper nest. She padded across the room in her socks. "This better not be a spider. If Ava is wearing a tiny hat again, I'm leaving."
"No hats," he promised, his eyes dancing. He took her hand, his skin still warm and damp from the shower, and pulled her gently into the small, steam-fogged bathroom.
He positioned her in front of the sink, which was still beaded with moisture. The mirror was mostly clear. "Okay," he said, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper. "Look."
He dropped the towel.
Alex's eyes went wide. Then her brain processed what she was seeing. On the otherwise neatly trimmed dark hair at the base of his abdomen, a clear, deliberate, and unmistakable series of letters had been shaved.
A L E X
She stared. The cognitive dissonance was absolute. The part of her brain that was a future neuroscientist clinically observed the precise razor work. The part of her that was Claire Dunphy's daughter short-circuited. The part that was just Alex felt a volcanic surge of heat explode from her core to her face.
She made a sound that was somewhere between a gasp and a choked squeak, whirled on her heel, and burst out of the bathroom, letting the door swing shut behind her. She stood in the middle of his bedroom, hands pressed to her burning cheeks, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The door opened a moment later. Marco stood there, the towel re-knotted around his waist, his expression one of utterly confused, grinning innocence. "¿Qué pasa, mi amor? What's wrong?"
She spun to face him, arms flailing slightly. "What's wrong?!" Her voice was a high-pitched whisper-shout.
"Yeah!" he said, taking a step forward, that infuriating smirk still playing on his lips. He genuinely seemed baffled by her reaction.
She pointed a trembling finger back toward the bathroom. "You... you shaved my name... in your... your..."
"My pubes?" he supplied helpfully, his grin widening. "Yeah! I did!" He puffed out his chest, a picture of pride. "I'm romantic as hell!"
"No, it is not!" she insisted, the blush deepening to a shade of crimson she could feel in her ears.
"It is!" He took another step, his demeanor shifting to persuasive enthusiasm. "This is, like, the ultimate declaration. It's permanent—well, for a week or two. It's art! It's devotion! You should do the same!"
The suggestion was so astronomically absurd it momentarily stunned her out of her flustered state. "I am not doing that! I don't even have—" She cut herself off abruptly, clamping her mouth shut.
He didn't miss a beat. The smirk returned, full-force, smug and knowing. He raised a single, suggestive eyebrow.
Alex let out a frustrated groan, turned, and launched herself face-down onto his bed, burying her head in his pillows that smelled like him and his stupid soap. She heard him laugh softly.
He came over and sat on the edge of the bed, his weight dipping the mattress. He ran a hand over her back. "Then you should grow some," he said, his voice low and teasing next to her ear. "We could match. Couple goals, corazón."
She turned her head to the side, one eye glaring at him from her pillow fortress. "You are weird as hell, Marco Rivera."
He leaned down, his face close to hers, his expression softening into something tender and utterly, infuriatingly sincere. "No," he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "I'm romantic."
She held his gaze for a long moment, the fury and embarrassment slowly melting under the warmth of his affection and the sheer, audacious Marco-ness of the gesture. She couldn't help it. A tiny, reluctant snort of laughter escaped her, then another. She shook her head, her face still buried half in the pillow.
He was impossible. He was chaotic. He was, without a doubt, the weirdest person she had ever met.
And he was, in his own utterly unique and inappropriate way, devastatingly, perfectly hers.
***
The late afternoon sun slanted through the blinds in Marco's room, painting golden bars across the rumpled comforter. The room was in its natural state: a few mechanic's shirts thrown over the desk chair, a skateboard leaning against the wall, and the low, persistent hum of a gaming console. The air smelled like citrus air freshener (a concession from Rosa) and the underlying, permanent scent of Marco—clean laundry, engine grease, and boy.
Alex was stretched out on her stomach on his bed, chin propped in her hand, idly scrolling through her phone. A neuroscience article was open, but her attention was only half on the dense text. The other half was tuned to the symphony of chaos emanating from the TV and the headset Marco wore.
On the screen, a hyper-realistic sports car, a lambent blue Lamborghini, screamed down a rain-slicked virtual city street at a frankly irresponsible speed.
"Yo, Marco, switch! Let me drive my shit!" Malik's voice crackled through the headset, tinny but urgent. "You're gonna wreck it, man. You drive like my abuela in a hurricane."
Marco's body was a tense coil of concentration in his gaming chair, his fingers flying over the controller. "Relájate, hermano," he said, his voice a low, focused mutter. "I got it. I'm in the zone. Feel the rhythm, feel the ride—"
"You 'bout to feel the wall," Malik shot back.
The blue Lamborghini swerved around a corner, tires screeching, barely clipping a mailbox that exploded into a shower of polygons. Marco whooped. Alex didn't look up from her phone, but a small, fond smile touched her lips. This was her background noise.
The car rocketed toward a dark tunnel entrance, a gaping maw in the side of a virtual mountain.
Through the headset, Malik let out a long-suffering sigh, his tone shifting to one of deep, prophetic dread. "Aight. Aight. He 'bout to take us to find the mooseman."
The words were so specific, so bizarrely solemn, that they cut through Marco's laser focus. His thumbs paused for a fatal half-second. The Lamborghini veered, clipped the tunnel wall, and began a spectacular, multi-roll crash sequence.
But Marco wasn't watching the wreck. He yanked one side of his headset off his ear, his brow furrowed in utter, genuine bewilderment. He turned his head slightly, as if Malik were in the room.
"Who the hell is the 'mooseman'?!" he asked, his voice a perfect blend of confusion and affront.
There was a beat of silence from the headset.
Then, from both the tiny speaker and from the phone next to Alex where Malik's face was presumably still on screen, a snort erupted. It was a single, choked sound that broke the dam.
Malik's laughter exploded through the line first—a deep, rolling belly laugh that was completely uncontrolled. It was the sound of a joke landing with perfect, unexpected precision.
That was all it took.
Marco's confusion shattered. The absurdity of the question, the seriousness with which he'd asked it, the sheer randomness of 'the mooseman' crashed into him all at once. He dropped the controller onto his lap, his head falling back against the chair. A loud, honking guffaw burst out of him, quickly escalating into full-bodied, wheezing laughter. He slapped his knee, tears springing to his eyes.
"The—the mooseman?!" he managed to gasp between breaths, as if the word itself was the funniest thing ever conceived.
Alex had looked up from her phone at the initial crash, but now she just watched them. She didn't get the joke. There was no logical setup, no punchline she could parse. It was pure, distilled boy-humor, a nonsense phrase that had become hysterical simply through delivery and timing.
And seeing Marco like this—completely undone, laughing so hard he could barely breathe, sharing a moment of perfect, stupid joy with his friend—was infectious. She didn't laugh at the joke. She laughed at him. A soft, quiet chuckle that shook her shoulders.
On screen, the wrecked Lamborghini sat smoking at the entrance of the tunnel, a monument to the distraction. Malik was still howling. "You—you just asked! 'Who the hell is the mooseman?!' Like you were offended!"
"I was!" Marco wheezed, clutching his stomach. "You can't just… threaten a man with the mooseman and not explain! Is he in the tunnel? Does he have, like, antlers? Is he lost?!"
This sent Malik into another paroxysm. "Maybe! You'll never know now 'cause you wrecked the car!"
Marco finally caught his breath, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. He looked over at Alex, his face still split by a dazzling, tear-streaked grin. He gestured weakly at the headset. "Mi amor, you hear this? Malik's out here summoning cryptids during a simple street race. No respect for the game."
Alex shook her head, her smile wide. "I have no idea what's happening. But I'm pretty sure the mooseman is disappointed in both of you."
Marco's grin softened as he looked at her. He reached out a foot and nudged her leg gently with his toe. "Nah. The mooseman is a forgiving entity. Unlike Malik, who is never getting his virtual car back." He pulled the headset back on. "You hear that, Malik? You and your mythological buddy can walk."
As the bickering and laughter started up again, Alex went back to her phone.