"Don't stop there. Maybe Frank can also be your sugar daddy while you're at it. He'll buy you nice things in return for letting him ramble about storming the beaches of Normandy," Mateo retorts, waggling his brows.
Mateo isn't at all threatened by the hypothetical old man. TK had plenty of opportunities to replace him and he hasn't yet. He doesn't count the time he disappeared on him, because that was to take care of his mom. It's not like he found a new best friend then.
Just like TK won't abandon him for Frank, Mateo knows that he doesn't really care where they go either. It's not even like his brother to suggest a vacation at all. If TK were anyone else, Mateo would take it as a sign that he's yet another person who wants him for his money. That's never been him, though. Actually, Mateo wishes he'd ask for more, because he's family and this family has too much money just sitting around.
Maybe Mateo's dad becoming TK's guardian was just to keep him from getting sent away, but he's considered him as his brother even before it was legally true. Mate would've paid off his tuition for a much better school than Palmetto and bought them a house near campus, but this is what his brother wanted, so here they are.
So if TK wants to go to the beach and just lay around, Mateo will still find a way to do it as luxuriously as possible. "Okay then, here's the plan. I'll find an all inclusive resort in Thailand, book a swim-up suite, and we'll order so many cocktails on the beach that we'll empty out their bar. And fuck your early morning run. Get Frank to do that with you."
"Hot," he says, forcing himself to keep a straight face. Ordinarily, he's pretty good at it, but he's had enough alcohol so far tonight that he feels his grip on his expression wavering, his face wanting to scrunch up. For all that he doesn't really know what he's doing with his life beyond playing Exy for five years, he's pretty confident that being an old man's sugar baby isn't the shortlist for his future.
And for all that he seems like the old man out of the two of them, the one that's serious, responsible, it's not like he'd ever really want to trade Mateo for someone like the hypothetical Frank—or anyone else. They might seem to be opposites, but that's why they work so well: he wants a best friend like Mateo that can draw him out of his shell, that can balance him. He can sit around being serious and responsible and worrying about things on his own, he doesn't need help with that.
But what does he have to worry about now? He spent so many years with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, trying to pick up all the things his mother could no longer carry as she got sicker and sicker. Trying to be the man that his father should have been, even if he was still just a kid. But he's not responsible for much of anything now—not much beyond his grades and his performance on the court.
That feeling of responsibility, of have the weight of the world on his shoulders, is hard to shake. So too are the feelings of betrayal, of resentment, that he brings to every summer and holiday he has to spend with his father and his family, no matter how many years it's been.
But, with Christmas in the rearview and the prospect of the Championships on the horizon, Mateo and the Foxes at his side, those feelings are easier to keep at bay, to leave somewhere across the country where they belong.
"You drive a hard bargain," he says, like he actually put up much of a fight. "But deal—and speaking of emptying out bars, I know one we could get started on right now."















