The late afternoon sun slanted through Marco's bedroom window, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. A comfortable silence had settled, broken only by the frantic *click-clack* of controller buttons and the distant, tinny sounds of digital warfare coming from Marco's headset. Alex was curled up at the foot of his bed, scrolling through academic articles on her phone, a portrait of calm in the eye of a hurricane.
The hurricane was Marco.
He was cross-legged on the floor, leaning so far forward he was practically nose-to-screen, his knuckles white as he gripped his Xbox controller. On the TV, his soldier darted through a ruined cityscape.
"Left! LEFT, CABRÓN, HE'S ON THE STAIRS!" he yelled into his headset mic, his voice a strained hiss.
A tinny, laughing voice—Javier's—came through the earpiece. "I'm reloading, I'm reloading!"
"YOU'RE RELOADING YOUR LIFE, PENDEJO!" Marco shouted back as his character was felled by a sniper shot. The screen faded to grey. "Mierda! Malik, revive me! Revive me, you slow-ass!"
"I got you, I got you!" Malik's voice replied, followed by the sound of an explosion. "Aight, never mind. I'm dead too."
**MATCH LOST.**
The words flashed across the screen in brutal, white letters.
Marco ripped the headset off and threw it onto the carpet. It didn't break, but it was a close thing. He ran his hands through his hair, gripping it in frustration. "*¡Increíble!* How are you two so *bad* at this? It's like playing with my *mamá*! And she thinks the controller is a remote!"
Alex peeked over the top of her phone, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing. This was a familiar ritual.
He jammed the headset back on. "Again! And this time, stick together! Don't just run off like you're trying to get a participation trophy for dying!"
The next match was even worse. They were spawn-camped, killed over and over before they could even take two steps. Marco's rage was a physical presence in the room, a low, simmering heat. His commands devolved from Spanish to a sort of primal, guttural frustration.
"No! No! *Dios mío*, just look at the map! The map is your *friend*!"
Another loss.
The third match was the final straw. A single enemy player, using a cheap, rapid-fire weapon, wiped out their entire team in seconds. Marco watched his character fall, his jaw clenched so tight Alex thought she could hear his teeth grinding.
He went completely still. The frantic energy vanished, replaced by a terrifying calm. He slowly leaned forward, bringing his face inches from the screen. He closed his eyes.
Then, in a low, solemn, and utterly butchered monotone, he began to speak.
"*Bismillah… al-Rahman… al-Rahim…*"
Alex lowered her phone completely, her mouth falling open.
A beat of stunned silence on the headset, then Javier's voice, crackling with disbelief and laughter. "Bro… did you just pray to *Allah*?"
Malik's howl of laughter was so loud it distorted the mic. "HE'S PRAYING IN ARABIC! YOU'RE A CATHOLIC, YOU DUMBASS! FROM SOUTH CENTRAL!"
Marco's eyes snapped open. He seemed to come back to himself, blinking at the screen. He cleared his throat, suddenly looking embarrassed. "Uh… I saw it in a movie. It was worth a shot. Desperate times."
"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ARABIC!" Javier wheezed.
"It's the intention that counts!" Marco shot back, his bravado returning, though a faint blush was creeping up his neck. "Maybe Muslim God has better Wi-Fi!"
He finally glanced over at Alex, who was staring at him with a mixture of horror and profound amusement, her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.
"What?" he said, defensively. "We needed a miracle."
Alex finally let her laughter out, a sharp, happy sound that filled the room. "You," she managed between breaths, "are the most ridiculous person on the planet."
Marco shrugged, a slow grin replacing his look of frustration. He pulled off his headset, letting it hang around his neck, and tossed the controller aside. The game was forgotten.
"Yeah, but I'm your ridiculous person," he said, crawling onto the bed and collapsing face-first next to her with a dramatic groan. "My team is holding me back from my destiny."
She ran a hand through his sweaty hair. "Your destiny seems very stressful."
He turned his head to look at her, his cheek smushed against the comforter. "You make it better."
From the headset around his neck, Javier's voice squawked, "AY, ARE WE PLAYING OR ARE YOU FLIRTING?"
Marco grabbed the headset, brought the mic to his lips, and said, "I'm retiring. Go find another carry," before tossing the whole thing across the room. It landed with a soft thud in a pile of laundry.
"Much better," he murmured, closing his eyes as Alex continued to stroke his hair. The virtual war was lost, but this, right here, felt an awful lot like winning.
***
February 14th arrived with unseasonably warm California sunshine. Alex, who had been anticipating a quiet dinner or maybe a movie, was instead standing in Marco's driveway as he tossed a duffel bag into the trunk of his Civic.
"So, where are we going?" she asked, eyeing the bag with suspicion. It didn't look like it contained nice clothes.
"It's a surprise, mami! A real Valentine's adventure," Marco said, his grin a little too wide, a little too unhinged.
He drove them out of the suburbs, past the city limits, and up into the rolling, golden-brown hills. The destination was a dusty pull-off at the head of a rugged trail. And there, chained to a gnarled oak tree, was his "surprise": a beat-up, mud-spattered Yamaha dirt bike.
Alex stopped dead. "No."
"Yes!" Marco beamed, unlocking the chain with a triumphant jingle.
"Marco, no. Absolutely not."
"C'mon! It'll be fun! It's like a roller coaster, but with more… freedom!"
"Freedom to die?" Alex retorted, her mind racing for excuses. "It's… it's too dangerous. And what about… the snow!"
Marco paused, looked around at the sun-baked, dusty trail and the 70-degree weather, then back at her with utter delight. "Mami. We live in California. The closest snow is on a mountain four hours away that rich people ski on."
"It could be micro-climate snow!" she insisted, desperation creeping into her voice.
He just laughed, pulling two helmets from his duffel bag. He handed her one. It was scuffed and had a faded sticker of a flaming skull on the side. "Here. For your safety. And your micro-climate."
With great reluctance and a string of muttered protests, Alex put on the helmet. Marco climbed onto the bike, kick-started it with a roar that shattered the peaceful hillside silence, and patted the space behind him. "Hop on, mi amor! And hold tight!"
What followed was the most terrifying twenty minutes of Alex's life.
The moment she wrapped her arms around his waist, Marco gunned the engine. The bike shot forward, kicking up a plume of dust. The trail was a narrow, winding ribbon of packed earth, riddled with rocks, ruts, and sudden, blind turns.
"MARCO, SLOW DOWN!" she yelled, her voice muffled by the helmet and the engine's snarl.
"CAN'T HEAR YOU!" he shouted back, clearly lying.
He took a sharp corner, leaning the bike so far over Alex was convinced they were going to tip. She squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her helmeted head against his back, her fingers clutching his jacket so tightly she was surprised it didn't tear.
Then came the jumps.
He'd spot a small rise in the trail, a natural ramp, and instead of slowing down, he'd accelerate. The front tire would lift, the world would drop away for a heart-stopping second, and then they'd land with a jarring *thud* that rattled her teeth.
"YEEEEAH!" Marco would whoop every time.
"AAAAH!" Alex would yelp, a involuntary scream of pure shock and adrenaline.
He was doing it on purpose. She knew it. Each little jump was strategically placed to make her grip him tighter, to make her bury her face in his back. It was terrifying, chaotic, and infuriatingly effective.
After one particularly big jump that left her breathless, he actually slowed down to a putter. He flipped up his visor. "You good back there?" he asked, his voice full of fake innocence.
Alex, her heart hammering against her ribs, smacked his shoulder. "I hate you! I hate you so much right now!"
He just laughed, a rich, joyful sound that echoed in the hills. "No, you don't. You're having the time of your life!"
"My life is currently flashing before my eyes! It's mostly me studying!"
"Boring! This is better!" he declared, and before she could retort, he slammed the visor down and gunned the engine again, launching them back into the whirlwind of dust, noise, and pure, unadulterated panic.
As they finally skidded to a stop back at the car, Alex's legs were wobbly as jelly. She pulled off the helmet, her hair a wild mess, her face flushed. She was about to unleash a torrent of scientific data on the probability of spinal injury from such an activity.
But Marco was just looking at her, his own helmet off, his face split by a giant, proud grin. "See? Best Valentine's Day ever."
And despite the terror, despite the dust in her mouth and the certain knowledge that this boy was going to be the death of her, she found herself smiling back, breathless and alive.
"It was… memorable," she conceded.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. "That's the point, *corazón*. I don't want you to ever forget a day with me."
As her heart rate slowly returned to normal, pressed against his chest, she knew with absolute certainty that she never would.