"Nice car," Mateo said as he got into Emilio's car.

"Thanks!" Emilio beamed as he started it up. "Carlos. He’s got a 5.2-litre-V10 engine, brakes discs made of carbon fibre-reinforced-ceramics, and quattro permanent all-wheel drive."

"Oh," Mateo nodded as if he had understood. "Nice. Carlos."

Emilio saw through it. 

"Sorry," he said, mentally scolding himself, “sometimes I can't shut up the engineer in me. I know it annoys the shit out of people." 

"No," Mateo waved it off, "I'm just not a very tech-savvy person. But, you shouldn't have to shut up a whole part of yourself, especially one that plays such a huge role in who you are, right?"

Emilio stared at him for a few moments, silently thanking his dumb drunken self for dialing the wrong number.

"Right?" Mateo asked again.

"Yeah," Emilio said, snapping out of it. "Um, tech savvy, that brings us back to your phone..." he teased, trying to change the subject.

Mateo laughed, “exactly.”

"Which reminds me," Emilio pressed his lips, his bright eyes settling on Mateo for a moment before he reached behind the seats.

He pulled out a red gift-wrapped box with a huge gold bow taped to the top. 

He smiled at the box, like a child looking at his favorite ice cream, then looked up at Mateo.

"I was going to give it to you when I gave you your other stuff, but, here," Emilio said, holding the box out to Mateo.

Mateo knew what it was, or at least he had his suspicions. 

He had half a mind to reject it, tell Emilio he didn't want a charity present, but on the other hand, a new phone did sound nice, and it would be nice to finally download some better apps to his phone, link it to his computer, it would be better for work. 

He could already hear himself justifying accepting the gift to his mom. 

It was for work! And saying no would have been offensive! Not accepting the phone would technically have been more rude than accepting it.

He looked at Emilio, so excited next to him, it reminded him of when they had been sitting on the roof of his car, Emilio so excited over the stars, so innocent and full of hope, even if it had only been for a moment. 

"Okay," Mateo said, grinning too as he took the box. "Hmm. Whatever could it be?" He teased as he carefully moved the box around in his hand. 

He could see Emilio basically jumping in his seat next to him and he tried to hold back a chuckle. Reports of Emilio's easy excitability had not been exaggerated, he was just like a little puppy. 

He lifted up the box, looking at it from every angle, forcing a ponderous look on his face, enjoying the feeling of keeping Emilio at the edge of his seat. 

After a moment he smirked, asking without much thought, "is it a towel? You owe me a towel."

Emilio's excited jitters instantly disappeared, he went still in his seat. 

In a split second, his face went from eagerly impatient to genuinely confused to just plain red shaded embarrassed.

Oh, right, Mateo instantly realized, he doesn't remember a thing! 

He looked at Emilio, all joy and amusement gone from his eyes, replaced by fear and... 

Self-loathing? Mateo recognized, making him feel like even more of a jerk.

"Why- Um-What, why-?" Emilio stammered, rubbing the back of his neck, focusing his eyes on the steering wheel.

He took in a deep breath and tried again.

"What um, what exactly did I do that night? Why do I owe you a towel Mateo? Fuck, I hate blackouts. I never know when to stop drinking, I always think I can handle it. I've got no fucking self-control, I go around making a fool of myself instead, I'm such a-" 

"You're a good Spongebob!" Mateo cut him off.

"-And that. That's the second time you've said it to me," Emilio looked up, distraught, feeling suddenly overwhelmed and close to tears. 

Shit. Emilio thought. Get it together Everhart. 

This was not how he had planned the day to go! 

He was going to go there to surprise the amazing wonderful human being, Mateo, with a nice lunch and then a heartfelt gift. 

NOWHERE in the plans did there include: begin sobbing like a hopeless loser in front of the ridiculously hot reporter artist guy who didn't use you for career motives but instead cared for you while you were drunk, without taking advantage of you, and who also cooked you a really good breakfast and draws adorkably cute pictures in his sketchbook. 

He fought back the tears and cleared his throat, forcing himself to make eye contact with Mateo.

Come on Everhart, don't make a fuckin big deal out of this, you’re gonna scare the guy away.

"So why do I owe you a towel?" He asked, trying to keep his voice light but managing to crack it anyway.

"For..." Mateo said, thinking about the towels wrapped around Emilio's naked body, "for puke reasons." 

"I'll buy you new towels too. We can go to a towel store right now, or after lunch, you pick."

Mateo blinked, trying to shoo away the memory of Emilio in his bathroom. "Are... are towel stores a thing? Like, a whole store just for towels?" 

"I... I don't know. I don't generally do my own shopping..." 

There was silence in the car for a moment, both unsure of what to say.

Then, as if realizing it for the first time, Mateo whispered, "we're still in my parking lot." 

It came out a little exasperated, but not because he was upset Emilio hadn’t started driving yet— though, this is how Emilio interpreted it.

"Right, sorry." Emilio quickly apologized, putting the car in reverse and backing out, "Um, to lunch then." 

Mateo internally groaned, clutching the present in his lap, wishing he would have just opened the damn thing from the start.