The response is so typically Mark that Eduardo smiles, thin and tired but real, unable to do anything else. He's practically given in by now, the self-preservation instinct that had been in full force upon first seeing Mark again now worn down, dulled, probably from some combination of alcohol (he hadn't been like this upon walking into the Winchester, had he?) and time spent around Mark in the first place. He never expected to completely be able to build a wall up, anyway. More important was letting Mark think that he could, to prevent history from repeating itself and Mark from taking whatever he wanted; now, even that seems less important than it should. It's the way it's always been when he's with Mark: desperate for whatever he can get, willing to take the bad because the good is so worthwhile that it doesn't matter. It's attention, and it's attention from someone like Mark, and shit, after everything, he wouldn't have expected Mark to want him back, either. That isn't something he can just ignore, an opportunity he can't let himself pass up. Besides, he knows full well that they never wind up like this back home, Mark's talk of those four years still echoing in his admittedly fuzzy head. This is the one chance they've got, here or anywhere else, and Eduardo has no intention of being the one to blow it. If it crashes and burns, it does, and he'll still be able to say that he tried. That they tried, if the way Mark is sitting here is any indication, and that itself is all the more reason for him to stick around. The effort alone counts for something. They're not who they were at the confrontation in the Facebook office, or the summer preceding it that they spent a country apart from each other, or when Sean first entered the picture or when Mark didn't want to advertise. Maybe this time, they can get it right.

"It's not so much from being drunk," he explains, sheepish, reaching for his glass almost as if to prove it. He isn't that drunk, not really, only drunk enough to be inappropriately quoting Meatloaf songs in his head and thinking about how much he loves Mark, wording that he'd probably never use aloud for how it would surely come across. Sober enough to still know that this could be very, very stupid, but drunk enough that it seems like the better alternative anyway. (So that one might not actually have anything to do with alcohol.) Whether he should continue or not, he doesn't actually know, but after a sip of beer, he decides to go for it anyway. Nothing good is going to come from any of this if he can't be honest this early on, and it's got to be worth the risk of being called sentimental to let Mark know how much this means to him. (Stupid, stupid, so fucking stupid, but it's all he's wanted this whole time, even before he got written out of the company, to have his best friend back. Now, maybe, he hopes, he does.) "I just. You know, you, you're here, and I..." Exhaling, he shrugs. "I want to get this right. And that has me doing a lot of tripping over my words, yes." For a moment, he pauses, then adds, slightly self-deprecating, "Being drunk probably doesn't help, though."