Page 104 of Raspados & Regret

My chest goes tight.

“It is morning. But I should go before she wakes up, especially since I have to go to Mass with my tía. Might be awkward going with your cum on my chest.”

“Maybe.”

His fingers trace a slow circle over my skin. “But you don’t have to go right now.”

I stare at the ceiling.

The fan clicks with every rotation.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

“I’ll stay for a little bit,” I say.

Elías’s hand stills.

Then he presses his face closer into my shoulder.

“Okay,” he whispers.

I close my eyes.

I’m naked in Elías Cárdenas’s bed, in his mother’s house, with his leg thrown over mine and his cum drying on my stomach and my soft dick pressed against his thigh and the taste of him still on my tongue.

I should be freaking out.

I am a little.

But under it, beneath the noise, beneath the old fear and new desire and every label I still don’t know how to touch without flinching, there is this…

I wanted him and he wanted me.

EIGHT

ELÍAS

Fabián Salcedo is terrible at sneaking out.

This is the first thing I learn early Sunday morning. Not that he’s quiet or smooth. Not that the man who got on his knees on my porch, begged to be let inside, and then proceeded to make me see God in my childhood bedroom has any talent whatsoever for subtlety when faced with one creaky floorboard, a pair of black slides, and his own panic.

No.

He’s terrible.

Absolutely garbage.

A disgrace to the art of sneaking.

I wake up to the sound of him whispering, “Fuck,” somewhere near the foot of my bed.

For half a second, my brain floats in that soft, hot place between sleep and memory. The fan clicks, and I’m hit with the residual scent of sex, sweat, and off-brand detergent that I bought on accident and my mom is now forcing me to use. My body aches in places that immediately begin submitting detailed witness statements.

Then something thuds.