Page 171 of Raspados & Regret

It doesn’t scare me the way it used to.

I touch the side of his neck, thumb brushing the place where last summer I left marks I didn’t know how to stand behind yet. No hickeys tonight, well, no visible ones, anyway.

“You’re doing the face,” he whispers.

“What face?”

“The one that says you’re about to say something emotionally devastating and then ask for payment method.”

I glance at the line and take into consideration how much I could charge for a moment like this. I look back at him, and he’s laughing silently.

“I love you,” I say, and his smile vanishes.

For the first time since I have known him, Elías Cárdenas has no immediate response.

No joke.

No comeback.

No little click of the tongue ring.

Just wide eyes, parted lips, and one hand squeezing mine so hard it almost hurts.

Good, I like surprising him.

He blinks.

Once.

Twice. “Fabián.”

I shrug because my chest is trying to crack open and I need to survive the next ten seconds. “What? Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

His eyes shine.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice rough. “But you’ve never said it out loud in public.”

“I love you, Elías,” I say again, a little louder this time. “And I don’t give a fuck if the whole world knows it.”

A phone flashes.

My tía gasps softly behind us and starts whispering to my tío about a wedding. Elías’s mother mutters, “Ay, por fin,” under her breath.

Junior’s voice cracks when he says, “Oh fuck, I’m gonna cry.”

“Shut up,” I say, without looking away from Elías.

Elías laughs, but it breaks in the middle. Then he grabs my face and kisses me. Warm and deep and laughing at the edges because this is still us, and somebody is absolutely filming, and the line is definitely backing up, and I absolutely don’t care.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.

“I love you too,” he whispers.

The words settle in me, and I kiss him one more time.

Then my tía says, “Okay, enough. People are thirsty.”

Elías drops his face into my chest and laughs.