Page 181 of Raspados & Regret

“Elías,” I groan, and his hand slides to the back of my neck.

“Yeah?” he says through a moan.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Have a baby with me.” The words just fall out of my mouth.

He goes still, and that makes me stop. My whole body goes cold because now the words hang in the space between us.

Heavy.

Insane.

Too much.

Too soon even after a year.

Not soon enough because I’ve thought about him with Fatima on his hip, him in my kitchen, him in our bed, him at my family’s table, him laughing with my tía, him calling my tío “Tío Jorge” like he was always allowed to.

I have thought about a baby with his eyes or mine or neither. A baby that comes to us through paperwork and waiting. Or one that takes lots of money, family support, and every complicated thing that might be worth it if he’s beside me.

I’ve thought about it.

I just didn’t mean to say it while buried inside him against the front door like a man with no sense and too much heart.

“Elías.”

He grabs my chin in a firm grip and forces my eyes to his. “¿Me estás tratando de preguntar algo?”

My breath catches and his thumb strokes once along my jaw. His face is flushed and wrecked, still full of want, but his eyes are clear.

“Fabián,” he whispers. “Ask me.”

My throat tightens so hard it hurts. This is so not how I imagined asking him. Not against our front door and definitely not with his yellow shorts still around one ankle.

But here I am asking him while I’m inside him, shaking like every brave part of me has decided to crawl out through my mouth at once.

It’s messy.

Desperate.

Too honest to be pretty.

Entirely us.

I hold his face with one hand, keeping him close, keeping myself from looking away. “¿Quieres ser mi esposo, muñeco?” I whisper. “¿Quieres tener un bebé conmigo?”

His lips part, but I don’t stop there.

“Porque yo sí quiero estar contigo el resto de mi vida.”

For a second, he forgets how to breathe, and then it’s like the meaning of it all lands.

My husband, and a baby someday.

Forever.