1. Fabián #3
“Next. What you want, mija?”
“Extra chamoy? Good choice.”
“Blue raspberry? Ay, I’m not judging you.”
“No, senora, I cannot make it less cold. It’s ice.”
I shouldn’t be watching him, especially when I have the payment app open and a line of people in front of me. I have shit to do. Important things. Things that have nothing to do with the way Elías’s tongue ring taps against the straw when he steals a sip from his own drink between orders.
A woman in line clears her throat, and I pull my attention back to her. “Perdón.”
She looks amused.
“Two mango raspados,” she says. “And whatever he’s having.”
I glance at Elías, and he glances back.
“What?” he asks.
The woman grins. “Nothing.”
I fucking hate everyone.
Around nine twenty-five, the rush finally slows down. My back aches from hunching over, and my shirt sticks to me like a second skin. My fingers are stained red from syrup even though I’ve not made a single raspado.
My tía is off somewhere talking to another vendor about buying some tamales. My uncle has texted her about them close to fifty times. Senora Cárdenas is sitting behind the booth fanning herself with a paper plate.
Elías leans beside me against the back table, shoulder almost touching mine.
Almost.
Enough for me to notice the heat coming off him. He takes off his glasses, wipes them on the bottom of his shirt, and puts them back on. The movement lifts the hem enough to show a strip of stomach.
I swallow and look down at the payment screen.
Very hard.
“You survived day one,” he says.
“It’s still not over,” I mumble.
“You worried you’ll snap before closing?” He laughs, and I hate to admit that he has a nice-sounding laugh.
Deep, but not too deep.
“I’ve shown restraint.”
He snaps his head back and glares. “You call that restraint?”
“I haven’t murdered you and put you in a cooler.” I shrug.
He laughs again. “You’ve thought about it?”
“Oh, several times.”
“Mmm, kinky.”
I turn my head, and he looks at me over the top of his glasses, mouth curved around the word like he knows exactly where he put it. My pulse does something stupid.
“You always gotta make everything weird?” I ask.
“Nah.” He leans closer, voice dropping. “Only when you make that face.”
“What face?”
Elías grabs a towel, moves to the spare cooler that’s just ice water now, and dunks it. “The one like you’re trying to decide if you wanna fight me or bite me.”
My body goes still, and I watch him wring the towel out and drape it across the back of his neck. The booth noise fades for one second—no music, screaming kids, or the hiss of the fryer from the food truck next to us—all of it dulls behind the sudden rush of blood in my ears.
His eyes hold mine.
The air between us feels too small, and then, as if the universe wanted to save me… my cousin Junior appears out of nowhere on crutches, because of course he does.
“Damn,” he says, looking between us. “Why does it smell like sexual tension and tamarindo over here?”
Elías chokes on a laugh.
I turn on Junior. “Go limp somewhere else, pendejo.”
“Why? So you can continue whatever the fuck I just walked into?”
I roll my eyes. “Why are you so annoying?”
“I came to support the family,” he says, acting offended.
“You came because your baby mama’s brother found your house, and I guess you need to hide out for a bit.”
He points a crutch at me. “Allegedly.”
Elías bends over laughing, hands on his knees, and I try not to look at how his shorts ride up.
I fail because I’m cursed. Or maybe because it’s hot.
And I’m tired—I’m pretty sure my brain has been poisoned by syrup fumes.
Not because of anything else.
Absolutely not because Elías Cárdenas looks up at me through those glasses of his with his tongue ring flashing when he smiles, and something inside me goes hungry in a way I don’t fucking understand.
A cup tips behind us, and red syrup spills across the table, thick and glossy, dripping toward the edge.
“Shit,” Elías says, grabbing handfuls of napkins.
Moving fast, I grab a towel, and our hands hit the spill at the same time. His fingers slide against mine, sticky with syrup.
We both stop.
It’s nothing.
Ignore it. It’s just hands—a stupid accident in a stupid booth at a stupid summer market.
His fingertips press against the back of my hand, warm and slick, and my breath catches before I can stop it. He notices, and his eyes lift to mine. The corner of his mouth twitches ever so slightly.
Quietly, so only I can hear, he says, “You good, Fabián?”
I yank my hand back. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down at the syrup on his fingers. “You keep saying that.”
Then, because he’s evil, because he was put on this earth to test me, or because the universe has jokes and I’m the fucking punchline, he lifts his hand to his mouth.
Slowly licking red syrup from his thumb.
Tongue ring catching against his skin. All ten seconds of it make my whole body short-circuit.
He gives me a wicked smirk, and I stare at him for one second too long. Then I grab the trash bag from the hook beside the table and shove it into Junior’s chest. “Take this to the dumpster.”
Junior looks down at the mostly empty bag. “Why?”
“Because I said so.”
“It’s not even full, Fabi?” He looks at me completely confused.
The man doesn’t seem to have a working brain cell in his whole head. “Junior…”
He takes one look at my face, then at Elías, then back at me. His grin spreads.
“No mames,” he whispers.
I point toward the back lot. “Dumpster. Now.”
He hobbles away laughing to himself.
Elías watches him go, then turns back to me. “Subtle.”
“Shut up,” I snap.
“Mmmm, papi’s bossy.”
“Lalo—” His nickname comes out too rough, and his smile falters.
I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles ache. The silver bar through my left nipple catches against the inside of my shirt when I breathe too hard, sending a sharp little reminder through my chest. I focus on that, on the bite. On the real, physical thing I can explain.
Not on him.
Not on the shorts or the tongue ring, or the fact that for one insane second, I wonder what that silver ball would feel like against my di—
No.
Absolutely not.
“I’m gonna regret this summer,” I mutter.
Elías hears me and leans in just enough that his shoulder finally brushes mine.
“Probably,” he whispers back.
Then he picks up a clean cup and gets back to work like he has not just ruined my entire life before Labor Day. I stand there under the string lights, surrounded by family, chisme, shaved ice, and the smell of sugar burning into hot pavement, and realize something with perfect clarity.
This summer is gonna be hell.