8. Elías
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.
Fabián freezes.
I open one eye, and he’s standing beside my chair in gray sweats and the same faded crop top from last night, one sock on, one sock in his hand, his face twisted in the grim concentration of a man defusing a bomb.
The bomb being my laundry basket.
I should say something mature.
“You fighting my clothes now?”
He jerks so hard he nearly knocks into the dresser, and I have to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from laughing.
His eyes cut to me. “Jesus, Lalo.”
“Don’t bring him into this. You have Mass in, what, an hour?”
His face does something complicated.
Guilt.
Embarrassment.
Desire.
The last one is my favorite because his eyes drop from my face to where the sheet’s tangled low on my hips. I’m not wearing anything underneath it. He knows because he was there when the underwear came off, and somewhere between my mouth and his pride, we lost track of everything else.
His throat works. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No, you meant to vanish into the darkness like a slutty raccoon.”
“I wasn’t vanishing.”
“You were one sock away from committing emotional burglary.”
He looks down at the sock in his hand like it betrayed him.
“I have to go,” he whispers.
“I figured.” I lean back.
“My tía—”
“Mass.”
“Yeah.” He sighs, and weird silence settles over us.
Not the nice kind.
Not the post-sex kind where bodies are warm and language gets lazy.
Nope, this one has its shoes on and is preparing to leave.
Fabián rubs the back of his neck and looks everywhere except at me.
My chest tightens before I can tell it not to.
Stupid chest. Always making executive decisions without consulting the board.
I push myself up against the pillows, dragging the sheet with me.
My thighs protest and my back complains.
But it’s my ass that writes a formal letter.
Worth it.
Still, I wince and Fabián’s eyes snap to me.
“You okay?” His voice drops low.
Too serious.
Too fast.
It softens something in me. I have no business letting him touch this early in the morning.
“I’m fine.”
His mouth tightens. “Don’t do that.”
I blink. “Do what?”
“Tell me you’re fine when you’re not.”
Of all the unfair things. This man learns one emotional tool and immediately weaponizes it against me.
“I’m sore,” I whisper. “Not broken.”
His jaw shifts, and the relief in his face is tiny.
I see it anyway.
“You should have stopped me if I was too rough,” he whispers.
“You weren’t,” I say, raising an eyebrow. “I told you to keep going.”
His face heats.
Oh, that’s lovely. The big, bad crop-top menace blushing in my room while holding one sock.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters.
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
“Like I know you made a mess of me and then cuddled me until I fell asleep?”
His eyes flick to my bedroom door. “Quiet.”
“My mom is down the hall, Fabián. Not in my dresser.” I snort.
“Sound travels.”
“You would know. You growled into my pillow.”
His whole body goes still.
I bite back a grin.
There he is, my favorite haunted little mechanic.
He drags his hand over his face. “I need to leave before you get me killed.”
“No, you need to leave because your tía wonders why you’re not at Mass,” I retort.
“That too.”
The words are normal, but the air is not. Because he is still standing by my chair, dressed but not gone, watching me with the same hungry, scared look he had on the porch. Like leaving is the responsible thing, but staying is the thing he actually wants.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand and unlock it.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Being an adult. Give me your phone.”
He hesitates.
I hold out my hand. “Fabián.”
He pulls his phone from his pocket and gives it to me like I asked for a confession. I open his contacts, create a new one, and type in my actual number.
Not Instagram.
Not DMs.
Not @lalo.con.limón with a stupid little profile picture and a public comment section breathing down our necks.
My number.
Me.
When I hand it back, his eyes drop to the screen.
Elías Cárdenas.
I almost let that stand, then I snatch the phone back and add a lemon emoji. His mouth twitches.
“There,” I whisper. “Now we can talk like adults and not some horny internet people.”
He raises his brow and smirks. “We are horny internet people.”
“Fine. But now we can be horny internet people that communicate like the adults we are.”
He looks at the contact again, and something flickers across his face.
Soft and annoyingly pretty.
“You didn’t put ‘problem’?” he asks.
“I considered it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Because last night I had your mouth on mine and your hands shaking against my hips and your voice breaking when you said you thought you’d feel different after.
Because I was your first, and that means something even if neither of us is built to survive saying so this early.
Because I don’t want to be a joke in your phone.
I shrug. “Guess I’m maturing.”
He snorts. “Okaaay.”
There.
That almost-smile—I want to collect it in a jar and claim ownership of it. Fabián pockets his phone, then stands there another second too long.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asks.
I roll my eyes because if I don’t, I might pull him back into bed. “Yes. I’m sore, hungry, tired, and in desperate need of a shower but emotionally thriving.”
His eyes narrow. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Always.”
“Good.”
Good. Like he needs the normal back.
Like we both do.
He leans down and I think he means to kiss my forehead.
This I don’t allow. I grab the front of his crop top and pull him down until his mouth meets mine.
The kiss is soft at first. Then it’s not.
It turns hungry quickly, his hand cupping the back of my head, mine fisting in his shirt, and his breath catching when I bite his bottom lip.
For one dangerous second, he shifts closer, knee pressing into the mattress, his body remembering exactly where it belongs.
Then he pulls away with a rough inhale.
“Mass,” he whispers, like the word hurts.
“Go pray for us.”
“Us?”
The word falls out. Small and stupid. We both hear it, but only his face changes.
I should make a joke. I should say, “Us as in sinners, pendejo.” Us, as in people who almost broke my bed. Us, as in your tía is going to smell me on you and throw holy water.
Instead, I don’t say anything and neither does he. The silence stretches until finally, he looks down. “I’ll text you.”
“From church?”
“Maybe.”
“Kinda disrespectful, don’t ya think?” I say, feigning a look of shock.
“You like disrespectful.”
“Mmmm, I do love competent blasphemy this early on Sundays.”
His mouth twitches again, then pulls on the other sock, shoves his feet into his slides, and slips out of my room like a man still very bad at sneaking but deeply committed to the bit.
I listen to him creep down the stairs.
One step.
Two.
A pause when the fifth step groans like a dramatic old woman. My mother coughs downstairs. Fabián freezes so hard I swear I can feel it through the floor.
I press my fist to my mouth.
Silence.
Then the front door opens.
Closes.
He is gone, and my room feels bigger without him. I flop back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling.
The fan clicks in the corner.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
My body aches, my mouth feels absolutely bruised, and my sheets smell like him.
And I’m in trouble.
Not cute trouble.
Not TikTok trouble.
Not “I’m going to flirt with the hot mechanic until he crushes a paper cup” trouble.
Real trouble.
Somehow, in the middle of all the family beef, public bickering, crop tops, black shorts, and an entire comment section screaming kiss, kiss, kiss, I became Fabián Salcedo’s first.
Not his first kiss or his first bad idea.
His first man.
I press both hands over my face.
“Nope,” I whisper to the room. “It's too early to spiral, Lalo.”
The room doesn’t care—it saw everything.
I think about the way he looked at me last night when he admitted he had never done that with a man.
The way his voice changed and how he watched me like wanting me might rewrite him from the inside out.
How he kept waiting for shame to show up and looked almost confused when pleasure got there first.
I’ve been wanted before.
Plenty.
By men who knew exactly what they wanted from me. Men who liked my mouth, my thighs, my attitude, my body, my mess. Men who didn’t flinch at wanting another man because they’d already fought that war or never had to fight it at all.
Fabián is different.
Fabián wanted me like it cost him something. Like every kiss had to pass through however many years of silence before it reached his mouth.
That should make me careful.
Instead, it makes me stupidly, dangerously soft.
My phone buzzes and I almost fall off the bed.
Unknown number.
For half a second, I stare at it.
Then I smile like a complete idiot.
Unknown
Made it to church.
I save the number before I answer.
Fabián
Then I add a tiny wrench emoji because I am not above branding.
Elías
Congratulations, you escaped my house without being murdered by my mother.
Fabián
Your stairs are loud.
Elías
You’re loud.
Fabián
Not at church.
Elías
Yet.
Fabián
Hey, so you’re sure I didn’t hurt you?