Epilogue
FABIáN
One year later, the heat is still trying to kill me. So is Elías Cárdenas, but this time it’s with yellow shorts.
Tiny yellow shorts.
Four-inch inseam if I’m being generous, which I’m not because generosity has never survived contact with Elías’s thighs.
He is standing at the front of our booth with one foot on a cooler, a white tank tucked into the front of those ridiculous shorts, silver chains against his chest, glasses sliding down his nose, and a tongue ring clicking while he explains to a customer that, no, less chamoy is not a personality trait he supports.
Our booth.
That part still hits me sometimes.
Not like a punch anymore, more like walking into a clean apartment and smelling carne that I didn’t have to pick up from a truck.
Like finding his lime-shaped ring dish on my dresser or waking up with one of his legs thrown over mine and his mouth open against my shoulder, snoring softly even though he swears he doesn’t snore.
Our booth.
Our apartment.
Our families.
Our summer.
Last year, Bahía Nights Summer Market shoved us into one shared space because of a permit problem and a cousin with a sprained ankle. This year, both families applied for the space together.
On purpose.
Which proves everybody involved is either in love with money, addicted to drama, or actively trying to shorten my life.
Probably all three.
The sign above us reads:
Cárdenas Raspados + Salcedo Aguas y Elotes
Underneath, because Elías cannot be trusted with markers or public-facing business decisions, there is a smaller chalkboard sign that says:
TRY THE NO REGRETS SPECIAL
mango + tamarindo + chamoy + tajín + lechera
Warning: may cause bad decisions
I told him we were not calling it that, and the bastard called a family meeting.
I lost.
I lost because his mother said the name was cute, my tía said it was good branding, and Anita said, “The girlies will eat that up,” and Junior said, “pause,” and then everyone ignored him because Junior still thinks showing up to help means sitting on a cooler and narrating labor like a sports commentator.
The line’s already long, and it is only six-thirty.
The market is bigger this year with more vendors and live music. More string lights. A bigger beer garden and people pretending they’re here for tacos and not to see if the raspado couple from TikTok is still together.
We are, and I’m still getting used to how easy that word feels now.
Together.
A year ago, a stranger asked if Elías and I were together, and he said no to protect me. I said yes because hearing no felt like somebody dragging a key down the side of my chest. Then I panicked so hard I almost swallowed my own tongue.
Tonight, a group of girls in matching pink cowboy hats approach the counter, phones already out, grinning like they have been waiting a calendar year to be annoying.
“You’re them,” one says.
Elías turns his smile on, and it’s full wattage.
Public menace.
“Depends who’s asking.”
“The ones from last summer,” another says. “Crop Top Papi and his Raspado Boyfriend.”
I close my eyes; I have survived twelve months of this.
Twelve long months.
The internet discovered us, named us, edited us to songs, argued in the comments about whether our first kiss happened behind the trailer or after the viral hickey weekend, and once made a slideshow titled “Top Ten Times Crop Top Papi Was Down Bad And Fooling No One.”
Slide seven was just a screenshot of me looking at Elías’s mouth.
Rude, but completely accurate.
Still rude.
Elías glances at me. “You gonna say hi to your fans?”
“No.”
The girls scream, and I sigh and grab a cup. “Order?”
One of them laughs. “Are you guys still together?”
Elías’s hand stills on the scoop. Not because he doesn’t know the answer. I look at him first. His smile is still there, but softer now. Waiting. Not because he doubts me. Not anymore.
I turn back to the girl.
“Yes,” I say. “Still together.”
Clear, bored, even.
Then I reach for the tablet. “Still together. Still busy. Cash or card?”
Elías makes a sound like he is trying not to laugh, and the girls lose their minds anyway. Phones lift, and somewhere behind me, Junior says, “I can’t believe it; he’s so brave.”
I point without looking. “I will break your ankle, cabrón.”
“Ah, come on—”
“Don’t fuck with me, Junior.”
“Violence. During Pride-adjacent business hours. That’s not very bisexual of you, primo.”
“It’s July.” I turn and stare. “And this bisexual will fuck you up if you keep running your mouth back there.”
“Every month is Pride if you believe.”
Elías’s mother snaps her towel at Junior. “Julian, move the cups.”
Junior points at his ankle—his perfectly healed ankle. “I can’t… medical history.”
Our tía walks by carrying a tray of elotes and says, “Medical laziness is more like it.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, and Elías looks over at me. There’s the look, the one that says he likes me laughing. The one that still makes my ribs feel too small for everything inside them.
A year ago, that look would have made me defensive.
Now, I let him see me seeing it.
His smile changes.
Private.
Mine.
The girls order three No Regrets specials and two mango raspados with extra chamoy. Elías makes them fast, charming, and bright, talking with his hands like he was born in front of an audience. I take payments, hand out napkins, refill lids, and try not to look at him too much.
I fail; I always fail.
He catches me staring while he adds lechera to a cup, and his brow lifts.
I mouth, “Shorts.”
He looks down at himself, then back at me, innocent as a crime scene.
I shake my head and mouth again, “They’re gonna get you fucked, nene.”
“You won’t,” he says out loud and then bends over right in front of me.
Little bastard.
He’s getting it for sure when we get home.
When seven rolls around, the market is packed. Everything glows under the soft string lights. Phone screens, the black frames of Elías’s glasses, the silver chain around his neck, and the ring on my thumb.
Even the key on Elías’s keychain that opens our apartment door.
He moved in officially in March. Unofficially, Elías started moving in last September when he left a toothbrush at my place and then accused me of being “weirdly territorial about counter space” because I didn’t throw it away.
In October, half his clothes were in my dresser.
By November, his lime-shaped ring dish had firmly planted itself next to his phone charger on his side of the bed.
Come December, his mother sent over a Christmas tin full of cookies labeled “Para los dos,” and my tía gave him socks because she said his little shorts made her cold just looking at him.
Then in March, Elías stood in my living room with three boxes, two laundry baskets, and one plant he swore was not dead, just “emotionally seasonal,” and said, “So are we doing this or are you going to keep pretending I don’t live here? ”
“The fuck are you talking about,” I said, “You already live here.”
He said, “That was not romantic.”
I said, “I’ve had half the closet cleared out for months now.”
He cried and will deny that until death.
I have photographic evidence.
No one knows about the photo except me because I enjoy living, breathing, and waking up with my body parts attached.
Now, we’re in July, and he has the nerve to stand in our booth wearing tiny yellow shorts like he didn’t already win. As if he still needs to campaign. Like the entire market, both our families, and God himself haven’t already accepted that Elías Cárdenas is mine and I’m terminally stupid about it.
A customer steps up and orders an agua de jamaica and two elotes. I turn to grab cups, and Elías slips behind me, hand brushing my lower back. It’s not an accidental touch. One second of brief contact and my nervous system lights up like a Christmas tree.
I look over my shoulder, and he keeps walking like he did nothing. The yellow shorts are starting to look more and more like a hate crime.
“Papi,” he calls without turning around, “we need more mango.”
A woman in line gasps, and I stare at the back of his head. “Don’t call me that at work.”
He turns slowly, with his eyebrow raised. The whole line goes quiet like the market itself knows better than to miss this.
“Sorry,” he says, too sweet. “What should I call you at work?”
Junior whispers, “This is fucking cinema right here.”
I keep my face blank. “Fabián.”
“Okay, Fabián.”
I hate that more, and he knows.
He knows because his mouth curves just a little at the corner. I grab the mango bin and carry it to him. When I pass, I lean close enough for only him to hear.
“Keep it up and I’m taking those shorts off with my teeth later.”
He nearly drops the scoop, and I keep walking. Two can play his little games, and I think I just might win tonight.
Behind me, Elías says, very softly, “No mames.”
I smile at the floor.
Tiny victories.
I survive on them.
Around eight, my tío Jorge shows up with a folding chair he absolutely did not need to bring, but he says he will not sit in any chair that belongs to the market.
He says market chairs are bad for the back.
He also says this about movie theater seats, waiting room chairs, restaurant booths, and once, a perfectly innocent bench at Lake Merritt.
Tío sets his chair up near my tía and nods at me.
Then at Elías.
“Elías.”
“Tío Jorge,” Elías says, because he started calling him that around January and never stopped. My tío pretends not to like it. Secretly, he loves it.
He points at the line. “It’s been busy?”
“Sí, lots of people today.”
“?Ya comiste?”
Elías shakes his head. “Not yet.”
My tío looks at me like this is my personal failure. “Ay, feed him. What kind of husband are you?”
I nearly knock over the stack of lids next to the tablet and cash box. “We’re working and we’re not married, tío.”
“You live together. You come to holidays together. Looks pretty married to me. So… why haven’t you fed him?”
Elías glows, actually glows, and I’m not sure if it’s from my tío calling him my husband or from him caring if he ate or not.