Page 163 of Raspados & Regret

“What?” His jaw works. “They’re clean.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

He looks at me. “Yes, okay. I want you in my house, wearing my clothes and getting fucked stupid in my bed. So put it on, muñeco.”

My chest warms, and I put them on with no argument. The shirt smells like him, and I’m absolutely not normal about it. He pulls on shorts and no shirt, because apparently he wants me dead before I even eat the soup.

In the kitchen, barefoot and sticky-clean, reheating albóndigas while the apartment hums around us. The soup smells even better now. Tomato, cilantro, meatballs, rice. I lean against the counter in his shirt, watching him flip tortillas with his hands, bare-chested.

He looks at home here, relaxed, even with me in his space. I look around again at the couch, his boots, and the little bowl for his keys. The pictures of him with his tía and tío.

There’s space here.

Not a lot.

But enough to imagine myself in it.

Don’t do that, Lalo. That’s dangerous.

So dangerous.

He sets a bowl at the tiny table. “Eat.”

I sit. “Papi’s so bossy tonight.”

“You like it.”

“Unfortunately.” I sigh, sitting down while he sits across from me with his own bowl.

For a while, we eat quietly; it’s not an awkward silence. We’re just hungry. My mother was right.

I hate that for me because I know I’ll never hear the end of it.

Halfway through my second meatball, I ask, “So your tío really said “dinner,’ huh?”

He glances up. “Yeah.”

“When?”

“Whenever.”

I roll my eyes, looking at the soup. “That’s not a time.”

“It’s an open invitation.”

“Fabián—”

He sets his spoon down, and the metal clinks against the bowl. “You want a specific date? Okay, how about tomorrow? Or better yet, any night this week that you want to come. We can alternate, Tuesday with my family and Wednesday with yours… if your mom would want me over.”

My eyes burn and I look down at my bowl immediately.

Absolutely not.

Not because he now wants to become some real couple that’s inseparable. He reaches across the table with his palm up, waiting to see if I take it. I put my hand over his, and his fingers close around mine.

Warm, callused, and steady.

It lasts almost ten seconds before I make a joke. That’s a personal record. Then I say, “So when I come to dinner, is your tío going to ask about my intentions?”