Not the proposal. Not the heat. The stop. The choice. The way he holds himself still inside me, shaking, waiting, letting my answer matter more than what his body wants.
“Not because of Carmen,” I whisper.
“No.”
“Not because you’re scared.”
“I’m scared as fuck,” he says. “But no. Because I love you. Because I choose you when the room is watching and when nobody is. Because I should have asked before there was blood at the door, but I’m asking now with all of mine on the table.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
I hate it.
He kisses it.
I hate that more.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His whole body goes still.
Then his face breaks open in a way I have never seen. Not soft. Diablo is never soft. But open. Wounded. Mine.
“Yes?” he asks.
I cup his face. “Yes. But if you ever try to make me a prisoner in the name of being your wife, I will divorce you, take the bird, and teach him to say your dick is small.”
Behind him, Disco screams, “¡Pendejo!”
Diablo closes his eyes like he is praying for patience from a God who has already abandoned him to women and birds.
Then he laughs.
Then he kisses me.
Then he starts moving again, and the laugh turns into something darker.
He takes me over the edge with my name in his mouth and his hands locked on my hips. I come apart hard enough that the office disappears, that Carmen disappears, that every white rose in Miami burns down to ash behind my eyes. He follows with a rough groan against my throat, holding me like I’m not fragile, but precious. There is a difference.
After, we stay tangled on the desk, breathing like sinners after confession.
Disco mutters from his perch, “Pretty.”
I turn my face into Diablo’s chest and laugh until I almost cry.
Diablo kisses the top of my head. “I’m getting that bird a muzzle.”
“You’re not.”
“He witnessed too much.
“He witnessed a proposal. He is family.”
“He called me pendejo during a life milestone.”
“He was accurate.”
A knock hits the door.
