Page 60 of Raspados & Regret

“Mm.” He wipes a red streak from a bottle. “I don’t think that’s why.”

“Elías—”

He looks at me through his glasses. The lights catch in the lenses, then his mouth curves just enough to be dangerous.

“What?” he asks.

I can still hear his text.

Then finish it.

My body remembers before my brain can stop it.

My tía walks past us carrying a stack of empty cups. “Fabián, take the trash to the dumpster before the bags leak.”

Perfect.

A task. Trash is good. Trash is safe. Trash does not have glasses or a tongue ring.

I grab the two tied bags from under the back table. “Fine.”

Elías immediately reaches for a third bag. “I’ll help.”

“No.”

“You need help,” he says, looking over the four bags. “You can’t take all four at once.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You got two hands. There are four bags.” He chuckles. “I know it’s been awhile since school, but that math still ain’t mathing.”

“I can count.” I suck in a breath.

“Proud of you, Papi.”

His mother says, “Elías, take two of the bags.”

He smiles at me like he won something, and I walk away before I say anything in front of his mother and my tía that will get me exorcised. The dumpsters sit behind the row of food trailers near the back fence, where the market noise dulls into bass, generators, and muffled voices. The air smells like oil, sugar, and warm rotting trash. Romantic as hell. A security light buzzes above us as the trailers cast long shadows across the cracked pavement.

I drop the bags into the open dumpster, and Elías tosses his in after mine. The lid slams, and then there’s silence.

Not real silence because the market still lives on the other side of the trailers. Music. People. Laughter.

But here, behind the trailers, everything feels cut off.

Smaller.

Hotter.

Elías turns to me, and I already know what’s about to happen. I feel it before he opens his mouth, and that stupid wire between us goes tight. He pushes his glasses up with one finger. “You’ve been kinda quiet tonight.”

I snort. “I’ve been working.”

“You’ve been staring.”

I step closer. “You’ve been trying to get stared at.”

He laughs once, low. “Maybe.”