Elena’s mother tsked at her, but grabbed her apron off of the cabinet and pulled the spatula out of its pocket to point it at the two of them.
“You will both sit next to me at dinner. I will make sure you eat, and I want to hear all about classes and your exams.” Elena looked as if she wanted to protest, but María cut her off. “No excuses, Elena Maria!”
“Ay, Mama!” Elena exclaimed defensively. “We will sit next to you. School is not as interesting as you think it is, though.”
María raised her eyebrows at her daughter, and it was clear at that moment where Elena had gotten her spirit and facial expressions from.
“Bueno.” María whirled around and began directing Elena’s aunts and uncles again, like a conductor cueing instruments in a symphony. Elena shook her head at her mother’s back, then gestured for her awestruck friend to follow her out of the room.
Elena deftly wove through the crowds of her relatives, leading Cora by the hand again. It seemed the easiest way to not get separated - or at least a good excuse. In all honesty, neither one of them actually wanted to let go of the other, nor did they want to admit to that fact.
They found the platform that Cora had admired on the way in. There was an entire village there, complete with moving ice skaters, scaled down Christmas trees and itty bitty presents. All of it was so intricately designed that it took Cora’s breath away. She couldn’t even begin to think of how much work had gone into even the planning of a platform like this, let alone building and wiring it.
“This is Mama’s favorite part of Christmas,” Elena said quietly. “Mine too, honestly.”
“I can see why,” Cora murmured back. It was a work of art.
Elena glanced over her shoulder, checking to make sure the area behind her was clear. She squatted down and leaned over the village to right one of the skaters that had fallen off of its magnetic track on the rink.
“This guy always falls over. He has ever since I was small. We aren’t entirely sure why.” Elena dropped down from her squat and crossed her legs under her. She adjusted the skirt of her dress and patted the carpet next to her. “Sit, I’ll tell you all about the village.”
Cora agreed and knelt down next to the larger woman. She tucked her legs underneath her and adjusted her knee-length skirt around them.
The girls fell into quiet conversation. Elena explained the history of the village, pointing out which houses she loved best and why.
“My favorite is this one.” She pointed to a house nestled directly underneath the tree’s branches. It looked as if it was carved out of gingerbread.
“Papi told me that it was actually made out of gingerbread when we first got it. I think I was Sofía’s age at the time, and he managed to convince me that it was real.” She laughed and reached into the village to pull it out. “If you look carefully, you’ll see little teeth marks right here in the back corner.”
And she could, glancing at the corner of the ceramic house. The conversations and laughing around them fell into the background while they talked, only to be interrupted by the clanging of a loud bell.
Cora jumped at the sound, muttering a curse. She hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort.
“It’s dinner time,” Elena said, laughing heartily at her friend’s surprise. “That’s Mama’s way of announcing it. Gets your attention, doesn’t it?”
“You could’ve warned me.” Cora glared at her playfully and began to pull herself up. As she stood, she caught a glimpse of a small clump of foliage hanging from the ceiling.
Elena pulled herself up using the armchair next to her and fluttered her skirt to get the wrinkles out. When she was finished, she found Cora staring at the ceiling.
“What are we looking at?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
“Is that holly? Or is it -” Cora tilted her head and squinted at the burst of green hanging from the ceiling, red berries scattered throughout. “It’s mistletoe, isn’t it?”
Elena glanced behind them furtively. Most of the family had disappeared into the large dining room.
“It is, in fact, mistletoe,” Elena admitted, her tawny skin turning pink. “Mamá always puts it there.”
Cora dropped her chin and squinted at Elena for a moment before her face lit up with a smile.
“So you think you’re sneaky, huh? If you wanted to kiss me, all you had to do was ask, Elena.”
Elena’s face turned even redder, and she muttered something.
“What was that?” Cora stepped closer to the larger woman, her face mere inches from Elena’s. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and her thoughts were taken over by one continuous scream of joy at the thought of kissing Elena.
“I didn’t know if you’d say yes,” Elena muttered again. Cora’s lips parted slightly, and she leaned even closer.
“How’s this for a yes?” Cora asked softly.
Elena blinked and softly touched her lips to Cora’s.
It was the perfect movie kiss. Cora wrapped her arms around Elena’s silk-wrapped waist and tilted her head just enough to deepen the kiss.
Elena sucked Cora’s bottom lip into her mouth, and the world around them disappeared. Neither of them could have told you how long they were there, wrapped around each other.
Until they were interrupted by someone clearing their throat a few feet away. The women leaped apart and looked to where the sound had come from. Their chests were heaving slightly and both women tried to calm their breathing and their bright red faces. Elena’s mother stood in the doorway, spatula in hand, with an eyebrow raised above a mischievous smile.
“It’s time for dinner, you two.”
The rest of the party had been as much of a whirlwind as the beginning. Cora was pretty sure she’d made semi-interesting conversation at dinner with Elena’s mother and family, but she couldn’t have told anyone what they’d talked about if someone had threatened her life for it.
Cora wrapped her arms around herself, weaving her fingers through the scratchy mesh of her shrug. Every now and then, she stole glances at Elena, who seemed focused on backing out of the packed driveway. Cora reached over and turned the heat on, hoping to make the car warm up quickly.
Elena caught one of the glances as she looked over her shoulder. All of Elena’s relatives had parked at angles they must have practiced that made it just barely possible to get out without hitting one of them, or one of the trees.
“Everything okay?” Elena asked, not taking her eyes off her back windshield. “Other than you being cold, I mean.”
Cora hated to be cold, and she wasn’t shy about making it known to anyone and everyone who was in her presence while she was cold. Elena had jokingly guessed it was because she was so petite and had no hair to keep all of the hot air in her head.
Cora stuck out her tongue at the larger woman with a smile in her eyes. Elena’s mouth quirked up into a smile, though her eyes were still focused on driving.
“So your family is a bit different than I expected,” Cora ventured after a few moments. “You really act like you feel comfortable around them? I didn’t expect that, with all the wailing about your family visiting.”
“They aren’t the worst,” Elena admitted. “Most of my complaining is about them not planning anything ahead of time. I love most of them dearly, but they’re so bad at planning.”
“I can see why that would bother you, with you being as organized as you are. It’s gotta be a struggle when your whole family is so different from you.”
“Yeah, but they were cool about the whole being into women thing so I can deal with them being poor planners,” Elena said with a slight laugh. “At least they aren’t assholes. Small favors, right?”
“That’s always a plus.” Cora smiled. The car was finally starting to warm up a little bit as they left the neighborhood, and Cora unfolded her arms slightly. “Sweet beautiful heat.”
“You wouldn’t be so cold if you’d worn a hat,” Elena needled her, reminding her that she�
��d told her she’d need one before they’d left.
Cora rolled her eyes and didn’t dignify the teasing with a response.
“If only you didn’t care about messing up what little hair you have….”
“Yeah yeah,” Cora said, rolling her eyes again. “Alas, I picked good hair, so I could make a good first impression on your family.”
“Between that and freezing to death?”
“Yes. I’d rather freeze to death than have them think I had bad hair,” Cora said, recognizing the ridiculousness in her statement. She also totally meant it.
Elena threw her head back and laughed. It was a rolling belly laugh that Cora wanted to last forever. Elena couldn’t see it, but Cora’s skin was glowing pink as she watched the girl she’d kissed earlier that evening with delight.
Honestly, she was impressed that Elena could laugh that deeply and still drive in a straight line. If she’d tried, she would have been swerving all over the road.
Once her laughs finally subsided into a wide grin, Cora looked at her sideways.
“I totally meant it.”
“This is definitely why I keep you around,” Elena said with a giggle. She was almost to the exit that would take Cora back to her apartment, and Cora was almost disappointed the night had to end.
“Tonight was a lot of fun,” Cora said softly, her eyes still on Elena. “Your family seems awesome.”
Elena flicked her eyes at the smaller girl and looked back at the highway.
“I hope you’ll get to see more of them in smaller doses,” she answered in a voice almost as soft as Cora’s. “Mamá and Papi at least.”
“I hope so too.”
The girls let the conversation trail off in the last few minutes in the car together. As the road rushed by, Elena kept glancing over at the emerald-clad girl in her passenger seat with what looked like worry in her eyes but didn’t say anything for a few minutes.
“Look—“ Elena said after a few minutes.
“I think—“ Cora said at the same time. They both laughed awkwardly.
“I’ll go first,” Elena said decidedly, her eyes staying fixed firmly on the road. “We should probably talk about the kiss from earlier, and what it means for us. But I don’t think it should be tonight, cause I’m tired, and I think you’re burnt out on people.”
Cora nodded, and a single curl flopped forward.
“So we’ll talk about it tomorrow?” She asked a little bit of anxiety threading through her voice.
“If that’s okay?” Elena nodded as if she wasn’t entirely sure of herself.
“Well, all right then,” Cora said, and within a minute, they were sitting in front of her apartment building. “So I’ll text you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Elena said with a smile. “Text me when you’re up in the morning.”
Chapter 6
The next morning, Elena found herself pacing and talking to herself in her pristine living room.
“What if she felt pressured to kiss me, 'cause of the mistletoe? What if I screwed everything up? I know she said she liked me too, but what if I ruined everything?”
With every question she asked herself, she felt like one of those youtube videos that sped up every time a certain word was said. Making a disgusted noise, she picked up her phone, intending to call Cora and put some action to her anxiety, but her heart leaped at the sight of a text from Cora.
“Gracias a Dios,” she muttered. “If she’s texting, she probably doesn’t hate me. Entirely. She might only hate me a little.”
Ugh. Why did her brain always have to spiral into the unreasonable? Elena rubbed her phone on the leg of her pajama pants and typed a good morning text of her own.
Looking at it before she hit send, she added an exclamation point and a smiling and blushing emoji. She reread the message a few more times for good measure, then nodded at her phone while she hit send. The whoosh sound that accompanied it set the butterflies to fluttering in her stomach.
“I am a damn mess,” Elena muttered, shaking her head. “I can’t live like this. I need to get dressed and bake something.”
Elena flounced around the counter into the kitchen, her satin nightgown swooshing around her.
The cold washed over her as she opened the fridge to see what she had. She popped open the carton of eggs and was happy to see she had half a dozen left. Today would be a good day for a brioche. The egg bread would be a sweet addition to the morning and was complicated enough to keep her mind off of her romance.
Elena closed the fridge and slid her phone back open.
“I’m making brioche, wanna come over?” she typed. She hit send without worrying about an emoji. Cora loved bread, especially fresh bread. Elena knew that would bring her over, as long as she wasn’t upset.
Elena’s phone dinged. Looking at it, the text read, “Be there in an hour with raspberry preserves. Better make extra!”
“Bring me some eggs, then. It’s gonna be a process - brioche dough has to chill for 6 hours.”
“Then I’m bringing soda and a book, too.”
Elena smiled, and turned back to the kitchen, grabbing her apron as she walked. With a much lighter sigh, she got to work.
Cora knocked on the apartment door almost exactly an hour later, just as Elena was putting the bowl of dough into the fridge to rest.
“Come in!” Elena yelled, wiping her doughy hands on her apron. It didn’t do much good. Brioche dough was incredibly sticky before it cooled, thanks to all of the eggs in the batter.
Cora flung the door open dramatically. It bounced against the doorstep, and swung back towards her, hitting her squarely on her hip.
“Well, that backfired,” she said with a laugh. “At least it didn’t hit the eggs. Then we would have had to make omelets!”
Closing the door fully behind her, Cora walked into the kitchen, the grocery store bag swinging on her arm.
“You good over there?” Elena asked skeptically. “Hand me the eggs before you break them, woman. You’re scaring me.”
Cora stuck her tongue out at Elena but handed her the bag anyway. Elena turned and put the preserves in the fridge, keeping the eggs handy on the counter.
“Can you do me a favor?” Elena asked, showing off her doughy hands. “Can you grab the red mixing bowl out of the cupboard there? My hands are too gooey.”
“Yeah, of course,” Cora answered. Her fingertips grazed Elena’s love handles as she maneuvered past her in the kitchen, making Elena jump. Even after the brief touch had ended, Elena could feel it lingering on her sides.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to freak you out,” Cora apologized quickly. “It’s just tight quarters in here, and you got flour on the side of the counter.”
“It’s okay,” Elena said, chewing her lip. “I just wasn’t expecting you to touch me, since…” She trailed off, unsure if she wanted to be as straightforward as she was being. “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it.
“Since I didn’t say anything last night, right?” Cora finished for her, looking her in the eye. “I thought that might be a problem. Sometimes when my emotions get involved - when I get really angry or really upset about something or really happy, it’s just… It’s a lot easier for me to write things down? So when you invited me, I wrote this. So, um, here,” she finished, feeling her face flush. She pulled a folded piece of stationery out of her back jeans pocket and set it on the counter between them
“I’ll, um, let you read that in private. I left my purse in the car.” Cora all but sprinted out of the apartment. Elena watched her go, a little bit stunned. Her purse was on the counter right next to the carton of eggs.
“I guess I’ll read this then.” Elena’s still doughy hands stuck lightly to the stationery, which made unfolding the note more difficult than it should have been.
Once it was finally unfolded, Elena saw that it was only a few sentences in Cora’s beautiful cursive.
“I think you are absolutely wonderful, and I would love to pursue a relations
hip with you if that’s what you want. I’m ace and sex is kind of a big deal for a lot of people. I hope it isn’t a big deal for you. If not, I can make myself content with being your friend.
XO
Cora”
Elena realized the note was the grown-up version of a “do you like me” note from elementary school and couldn’t resist a giggle. She set the note on the counter, and wiped her hands on her apron as she went for the door - Cora couldn’t have gone far.
Opening the door, she found Cora leaning against the railing of the walkway, studiously staring at her phone. The angle she held her phone at showed that she was just staring at the home screen of her phone, pretending to be busy.
“C’mere, you goose,” Elena said with a smile. “Stop playing busy and get back in here.”
Cora blushed at getting caught, but followed Elena back into the apartment, closing the door behind her.
“So, you read it?” She asked, chewing lightly on the inside of her mouth.
“I read it,” Elena confirmed, desperately wanting to hold Cora. “You know I don’t care that you don’t want sex, right? That’s so not a deal breaker for me. Especially if the deal is you being a part of my life.”
“I just…” Cora trailed off, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Her eyes welled up. “It’s been an issue before, and you’re way too important as a part of my life for it to be an issue.”
“It isn’t an issue for me,” Elena assured the small woman. “Sex is just sex. Time spent with you is a gift.”
The tears that had been welling up in Cora’s eyes began to spill over.
“Can I hug you right now?” she asked, looking like she desperately needed it.
Elena took off her apron and wrapped her up in a hug without hesitation.
Cora’s chin fell right in Elena’s cleavage, but neither of them seemed to care at that moment.
“Well this moved quickly, didn’t it?” Elena joked softly.
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