Tamales at Midnight

Tamales a Medianoche

The tamalada was in full swing when he walked through my mother's kitchen door.

"¡Alejandro!" My mom rushed over to embrace him like he was her own son. "You made it! Lucía, look who's here!"

I looked up from the masa I was spreading, corn husk in hand, and tried to act like my heart wasn't attempting to escape my chest.

"Hola," I said flatly.

"Hola yourself." He smiled—that damned smile that had haunted me since last New Year's when we'd kissed under fireworks and I'd pretended it never happened.

"Your mother invited me," he said, sliding into the seat next to mine. "Said she needed more hands."

"We have plenty of hands."

"She said you specifically needed help with the masa."

"I've been making tamales since I was five."

"Then teach me." He picked up a corn husk. "I'm terrible at this."

He wasn't lying. His first attempt looked like a crime scene—masa everywhere, filling spilling out, corn husk torn.

"Madre de Dios," I muttered. "Let me show you."

I stood behind him, guiding his hands the way my grandmother had guided mine.

"Spread it thin," I instructed. "Like this. Not too much or it gets doughy."

"Your hands are warm," he said quietly.

"Focus."

"I'm focused." But his voice had dropped an octave. "On you."

"Alejandro..."

"You've been avoiding me for a year, Lucía. Every time I come over, you disappear. Every time I try to talk—"

"Now isn't the time." I stepped back. "My whole family is here."

But they weren't paying attention. They were too busy with their own stations—my tías gossiping over the chicken filling, my cousins assembling at the far end, my mother stirring atole on the stove.

"Then when?" he pressed. "When is the time? Because I've been waiting a year to ask you why you ran away that night."

"I didn't run away."

"You literally ran. Into your house. And didn't speak to me for months."

I focused on my tamal with unnecessary intensity. "It was a mistake."

"It didn't feel like a mistake."

"Lucía!" My mother appeared with two cups of champurrado. "Take a break. Both of you. You've been working for hours."

She shooed us out to the backyard, where strings of lights turned the garden into something magical. The December air was cool but not cold—Texas winter at its finest.

"So," Alejandro said, sitting on the porch swing. "Want to keep avoiding the topic, or..."

"What do you want me to say?" I sat beside him, leaving careful space between us. "That I've thought about that kiss every day? That I was scared because you actually mean something to me?"

"That would be a start."

"You're my neighbor, Alejandro. My family loves you. If we do this and it goes wrong—"

"What if it goes right?"

"What?"

"What if we do this and it's everything we've both been pretending not to want?" He closed the space between us. "What if running away was the real mistake?"

"You're very confident."

"I've had a year to think about it." His hand found mine. "A year of watching you through windows, seeing you leave rooms when I enter, feeling like I'm losing something I never had."

"We shouldn't—"

He kissed me before I could finish. Softer than last time, like he was asking permission. When I kissed back, he pulled me onto his lap like he'd been waiting for exactly that.

"Alejandro," I gasped. "My family—"

"Is inside. And if they look out, they'll see exactly what they've been hoping for."

"What?"

"Your mother invited me, Lucía. Do you really think that was an accident?" He laughed softly. "She's been trying to set us up for years. She told me tonight that if I didn't make a move, she'd do it for me."

"I'm going to kill her."

"After the tamales. They're too good to risk." He kissed my throat. "Now can we stop pretending you don't want this?"

"I want this." I admitted it like a confession. "I've wanted this since you moved in three years ago."

"Three years?"

"Don't let it go to your head."

"Too late." He grinned against my skin. "Way too late."

We snuck upstairs to my old bedroom while the tamalada continued below. The sounds of family—laughter, Spanish, Christmas music—filtered up through the floor as we created our own celebration.

"They're going to notice we're gone," I panted.

"Your mother's covering for us. She winked at me on the way up."

"This is so embarrassing."

"This is perfect." He kissed me deeply. "You're perfect. Now stop talking and let me show you how long I've been waiting."

He showed me. Thoroughly.

We returned to the kitchen an hour later, disheveled and obvious.

"Mira nada más," my aunt said knowingly. "Los tortolitos finally figured it out."

"About time," my mother added, not looking up from her pot. "I was running out of excuses to invite him over."

"Mamá!"

"What? A mother knows. Now come help finish these tamales. We have two hundred more to make, and you can make eyes at each other while you work."

We made tamales until 3 AM, Alejandro's hand finding mine under the table whenever he could. By the time the last one was wrapped, we'd been teased by every aunt, interrogated by every uncle, and officially declared a couple by my grandmother's proclamation.

"Merry Christmas," Alejandro whispered as we watched the sunrise from the porch.

"Merry Christmas." I leaned into him. "Next year, you're helping with all two hundred tamales. No sneaking off."

"I'll make five hundred if it means I get to spend every Christmas with you."

"Deal."

Tamales have always been about family.

Now my family had one more member to love.