hey guys, it's my first story. I hope y'all enjoy! I'll post more storys about Pedro and May (plus Sean)
unfortunately i don't know how to draw but I'll post about their appearance soon-soon :)
There are certain foods people either love or hate, but when Pedro entered the equation, the result was always somewhere in between. He’d always been indifferent to whatever landed on his plate, caring only about the feeling of fullness afterward, never the taste. When you work as a detective, there’s not much room left to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. He never had a favorite dish; if you served him something, he’d eat it without much thought and forget about it the moment the plate was gone.
But this time was different.
He ate with genuine appetite, sampling every side dish as if he were tasting real food for the first time in his life. Pedro ate with unrestrained joy, and for the first time in a long while, the weight of the meal settling in his stomach felt oddly comforting.
Outside, night had fallen like a velvet blanket draped over Montville, and the sound of the waves breaking against the sand was music to the ears of the sleepy seaside town. The scent of salt and sea carried a sense of home, of quiet belonging. With the kitchen windows open, Pedro was doing the dinner dishes. He’d rolled his dress shirt sleeves up to his elbows to keep them dry, and loosened his belt by a notch to ease the tightness in his stomach.
A dish towel hung from one hand as he dried each plate and put it back where it belonged. He hummed some tune he barely remembered, keeping time with the rhythm of the waves hitting the rocks near the house. The lyrics, though—well, there wasn’t much to say about those except that they were completely wrong. May had once teased him that he’d bring about the end of days if he kept singing like that, back when they’d gone to karaoke together years ago. The memory made him smile. God, what a lucky man he was.
Then a pair of arms wrapped around his waist from behind, pulling a soft sigh out of him. A face pressed gently against his back, her cheeks brushing the muscles beneath his shirt. Her thumbs fiddled with the buttons, tracing them lazily as if deciding whether to undo them and reach the T-shirt underneath. The thought alone was enough to make Pedro blush. His skin felt warm. Sometimes he still felt like a teenager.
“I saw how much you ate today, you goof,” May murmured, her voice muffled against his back. Her hands stopped teasing his buttons and came to rest over his stomach. To make her point, she gave it a couple of playful pats. Pedro felt her quiet laugh puff warm against his back, gone as quickly as it came. “You didn’t have to stuff yourself just to make me happy, you know.”
Pedro finished putting a glass away in the cabinet and tossed the towel over his shoulder. He looked down at May’s delicate hands exploring the soft curve of his belly. That slight roundness—once firm and defined—was proof of how much he’d let her into his once-lonely life.
The thought took him back to his old apartment on the outskirts of Brooklyn. The place was tiny and it showed—built back when the neighborhood was still finding its feet. He remembered the old, silent feud with his upstairs neighbor, whose heavy footsteps could’ve brought the ceiling down any day. The apartment had smelled like age—mold, dust, and wood soaked in time. Back when he was just a forensic psychology student, he’d imagined all that would disappear once he set foot in America. It had been a rude awakening to learn that the so-called first world was really just a beautiful illusion. The great American dream, they called it. He thought of the lumpy old mattress that punished his back—the one he’d been too embarrassed to share with anyone—the table that doubled as a desk, the four mismatched chairs, and the dollar-store rug. How proud he’d been of his own misery.
Pedro placed his hands over May’s and laced his fingers through hers. He rubbed his thumb along her palm and smiled faintly when he saw the fine hairs on her arm rise at his touch.
“It was really good, babe. You’re an amazing cook. Right, Sean?”
He glanced over his shoulder toward the dining room, where a blond man was snoring softly in a chair, hands resting over his full stomach, completely surrendered to a food coma. Pedro smiled affectionately at his friend, and May followed his gaze.
Pedro shifted within her embrace and finally turned around to face her. Her flat stomach pressed gently against his rounded one. He slid his arms around her waist, pulling her close, anchoring her smaller frame against his own. May rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, their faces close enough to share a breath. Their noses brushed; their foreheads touched.
Up that close, May couldn’t miss the tiny sound caught in Pedro’s throat, the twitch at the corner of his mouth—and then, the small burp that escaped between them, a result of their tight embrace. She leaned back slightly, one eyebrow raised, though her arms stayed looped around his neck.
“Pedro Cortez,” she said, pretending to sound stern but fighting a grin. Pedro gave her a guilty little puppy look and buried his face in the curve of her neck.
“Wha?” he mumbled against her skin, his voice soft and lazy with exhaustion. He took one of her hands and placed it against the side of his belly, pressing it gently so she could feel its warm, firm softness. “Rub my stomach, please?”
“Not a chance, mister. You brought that on yourself.”
“I wasn’t the one who went back for thirds, Pedro.”
“Not my fault my wife’s a damn good cook.”
They both laughed quietly, like two kids sharing a secret. May rubbed his back affectionately, and in return Pedro let out a deep, gravelly burp that ended with a relieved sigh.
“Wow, that was a good one,” May said, patting his back as if burping a baby.
“Yeah, it was,” he murmured, a little out of breath. His eyelids felt heavy, and standing there in the kitchen was starting to feel like a chore. All he wanted was to lie down and spend the rest of the night in May’s arms. “Let’s go to bed?”
“What about Sean?” May asked—more out of politeness than concern. She wanted to go to bed too, and maybe give that full belly of his a gentle rub after all.
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
2087
annaxmalina
kaledo-art
andulkaphoto
