After Carmen came back to Chicago, it seemed like his sister Nat had one goal in mind.

She’d make them experience a peaceful family event.

After months of trying to convince everyone, Nat’s house was the venue for “The Beef’s Family and Friends Christmas”, as she called it. Everyone dressed (relatively) nice and fancy, prepared dinner actually together, and spent the evening and night with laughs and jokes. It was proof that even after everything, they had each other.

Now it was the next morning, and Carmen’s eyes bore into you as you two cleaned up the house. He started painstakingly sweeping the glitter and confetti scattered over the place, looking over at you as you put trash in bags.

You’d offered to stay after everyone left the next day, you and Carmen were close, best friends even, and inevitably, you and Nat were also close. Carmen knew that even if you weren’t close with either of them you’d stay to clean. That was just you, sweet, considerate, and selfless.

You were also a big reason as to why Carmen (for the first time) had a good— No, great time at Christmas. Admittedly, you two didn’t engage with the party after the first twenty minutes or so, instead opting to sit together in an armchair. Carmen took the arm rest, he said he was feeling selfless, but who is he kidding? The other way around put you almost on his lap, he would’ve freaked out.

The rest of the night, up until the countdown (and long after) was spent with you two in your own world, and it was the best start to the year. No, it would have been if he had kissed you.

So now, Carmen was smoldering, mad at himself for not kissing you at midnight as he swept around the living room. He had the perfect chance to kiss you, and he didn’t take it.

When he noticed he had basically been glaring at the floor for the past 10 minutes, he raised his head to look at you, finding you already looking at him. His expression faded into a small smile as he spoke to break the silence.

“It was a nice night. Nice fucking night.”