Acatl has beautiful hands. He has beautiful everything, really—face, body, heart, smile, and gods those thighs—but if you held a knife to Teomitl’s throat and forced him to pick, he’d probably say he loves the man’s hands the most. They’re narrow and long-fingered and elegant, striped with scars from his bloodletting, and he’s amazingly good with them whether he’s holding a knife or...

Well. Other things. And as much as Teomitl would normally love to dwell on those other things, right now he can’t really afford the distraction because Acatl is teaching him to wrap tamales. “The extent of my culinary expertise,” he’d said with familiar dry self-deprecation, but since Teomitl’s own cooking skills start and end with grilling things on sticks he’s looking forward to learning something new.

Scoop the filling onto the wet maize husk. Fold it carefully—carefully. Acatl’s so gentle with it. Tie it with a thin strip of the same corn husk, just to make sure it stays in place. Teomitl can’t believe he doesn’t break it.

“Now you try,” he says, and smiles.

Teomitl looks down at his own hands and the stack of maize husks in front of him. It can’t be that hard. He was paying attention, even if his mind’s eye is still mostly full of long brown fingers instead of the maize husks they were holding.

But just in case he could use the luck, he steals a quick kiss anyway.