That’s the one that no matter how I imagine it, will never work. They can never be in the same room together. Eliot can never figure out who my brother is.

I rest my head on the steering wheel at a stoplight.

If Jack hadn’t done what he did, would I have already told Eliot who I am? Would we have already made plans to meet up? Would we have gone on a date? Kissed already?

Would I have a future with this guy I have such a monumental crush on?

I park the car back at Pops’s apartment and pull out my phone. I go to Eliot’s contact information and just look at it. My urge is to call him.

But I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. There are only very small parts of Eliot Hoffman that I’ll ever be allowed to have. And honestly, I should learn to be grateful for what I’ve got.

Chapter Thirteen

Eliot

The minute, no, the second I finish work, I’m up out of my chair and ripping at my dress shirt like I’m Clark Kent mid-transformation. I shrug into a sweatshirt and jeans and grab my keys and wallet. I have to get out of my apartment ASAP before I do something stupid. Like call JD thirty times in a row until she answers.

She hasn’t called me since the night at the club and it’s been a few days and I might be, ya know, starting to lose my marbles over it. I really, really don’t want to push her, but I also really, really want to talk to her. So, I decide to take a stroll through my neighborhood in an attempt to control my baser urges. She’ll call me when she wants to call me.

I’m three blocks from my building, hands in my pockets, when I back up a few steps and peek into the window of a Mexican restaurant I just passed by. I’m squinting at my sister hunched over the bar, pecking away at her phone with one hand and chewing on the fingernails of her other hand. We live in the same neighborhood, so I’m not completely shocked to see her, but it’s always strange to unexpectedly observe someone you know out in the wild. For a moment, I see Vera through the eyes of a stranger. There are lines of worry on her face, lit blue by the glow of her phone, and there’s a plate of tacos going ignored next to her. This . . . does not look healthy.