Bubbly, salty, lime-y michelada goes up my nose, and for a moment, I think I might have done permanent damage to my . . . whatever you call those. My olfactory thingies. By the time I’ve finished getting the drink out of my nose, Vera is halfway through the tacos that have just been delivered to her and she seems to have regained some of her humor. She’s peering at me with one raised eyebrow.

“You all right there?”

“Did you just refer to me as the perfect one?” I am seriously unsure if I heard her right.

“It’s a shame there are only two of us,” she says. “It’s constantly a direct comparison. There’s Mr. Perfect and Ms. Cut-Up. If we had another sibling, maybe there’d be some middle ground.” She gets a dreamy expression on her face. “I’d love to live in the middle ground. Sounds like heaven.”

I’m blinking at her, trying to process this line of thought. “You’re referring to me as Mr. Perfect and you as Ms. Cut-Up?”

She fiddles with the decoratively cut radish on the side of her plate. “I guess I’m just wondering what would happen if I . . . started doing better. If my business took off. You think there’s room for both of us to be perfect? Or would one of us get bumped down automatically? You know . . .” She lowers her voice menacingly. “There can only be one.”

I laugh, but it’s only cursory. I kind of can’t believe what I’m hearing right now. “Vera . . .”

Just then her phone buzzes in her hand, and she gets that line of concern between her brows again. “Shoot. It’s the organizer. I hate to dine and dash, but . . .”

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Go ahead.”

She reaches for cash in her purse but I frown and give her a playful shove toward the door. I’m not trying to be patronizing, but I’m her big brother and there are some things I like to do for her. I can buy my baby sister some tacos every once in a while.

She leaves, answering the phone as she gets onto the sidewalk, and I watch her go. I sit at the bar on my own for a long time.

Mr. Perfect.

A blooper reel of my own life is playing in my mind.

I laugh and shake my head. If only Vera knew.

Chapter Fourteen

“Hey! JD!”

“Hey, dude.”

“How are you? How have you been? I didn’t hear from you for a couple nights. I was starting to wonder if everything was all right.”

“If you were worried, then why didn’t you call me instead?”

“Well, I wondered if I’d pushed it too far with the club thing. I know that I can be kind of, I don’t know, intense. And I wanted to give you some space. To make sure you didn’t feel too pressed.”