I stretch, checking my phone. It’s almost five and I’m sitting on a couch in a coffee shop, waiting for Emma to turn up. She’s only about ten minutes late, which is par for the course with her. I glance around at the shop, which is mostly empty.

“Sir?” a young woman asks, catching me by surprise. She’s the same woman that made my latte when I first got here, over an hour ago. “We’re actually going to close a little early, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure, yeah.” I get up, grabbing my backpack and my empty latte cup.

“I’ll take that,” she says, whisking the cup out of my hands. “Have a nice day!”

I nod, heading out of the shop. I have to give it to the barista, I’ve never been told to fuck off in such a nice way before.

As I step outside into the breezy summer afternoon, Emma comes rushing up to me. She is wearing a slinky little white sundress, baring a good amount of cleavage and leg, which to me makes up for her lateness.

“Sorry I’m late!!” she apologizes. “I swear, I left my house at a reasonable time…”

“It doesn’t really matter. The coffee shop is closing early, so we’re free agents now.”

“Really?” Emma peers in the coffee shop’s window, as if I might be wrong.

I shade my eyes. “Yeah. Listen, I’m starving. Are you hungry enough to eat?”

“Uhhh…” She seems indecisive. “Aren’t we going to study?”

“Totally. I just thought since we are right here, we might as well go to Casa Carne, because it’s just across the street. They have the best fucking tacos, I swear.”

She flips back her long dark hair. “Yeah, I guess that’s okay.”

“Come on. I feel like you probably haven’t even had any real food today.” I look both ways before I start to cross the street. “Right?”

She goes pink, rushing to follow me. “Maybe.”

Once we’re across the street, I slow down, out of respect for the fact that she is so much shorter than me. I look for the festive red green and white flag, which is the only thing that denotes that the taco truck even exists.

“Is this it?” she asks, wrinkling her nose.

“Don’t make that face,” I tell her, sidling up to the cart’s open window.

“The menu is all in Spanish!” she protests.

“Trust me, okay? I’ll order for you. You don’t eat chicken, beef, or pork, right?”

She gives me a long look, then slowly nods. “Yeah…”

“Hola,” I say, greeting the middle aged guy who runs the cart. “Que pasa?”

“De nada,” the guy says, his voice surprisingly deep. “What will you have?”

“Let me get the chilaquiles, two barbacoa tacos, and two tinga tacos. A tofu taco for her… and two of the vegetarian pupusas. Oh, and let me also get two Cokes.” I glance behind me, and see a little patio setup that is currently empty. “For here, please.”

“You got it. That’s gonna be… twenty two dollars.”

We exchange currency, with me leaving a fat tip in the tip bucket. He hands me the Cokes, after he uncaps the bottles. He starts cooking, and I point to the two little tables.

“Your choice,” I tell her.

She chooses one of the tables, and I sit down in a plastic chair across from her. I pass her Coke over, and she takes a long sip. She settles down, considering me.

“You come here often?”

I slide my backpack to the floor. “Not often enough. I love the food though. It’s the food that I almost spent my life making.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah. I had two job opportunities at the same time. One was bar-backing at a dive bar. The other was working at a place just like this. I often wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t chosen the job I did.”

Emma considers that for a minute. “I feel like you would’ve been successful no matter what industry you chose. You just bring a certain passion to any job, and customers can tell. That’s what makes you succeed.”

I frown. “I don’t know about all of that.”

She rolls her eyes. “Take it from me, okay? I’m telling you. You’re smart, and you’re a go-getter.”

I clear my throat a little. “I mean, I’m only doing well because your brother thought he should invest in the business.”

“My brother was the lucky one, Jameson. If he didn’t invest in you, someone else would have, for sure. The reason that Asher has good business sense is because he is smart enough to see as opportunity when it’s right in front of his dumb face.”

She takes another long pull on the Coke, her throat working delicately. As she crosses her long legs, I tamp down any reaction I feel, either about her looking so good or about her compliments.

Instead, I change the subject.

“Do you ever think, if I hadn’t gone to law school, what would I do?” I ask.

At that moment, the food cart guy comes over, his arms loaded down with plates. “Hot food, okay?”

“Thanks,” I say, my mouth watering when I get a whiff of the barbacoa beef and chicken tinga.

“Omigod, look at all of this!” Emma exclaims. “It looks amazing.”

I set us each up a plate, dividing the tacos and the pupusas. The chilaquiles I put between us, letting the mixture of eggs, peppers and onions, and tortilla strips cool down to earthly temperatures.

She takes a bite of the tinga taco, and then moans loudly. “This is so good!!”

I take a bite of my pupusa, savoring the corn tortilla and the cheesy filling. She’s right, it’s just as phenomenal as I thought it would be.

We eat for a minute, our mouths too full to bother with words.

“You didn’t answer my question from before,” I point out, sipping my Coke. “What would you be if you weren’t a lawyer in training?”

“Mmm! I don’t know.” She wrinkles her nose. “I feel like I was set on this path from a young age. I had the option of being a lawyer, or a housewife. And fuck being a housewife, you know?”

She takes a forkful of the chilaquiles, mmming her appreciation.

“Alright, but if you could be anything at all. You could design rockets or make clothes or… anything. What would you be?”

She takes a huge bite of her tofu taco, and takes a minute to chew. “Hmmm. I think I’d be a veterinarian, maybe? I really love animals a lot.”

That surprises me. “Yeah? I’ve never seen you own a pet, I don’t think.”

She wags a finger at me. “That’s because I don’t mess with small animals. No, I’d be a large animal vet. Horses, cows… maybe bison and deer.”

“Really? Man, I can’t see you doing that.”

She chuckles. “Yeah, well. I love riding horses. I did dressage all through school. Even into college, as a matter of fact.”

“What the fuck is dressage?” I ask, imagining something that involves dresses.

“It’s horseback riding. You know, English saddles, women wearing knee-length leather boots. Horses with their manes braided. All that jazz.”

I just grunt, looking at her. I can see it though. A girl with her background riding horses makes a lot of sense to me.

“Don’t give me that look,” she accuses me. “Every single girl in my class did dressage.”

I just eat my pupusa and keep my thoughts to myself.

“Hey, do you remember the Halloween that you and Asher took me and my friends trick or treating?” Emma asks, pushing her mostly finished plate away.

“Of course I remember,” I say. “You were a fancy lady, if I recall.”

Her dimples flash. “I was the historical figure of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the first leaders of the women’s rights movement.”

I shake my head, balling up a napkin and tossing it on my plate. “You’ll have to go easy on me. Remember, I dropped out of school. I’m fucking dumb, and I always will be.”

I expect her to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t. Instead, she grows solemn for a minute.

“You are not dumb. Seriously, you’re so smart. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said you would be successful no matter what you did.”

I roll my eyes, my face heating. “Don’t say that.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I know that you’re doing it to be nice, but it’s still a bunch of bullshit.”

She seems taken aback by that. “No, it’s not. I’m being completely honest. You might have dropped out, but I’ve seen your bookshelf at your house. Shakespeare, Herman Melville, David Foster Wallace… that is not what a stupid person reads, okay?”

I just wave her away. I know what’s true and what’s false, and the line she keeps repeating about my intelligence is just not true. “Alright. Whatever. Let’s talk about something else.”

Emma sighs. “Okay. What do you want to talk about, then?”

“Uhhh…” I wrack my brain for something else to talk about. I finally come up with something, but when I say it aloud, it sounds super lame. “How are your parents?”

There’s a palpable tension in the air. Not so much between me and Emma, but between her and her parents. I notice that she straightens her spine a little and clears her throat.

“They’re fine. They are… they’re trying to encourage me to date people that they approve of.” She looks down, fidgeting with the hem of her sundress.

“Oh.” I’m not sure how to respond to that. “Any luck so far?”

I watch her expressive face grow quietly sad. It’s painful to watch. Painful to be part of a conversation where she talks about dating people who aren’t me.

I know that I should be the only one she thinks of. She knows it too.

But to preserve our fragile truce, neither of us says it.

She keeps her eyes on the hem of her dress. “Not really. There are a few guys that my mother thinks will be a good match, whatever that means.”

“That’s… good.” I honestly can’t think of anything else to say.

“What about you?” she asks, looking up at me.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean like… you know. Who are you dating?”

Something like hope shimmers in those emerald green eyes of hers.

“No one.” I shift in my seat, beyond uncomfortable with this line of questioning. What I want to say, what I should say, is there will never be anyone else for me but you.

But I don’t. She bites her bottom lip.

“I see.”

I really doubt that she does, but I’m eager to let it go.

“Are you ready to go find somewhere to study?” I ask, getting to my feet. I start to gather the paper plates on the table.

“Sure,” she says. I glance at her, and I can see that something is weighing on her. But I don’t want to talk about any of it anymore.

So I throw the paper plates out and thank the food cart dude. Then I lead Emma back out onto the street.