Page 20 of Just Another Meet Cute

Arrogant.

Wham!

Irritating.

Wham!

Conceited. Ass.

Linh’s eyebrows rose higher and higher as she watched me pound at the dough on the counter. Finally, she pushed my hands away with a heavy sigh. “I asked you to help me knead the dough. Not murder it.”

I brushed my bangs off my forehead with my arm since my hands were covered with flour. “What do you mean?”

“I mean—” She poked at the dough with her finger and it didn’t budge. “Unless you want my customers to break their teeth biting into this, I think you should have stopped ten minutes ago.”

With a frown, I glanced over at her perfectly bouncy, pillowy dough. In comparison, my dough looked like a dry pile of Play-Doh that had been left out a few hours. “Sorry, I guess I got a little carried away.”

“Really carried away. Hopefully I can still revive it later. If not, then half the lunch boxes will get plain toast tomorrow. Hopefully no one complains, because I don’t have extra money for refunds this week.

” She carefully wrapped both of the mounds of dough up and placed them in separate bowls before stowing them away in the fridge.

Three times a week, Linh made boxed lunches to sell. At first, she just made a box or two for Aunt Sarah and her friends from work, but soon it grew into a full-fledged side business as she cooked for the entire accounting department and a couple of neighbors.

Sometimes it felt like all she did was cook or work to buy fancy gadgets and groceries. But Linh never seemed to mind, since it all brought her one step closer to her dream.

I wish I had her focus and drive, but there was no point if there was nowhere to drive to. I felt like I was on a road trip with no road signs or GPS. And my empty gas light just turned on.

“They wouldn’t dare complain. Everyone loves your cooking.”

“I hope so, because I don’t exactly have a plan B.” Her voice was a little high-pitched and was missing that overconfident smugness that she usually had seventy-five percent of the day.

That was weird. With concern, I leaned against the counter toward her. “What do you mean?”

She paused with one hand still on the fridge.

“Everyone knows that cooking is my thing and I love it. But half the time, I feel like I don’t really know how to do anything else.

And if for some reason this doesn’t work out, or if I don’t get that internship next year …

I honestly don’t know what I would do next. ”

This was the first time that I ever heard Linh sound so vulnerable.

She always complained that she couldn’t cook without me, but I never thought that she ever actually doubted her own talent.

Or what it meant to fail at something you want.

Maybe having a passion in life wasn’t always so great after all.

“You don’t have anything to worry about. Your cooking is awesome.” My smile widened as I crossed my arms. “There’s a reason I’m never hungry whenever you’re around. Your food is too irresistible.”

“Thanks. Live for nothing or die for something, right?” After quoting one of our favorite Stallone lines, she let out an airy laugh and straightened.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just anxious about my biscuits.

” With her arms crossed, she leaned one shoulder against the refrigerator.

“Which reminds me, do you want to tell me why you’re treating my poor dough like your own personal punching bag? ”

Even though I knew she was deliberately changing the subject, I let out a deep sigh. “Do you even need to ask?”

“Does it start with an I and rhyme with bein’ ?”

I gave her a skeptic look as I headed over to the sink. “Bein’?”

“Yep. Like you’re bein’ crazy,” she said before sticking her tongue out. “I dare you to find another word that rhymes with his name.”

Challenge accepted. “European. Korean. Demon.”

She tossed a bit of flour in my direction. “ Demon doesn’t rhyme.”

“Close enough.” My face scrunched as the powder tickled my nose, and I waved at the air in front of me. Flecks of water flew off my hands. “Or how about ?iên or phi?n ?”

Crazy and annoying actually described Ian perfectly.

“Okay, if we’re going into Vietnamese, how about that boy is so hi ? n?”

“If B á was still here, she’d knock you on your head for talking in half Vietnamese like that.

And Ian is not hi?n . A nice guy would not order me to pick up his dry cleaning, the ‘super important book’ from Barnes & Noble, and ship his clothes back to H&M at the post office like I’m his personal butler. ”

“You forgot about making you pick up burgers for him like you’re an Uber Eats driver, too.” Linh stopped cleaning the counter and frowned. “Although, I guess butlers can pick up lunch for their bosses, so maybe you’re right.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t respond to her technicality.

Buzz. Buzz.

Right on cue, my phone shook, and I could see a message flash from Ian. Here we go again. I wiped my damp hands on a dish towel and grabbed the phone. Instead of reading it though, I flipped it over to cover the screen.

“Yeah, ’cause that will make him go away,” Linh said with a snort.

I glared at her. “Since we’re family, you’re supposed to be frustrated on my behalf.”

“You would think that, but I think it’s entertaining.”

My hand balled up the dish towel to throw at her as my phone rang. We both glanced down at the phone. “I wonder who that would be?”

Without looking up, I hurled the towel in her direction and snatched up my phone. My finger punched in the speaker button so Linh could hear for herself how rude Ian was. “Seriously, what do you want now?!”

“Uh, sorry, is this a bad time?”

What?

The voice on the other end sounded like Ian, but it was hesitant and way too polite to be him. I quickly glanced at the screen and groaned inwardly. Linh’s eyes widened, and she had to shove the dish towel against her mouth to muffle her laughter.

Cheeks flushing, I turned my back to her and turned off the speaker. “Oh, hey, Ryan. Sorry, I thought you were …” My mind drew a blank and I let my voice trail off. “What’s up?”

He laughed lightly. “I wanted to see if you wanted to go to the movies with me this afternoon. There’s an early viewing of the new Spider-Man movie, and I have a few tickets. Thought you’d want to see a fellow superhero on the big screen.”

Sigh. I kind of wished that Ryan would stop bringing that up. “Sure, that sounds like fun. Are you going to pick me up?”

“Do you think you can meet me there in two hours instead? I’m still running some errands, and with the crazy traffic right now, I don’t know if I could swing back to pick you up in time.”

“I guess Linh could drop me off …”

“Why doesn’t she come, too? I have an extra ticket that she could use.”

“Let me ask.” I peered over my shoulder and jumped a bit when I found Linh’s face inches from mine. She didn’t even bother pretending that she wasn’t eavesdropping. “Do you want to come to the movies with us?”

“Well, I do love me some Tom Holland. But I don’t want to butt in on your date or anything either. Especially if you guys start to … you know.” Her hands motioned at her lips.

Oh God. If she wasn’t my only cousin and I didn’t love her so much, then I would definitely kill her.

My blush that just faded instantly came roaring back as Ryan snickered on the other end. “We’re not going to—do you want to go or not?”

“I guess it would be okay. Maybe we’ll think of some kind of signal you guys can use to get me to leave you alone.

” Her face scrunched up as she thought it over.

“I would have to leave right after the movie anyway. The Haynes wanted me to watch their kid tonight, so you guys can make out after I leave.”

Now there was choking laughter on the other end of the phone.

Never mind. I was going to kill her anyway. Cousins were overrated.

I put my hand on her forehead and pushed her away before turning my back to her again. “She said she’ll come.”

“Great, then I’ll meet you guys there.”

“Okay.”

I started to hang up when Ryan called out my name.

“Hey, Nina?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me know what signal you guys figure out.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “Just in case.”

My stomach fluttered, and I knew there was a stupid grin on my face, but I couldn’t help it. “Uh, okay.”

Once we hung up, I glanced over at Linh, expecting her to tease me some more about Ryan. But to my surprise, she was already across the kitchen washing her hands. Her foot tapped against the cabinet door like she was figuring out a recipe or something important. “You know, I’ve been thinking …”

Uh-oh. That was never a good sign. “What?”

Linh wiped her wet hands on her leggings before turning around. Looking thoughtful, she leaned forward on the counter toward me. “Maybe Mr. Unicorn’s annoying you so much because he likes you.”

The grin instantly wiped from my face and all I could do was blink at her. The fluttery feelings from Ryan disappeared. “Why would you think that?”

“I think he’s messing with you so much because he wants your attention. Like how Tuan would toss the ball at me for weeks during dodgeball before he got up the nerve to ask me out?”

Now it was my turn to snort. Loudly because she was ridiculous. “That’s when you were both ten. I think things are a little bit different for us now.”

“Throwing a ball at someone’s head and ordering them to get you lunch aren’t that different.” Her index finger tapped against her lower lip. “Didn’t his sister say that he rushed back to the hiking trail? He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t at least like you a little bit.”

I regretted admitting that fact to her now. Especially because the Ian from the hike seemed like the complete opposite from the Ian now. “He probably just wanted to get his jacket back.”

“I doubt he expected to just find his jacket on a rock.” Linh delicately shrugged. “I’m just saying that it’s a possibility.”