Page 3 of Just Another Meet Cute

“Rosemary or thyme?”

“Whatever you want.” Barely listening to Linh, I hummed to myself as I scrolled through Instagram.

My finger automatically clicked on Lucy’s name in the search bar.

Huh, she went skiing with her family a few weeks ago.

The swirling, lush snow made her pictures look like a scenic postcard.

Especially the one of her and Adam having a snowball fight.

It was almost as adorable as the one where the entire family posed by the rocky fireplace.

The familiar pit in my stomach grew. Was it weird to be jealous of someone you’ve never met?

Probably. I don’t even know exactly what I was jealous of.

Their picturesque family. The carefree joy on their faces.

How gorgeous Lucy looked. I mean, we both had the same shade of dark brown hair like Dad, but why was hers in perfect curls while mine was wavy and slightly flat on the top like wilted lettuce?

And seriously, where did they even find snow in the summer?

My head jerked back when Linh shoved a spoonful of something thick and creamy at me. “What is this?”

“Mushroom and kale risotto.” Her hand followed me back and forth as I dodged her attempts to force-feed me. “Something is missing, but I can’t figure it out. Just try it for me. I need your golden tongue.”

“You know it sort of sounds dirty when you call it that.”

“Only if you have a dirty mind. What are you doing anyway?”

Snap! I quickly shut the laptop. “Nothing.”

Pursing her lips, she eyed me suspiciously. In case she decided to lunge for it, I gave her a wide smile as my right hand subtly pushed the laptop away.

Linh and I never really had secrets growing up.

She was more like a sister than a cousin.

Before Dad came back into our lives, we shared a room for over fourteen years, so it’s not like we were able to keep anything from each other anyway.

We even got our first periods around the same time, even though she was nearly a year younger than me.

But I couldn’t tell her the truth now. I mean, what was I going to say? “Oh, I’m cyberstalking my half sister who doesn’t even know that I exist. No biggie. Want some chips?”

Even I knew that made me sound … a bit loony. Like Batman Joker loony.

“Give me that spoon again.” I sniffed the risotto a few times before I stuck it in my mouth, chewing slowly. “It’s not bad. Could probably use a few more minutes on the stove. And maybe a different type of mushroom? Something that doesn’t blend in as much …”

“I used regular mushrooms, but I could get some portobello or porcini mushrooms next time.” With one hand on the counter, she leaned in to stare at me intently. “What else?”

“I don’t know.” I scratched the top of my head. “Maybe lemon or something?”

Linh clapped her hands together. Her eyes were so wide in excitement that they dwarfed her face, like an anime character. “Lemon! Yes! So it could have some freshness to it. That’s exactly what it needs to break up the heaviness. Brilliant.”

With a wry grin, I handed her back the spoon. “Glad to be of help.”

“I’m so glad that you’re here. Mom can’t help with any of my recipes. She always tells me to add fish sauce. For someone who doesn’t know how to cook Vietnamese food, she sure puts fish sauce in everything.”

“Sometimes it does work. I mean, the spaghetti with fish sauce the other night wasn’t that bad,” I teased.

“Don’t remind me.” Shuddering to herself, Linh waved the creamy ladle in my direction.

“You’re seriously going to have to move to New York with me someday.

I need you as my muse if I’m going to work at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Think of all the Broadway shows we could see and bagels we could eat. Think of the dim sum and ramen.”

“Yeah, moving across the country to be your taste tester isn’t exactly my career goal.”

“Well, it’s not like you have an actual career goal anyway.”

Ouch.

I would have been annoyed if anyone else had said that, but I knew that Linh wasn’t being intentionally mean.

She was just being her brutally honest self, and sadly it was the truth.

I didn’t have a career goal. I didn’t even have an interest in anything .

There were plenty of things that I liked or was semi-good at, but nothing that I was great at.

And definitely nothing that I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

To be honest, I was a little jealous that Linh had a passion that consumed her.

All I had were a bunch of interests that fizzled out.

While Linh spent her allowance on cookware and ingredients, I splurged on all kinds of books and beginner class fees for random stuff.

Countless hours were wasted on YouTube tutorials and reading articles on everything and anything, but nothing sparked me.

If only I could major in random facts in college, then all my problems would be solved. Useless Information 101. I’d probably make the dean’s list.

The funny thing was that it wasn’t such a problem before.

One minute I was a junior and too young to understand “adult stuff.” Then suddenly this summer—the summer before senior year—careers and college majors were all anyone ever seemed to talk about.

It even trumped prom. And the question of what to do next hovered over me like an invisible gloomy cloud.

“You’re going to have to learn how to survive without me.” I smirked. “Besides, what if you get on Top Chef ? I can’t go on the show with you and be your crutch. What will Tom think?”

She let out a sigh. “That’s true. I can’t disappoint him.”

Linh fangirled about the host on Top Chef , Tom Colicchio, like I fangirled about any of the Chrises from the Avengers . (And seriously, I mean, any of them.)

But she didn’t have the “golden tongue” like she claimed I did.

I couldn’t cook at all, but for some reason I had a really strong sense of taste.

I could figure out the different ingredients for dishes when we went out to eat and always knew what was missing.

I was like the rat in Ratatouille , minus the actual cooking talent.

Maybe that could be a career choice. Didn’t royalty need taste testers anymore?

Humming one of the theme songs from the latest Korean drama we watched together last week, Mom popped into the kitchen. She wandered over to the stove and peered into the pot. “That smells delicious, Linh.”

“Thanks, Dí, it should be ready in a few minutes.”

“Your mom is so lucky that you can cook. Especially since she can’t cook at all.”

“Aunt Sarah can cook a little bit,” I pointed out.

Technically, I should have called her B á c, since Aunt Sarah was Mom’s older sister, but she forbade me to call her that. She said it made her feel too old. And I couldn’t call her Dí, since that was reserved for younger siblings. So Aunt Sarah it was.

“Reheating stuff isn’t considered cooking.” Mom leaned onto Linh’s shoulder and wiggled her eyebrows. “You forget that I grew up with her. She may be older than me, but I did most of the cooking with your B á . Thankfully she’s good at washing dishes.”

“You forget that I still live with her, so I can’t really agree with you if I want to survive,” Linh quipped with a grin. “But we all know who really cooks around here.”

As they both laughed, I was struck by how alike they looked. For some reason, Linh looked more like Mom than Aunt Sarah. Growing up, everyone thought that Mom and Linh were mother and daughter, and that I was just the neighbor’s kid who came over to play every day.

Not that I could blame them. Their dark brown eyes were the same color and round shape. They were both tall with dark hair and fair skin. Although now Linh’s hair had medium caramel highlights running through it from the salon.

I had dark eyes and hair, too, but my hair was wavy rather than straight, like theirs was.

And my eyes were a tad lighter. Once I found a paint color that was my exact eye color, called Magnolia Elemental.

Not sure what any of those words has to do with an actual color shade, but it made me feel better about having boring brown eyes.

I always knew I looked different from everyone in the family.

In fact, I barely looked Asian at all. I just looked …

average? Like me. It wasn’t until I met Dad that I realized that I didn’t look like me, I looked like him .

This total stranger and me. My face was narrow with a pointed chin like his.

I tanned easily like he did. I even suspected that I had wide feet like him, although I never really checked out his feet so I wasn’t 100 percent positive about that.

With one last pat on Linh’s head, Mom straightened up. “Well, I’ll go set the table then so you won’t get into trouble. Nina, can you help me?”

“Sure.” Sliding my laptop back into my bag, I jumped off my seat.

Mom grabbed some plates from the lower cabinet and handed them to me. “I’ve been wondering … does that trail you went hiking at have a camping site?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“I thought it would be nice if we could all go camping this weekend.” Avoiding my eyes, she concentrated on gathering her dark hair into a perfect bun like her life depended on it. “It’ll be fun.”

I stared at her. “Fun. Our entire family. Camping.”

She had to be joking. The only thing worse than being stuck at home with my family was being stuck with them in the woods .

Even now, I could barely hear Mom over Aunt Sarah and Dad fighting in the living room next to us.

I don’t even know what they were arguing about this time: the weather, what to watch on TV, what water to drink.

It didn’t matter. She always found something to complain about with Dad. Always.

From the way they were going at it right now, you would have thought that Dad had knocked up and abandoned her instead of Mom.

Thank God for earphones.

“I don’t know, Mom. I don’t think we—it’s just I—”

Clunk! Suddenly, Linh dropped a plate of breadsticks between us. “Nina has a date this weekend.”

Wait, what?

Mom and I both turned to stare at her.

“She does?” Mom asked with a frown. “With who?”

“Uh …”

Before I could say anything else, Linh nudged my arm. Hard. “With that guy she met during her hike yesterday. Ian? Remember? You were telling me about how he told you all about his sisters.” Turning to fully face me, she wiggled her eyebrows and mouthed something.

“Right. Ian. I met him on the hike.” Great, now I sounded like a parrot. My mind scrambled to find something else to say. “He’s nice. Really nice.”

Mom laughed. “Well, I’d hope so if you’re going out with him. I guess this means that we can’t go on a camping trip after all then.”

Squealing inside, I let out a disappointing sigh that I was proud to say was halfway convincing. “Yeah, too bad.”

“Oh, well. Some other time.” She took the bread plate and headed toward the dining room. “But maybe you can bring Ian home. I’d like to meet this guy.”

“Uh …” Shooting an alarmed look at Linh, I shook my head. “I don’t know about that. It’s just a casual date. Don’t want to scare him off or anything.”

“I promise we’ll be on our best behavior. Invite him over next week. I’ll tell your dad. I’ll even try to cook something half as delicious as Linh’s food.”

“No, Mom, seriously, I couldn’t—” I stopped short when she turned around and gave me The Look. I could only count a handful of times when she had given it to me before. Mostly since she and Dad started dating again. “I’ll try.”

Waiting until Mom left the kitchen, Linh gave me a half salute and a cheeky grin. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Blinking rapidly, I gaped at her. “You’re wel—why did you tell her that I had a date with Ian? I don’t have a date. I don’t even know the guy. And now they want to meet him.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Yeah, that is kind of a problem.”

“It’s a HUGE problem! A titanic, astronomical, gigantic problem.” My palm hit my forehead with each word.

Linh’s hand shot out and caught my wrist before I gave myself an even bigger headache. “All right, Ms. Thesaurus, maybe instead of showing off your vocabulary words from English class, you should focus on a solution.”

“Like?”

“Like, didn’t you say that you still had his jacket?”

“Yeah …” It took a couple seconds for it to sink in.

With a smirk, Linh switched off the stove and rubbed her hands against the side of her jeans. “I think that if you want your solution, you need to find Ian. And you better do it fast.”