He nodded. “We both wanted to be closer to our parents since our dad’s health isn’t great. Jonathan made a lot of sacrifices to come out here. Hard to leave behind a fancy career and move away from your kids to settle down in the middle of nowhere, even if your marriage is long over and your kids are grown. Logistically, it was easier for me since I hadn’t set up a practice yet.”

He sighed and took a sip of his drink. “Still hard not really having anyone other than my family around, though.”

“Family first, right?” I said with a shrug.

I thought I’d hidden the bitterness that came when I uttered that phrase, but Adeena picked up on it. “No offense, but you two sound really spoiled right now. Having families like ours might be kind of annoying, but it’s also a privilege.”

I crossed my arms, her comment stinging more than I thought. She sounded like Bernadette. “Adeena, nobody complains about their family more than you do.”

“And I also know that when things go down and life is against me, my family will always have my back. We all take care of each other in our own way. Yours is the same. How many people can say that and actually mean it?”

Jae looked at Adeena in admiration. “You, my friend, have more layers than I gave you credit for.”

Adeena grinned. “I’m like an onion. Many layers, lots of flavor, and I provide incredible depth. Lucky for you all, I’m not as pungent.”

As we all laughed at her silliness, Elena sauntered back with a water pitcher and refilled our glasses. “Can I interest you all in some dessert? We’ve got bu?uelos, flan, and tres leches cake. All family recipes, all fantastic.”

Jae said, “Um, I’m a dentist, so I don’t think—”

“We’ll take one of each, Elena, thanks,” I said. She grinned and left, and I turned my attention to Jae. “You’re allowed to enjoy sugar in moderation, you know. Live a little.”

He smirked. “Lila, I appreciate the sentiment, but you realize that you create sugary treats for a living, right? You’re not exactly the most objective observer here.”

I returned his smirk. “I’ve never had a cavity in my life.”

His jaw dropped.

Adeena added, “My people literally soak fried dough in sugar syrup on the reg and I’ve only had one cavity. She’s right, fellow outsider. Live a little.”

He leaned back in his chair, finally relaxing a bit. “Fellow outsider, huh? How so?”

I glanced at Adeena. “How much time you got?”

Elena came back with our desserts and we paid proper obeisance. The flan was out of this world. I’ve tasted plenty of flan in my life, as they were a staple at Filipino fiestas. But this was flan on a whole other level. The custard was silky smooth and the caramel on top had smoky overtones that played well with the creamy sweetness. Whenever I tried a dessert, my first instinct was to dissect it and put my own spin on it. This flan was too perfect to mess with.

I took a break from this taste of heaven to tell Elena, “Oh, almost forgot. My friend Marcus wanted me to tell you he said ‘hi.’ I guess he’s a bit of a regular here?”

Elena’s smile fell a bit before stretching back to its previous form. “Oh, you know Marcus?”

“Yeah, he’s my godmother’s son. He was supposed to join us tonight, but I guess something came up. How do you know him?”

Elena pushed back a curl that’d escaped from her bun. “We had some trouble with a previous customer. Got to the point where we almost pressed charges, but decided against it. I met Marcus at the police station. He started visiting pretty often after that. Said he wanted to make sure Der—uh, that customer didn’t come back.”

I tried to play it cool, but her slip-up was exactly what I needed. “I’m sorry, but were you about to say Derek? As in Derek Winter?”

Elena made a disgusted noise. “Don’t even bring up that pendejo around me. He told nothing but lies about my uncle and his family.”

“Your uncle? Was he the original owner of this restaurant?”

She frowned. “Yeah.”

When she didn’t elaborate, I asked, “So what happened?”

She crossed her arms. “Why you wanna know?”

“Unfortunately, I’m very familiar with Der—um, that guy. And he loves stirring up trouble. Just curious about what mess he got into this time.”

She hesitated, struggling with whether she wanted to defend her family or tell me to mind my own business. The need to set the record straight won out.

“He told some pretty damning lies about my family that got them into a lot of trouble. Tío Hector and Tía Perla were new in town, and who was the town gonna believe? The White boy who’d lived here his entire life, of course.”

Jae looked a little uncomfortable with that last statement, but Adeena and I just nodded grimly. We knew how it was around here.

“We tried pressing charges, but without any money for a lawyer, it wasn’t gonna go anywhere. Anyway, my tío and his family couldn’t hack it. The restaurant wasn’t making any money and they were scared for the safety of their kids, so they left.”

Elena shook her head. “This restaurant was their dream. So my mom took over the lease.”

“That’s pretty amazing. What were you and your mom doing before this?” I asked.

“I was in school for business administration. Helped my mom run an online store selling handmade soap, candles, beauty and wellness products, things like that. The restaurant doesn’t leave a lot of free time, but we love doing it, so we’ve kept it up.”

Adeena said, “That’s so cool! Do you have a business card? I’m always looking for organic, cruelty-free beauty products.”

Elena looked at her appraisingly. “You clearly take good care of your skin. You’re practically glowing.” She handed over a business card that matched her goth aesthetic, bearing the title WhichCraft Beauty Brews. “I’d love to be your craft hookup. We do big business with herbal remedies and teas, as you can guess from the name. Most of the plants we use in our products are grown in our greenhouse.”

She scribbled her phone number on the back of the card and slid it to Adeena, who grinned. Her goal accomplished, I tried to steer the conversation back on topic so I could accomplish my own.

“So when’s the last time your uncle and his family were in town?”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Why?”

“Oh, just . . . making conversation, I guess. You all seem close, so it’s a shame to think that you probably don’t see them much anymore because of what happened.”

A shadow passed over her pretty face. “They haven’t been back since everything went down. Bad memories, I guess, and they weren’t sure how safe it would be.”

Elena got called away to take another order before I could think of a response.

Jae cleared his throat. “So what’s with all these questions? Seems a bit personal for friendly chitchat with our waitress.”

Adeena and I looked at each other, having a conversation with our eyes and the barest of body language.

Should I tell him? My eyes asked.

Eyebrow raise. His brother is the detective on the case. Do you think that’s wise?

Eye roll. What’s he going to do? Tattle on me?

Shrug. He could.

Shifty look at Jae. Maybe he could get inside information.

Smirk. Maybe you just want to get inside his pants.

Pointed look at Elena. Like you’re one to talk.

We both burst out laughing, which probably made us look like a couple of weirdos, since we’d been staring at each other silently the whole time.

Jae leaned back in his chair, studying the two of us. “Do I even want to know what just happened?”

I grabbed the last bu?uelo, dragging the crispy fritter through the piloncillo syrup pooled on the plate. “Just girl talk. You know how it is.”

“But you weren’t even speaking!”

Adeena smiled at me. “And yet everything that needed to be said was said.”

He shook his head. “You two are . . .”

Adeena and I took turns finishing his sentence.

“Fascinating?”

“Gorgeous?”

“Mysterious?”

“Hilarious?”

“Super weird?”

He laughed. “All of the above. But I was going to say, ‘lucky.’”

“Lucky? How so?” I asked.

“Watching you two play off each other is a lot of fun, and I can already tell your bond is special. You’ve found someone who gets you. Not everybody’s so fortunate.” He looked off into the distance, as if seeing his past relationships through a different lens.

I flushed, and Adeena’s eyes dropped to her lap. Was she thinking what I was thinking? How we’d both almost let our friendship lapse more than once? How my years away had strained all my relationships, including this one? I was keeping a pretty big secret from her, but I was sure she’d been less than honest with me as well. Maybe it was time we had a talk.

Before either of us could respond, Elena stopped by with our check, which Jae gallantly covered. Normally Adeena and I would put up more of a fight (you did not want to get into a fight with an Asian person over who’s going to foot the bill), but I was still paying off student loans and Lord knew what was going to happen to our restaurant. Adeena was too busy making heart eyes at Elena to realize Jae had paid the bill.

“Lovely meeting you, Elena,” I said, getting up and holding out my hand.