Lone Star Diner, El Paso, Texas [Thursday evening]

Jaime finished his shake with a slurp and flopped back in the booth. Paco was eying him with a look he totally recognized.

"What?" he asked with a frown.

Paco eyed him for another minute, then sighed. "Then don't go."

Jaime blinked. "What? Don't go?"

"Well, the way you talk, it's going to just bring up regrets."

There was something in Paco's tone that drew a slight frown from Jaime. "You don't sound appropriately best-friend-sympathetic..."

"I don't? Huh. Maybe that's because even as much as I like you, it's hard even for me to sit here and listen to you lament how hard it'll be to see old friends, and girlfriends, when you broke up with a super hot, super nice, super funny girl."

Jaime was about to object when Paco cut in again. "Twice!"

Which, well, was true, so Jaime just shut his mouth. Which drew a knowing look from Pao, and then a sigh.

"Look, I know you had your reasons, and I'll be the first to admit that you're smarter than me, so maybe they were even good ones. But if that's the case, you can't keep moping about it. You don't get to just break up with people and then sigh over them all the time."

"I know, I know," Jaime sighed leaning down to bump his head against the table. "But it's just..."

"Yeah, yeah," Paco said. "I'm not totally without sympathy, but, dude, you made the call, so you don't get to be all pine-y."

Jaime's head came up. "First of all, I'm not all 'pine-y'. I'm just... thoughtful." Yeah! That was the ticket. "And, second, 'pine-y' isn't even a word!"

"You knew what I meant, so it's totally a word!"

"That's not how it works."

"Uh huh," Paco smirked, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. "You keep telling yourself that, smart guy."

[Open for calls, texts, etc.]