time. And because you’re not an asshole like Chris Perez.”

She put down the remote. She moved closer to me on the leather couch. She swung one knee around to the other side of my legs. She straddled me. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. She kissed me.

“Hold on one second,” I said, now speaking with difficulty considering the new direction in which the blood in my body was rushing. “Now that you no longer think I’m mysterious, will you do me a favor?”

“What is it?”

But then she tugged at her lip with her teeth, and I saw her parted teeth, soft tongue, all that pink wetness.

“It can wait till later,” I said, grinning, and leaned in.

The next time I saw Kate at school, after a hug at my locker that brought back memories of making out in the Bat Cave for an hour and a half, I asked Kate to tutor Luke. And I promised her that my mom would pay her—or, probably, canonize her, as long as she could keep Luke in the Fordham Prep varsity sports program. Of course, Kate offered to do it for free.

“I’m really interested to meet your brother!” Kate told me.

Super. Fantastic. I couldn’t wait for her to meet my hunky heartthrob brother either. Seriously.

I told my mother that I’d found Luke a tutor.

“Who?” my mother asked. “That boy Jason you’ve told me about?”

“No,” I said. “My friend Kate.”

“Kate whose house you went to for dinner Kate?” my mother asked, leaning in to me like she was a witch and I was Hansel covered in candy.

“Yeah,” I said. “She’s pretty good at math.”

In my mind, I was the essence of smooth during this conversation (although I shouldn’t waste my smoothness on my mother. But I guess vampires have so much of it that I can use a little bit of smoothness on my mother). But my mom had a goofy grin on her face, and I knew she thought Kate and I were in love. My mother has a sixth sense about these things.

And so Kate came to my house two nights later. And she met my whole family: my brother, who once used our Waterford crystal dessert plates as Frisbees; my mother, five foot nothing, armed with a Swiffer mop and waaaay too in the loop about my feelings for Kate; and my father, who was still eagerly asking me for details of what it was like to be in a fight.

My dad was the first one to meet her.

“Kate!” he boomed in that cheesy sitcom-dad voice. “Nice to meet you, Kate!”

Why is it that parents repeat someone’s name eight times when they meet them? It must be their fading memories. My parents are middle-aged, after all. They’re not as sharp as they once were.

“Well, is this Finbar’s Kate or Luke’s Kate?”

Asking that was my dad’s next stupid move. Way to objectify women, Dad!

But Kate shrugged, seemingly unoffended.

“I’m usually Finbar’s,” she said. “But today I’m Luke’s. For geometry proofs. Lucky him.”

“You know,” my dad said thoughtfully, “I never had to prove a damned thing when I was in school! They told me two plus two was four, I just believed what they told me.”

“Paul! Did I just hear bad language in here? From you?”

My mother came scurrying out of the kitchen with an enormous bottle of Lysol All Purpose Cleaner. She aimed the spray nozzle at my dad like it was a gun. I swear, she would have cleaned his mouth with it if I hadn’t interrupted.

“Mom!” I called, my tense tone hopefully indicating she should behave herself. “This is Kate. She’s gonna help Luke with his math homework.”

“Oh, Kate!” my mother squealed.

My mother got overly excited and prematurely ejaculated some Lysol into Kate’s face. Right there in the front hall, I put my face in my hands and groaned.

My mother rushed to Kate’s side.

“Thank God for your glasses!” she was squeaking. “I could have blinded you!”

“I told you, the house is clean enough!” my father said.

My mother was furiously wiping Kate’s glasses on her own shirt. Then my mother put her glasses on for her. Like Kate couldn’t do it herself!

“What beautiful hair you have,” my mother cooed, like the Big Bad Wolf talking to Red Riding Hood. I was surprised Kate hadn’t bolted from my house by now.

“Mom—” I tried to form a buffer between her and Kate.

“I always thought I’d have a daughter,” my mother began to reflect. “When I found out I was having twins, they told me it was a