Shiva rolled her eyes. Her brother’s boyfriend, Jamie, was the ideal against which her parents measured all their children’s prospective love interests. And he was admittedly pretty bloody perfect, which made that ideal all the more impossible to live up to.

“So, Harry,” Dad said, once they’d found a free table and he’d extracted Harry’s name out of him, “I realize it’s not my business, but it would be remiss of me not to mention at least once that I hope you’re using condoms.”

“Dad.”

Harry choked on his unimaginative black coffee. “We’re not—we haven’t—”

“Oh, you haven’t?” Dad had the nerve to look surprised, damn him. “Well, if I know Shiva, I’m sure you will sooner or later, so just remember to use them—”

“Dad.”

Harry’s ears had gone red and he tried to hide his face behind his cup, but Shiva could still see something that looked suspiciously like a grin on his face.

“Dad,” Shiva tried again, “he’s not my—”

Dad had already moved on. “I see by your uniform that you’re still in school,” he said to Harry.

“We’re in the same year, Dad. Not the same school, but the same year.”

“We’re both doing history,” Harry added.

Shiva winced. Here it comes.

Dad peered at Harry over the top of his glasses. “Let me ask you this, Harry. In all the time you’ve studied history in some form or another, over the course of your entire school life, how much time have you spent on the British Empire?”

“I think we may have done a little bit in junior school, but I can’t remember much.” There was a pause, and then, apparently feeling that more was expected of him, Harry added, “I know we studied Gandhi and I think there was also a lesson about how Christian missionaries would teach English to people in the former colonies.”

“Was that a good thing, do you think?”

“Sure. I mean, it opened a lot of doors.”

Shiva winced again.

Later, after Harry had left, Dad cocked his head at her. “You’re probably annoyed with me, but you know I believe that a boy who can’t pass the British Empire test is not worthy of you.”

“He’s seventeen,” Shiva said. “He has time to figure shit out.”

“What if he doesn’t want to figure shit out? I know you think I make a big deal out of this, but it matters. And,” he added, because he never could resist, “if you recall, Jamie was sixteen when he passed the test.”

“Jamie’s black. His grandparents moved here from Zimbabwe. He gets it in a way Harry can’t possibly get it.”

Dad considered her. “Exactly.”

Shiva sighed. “Dad, it doesn’t matter anyway. Harry’s not actually my boyfriend. I barely know him.”

“What?” Her father looked astonished. “Why didn’t you say so?”