“I do,” I say breathlessly. I get out my phone and text Lucy, who enthusiastically agrees to be my alibi, and text Pop that I’m having a sleepover at Lucy’s.

Have fun! Pop texts back.

Then Leo takes my hand and leads me toward what I’m guessing is his bedroom.

His house is in Santa Clara, a few train stops before San Jose. It isn’t a large house. Three bedrooms, two baths. From the street it looks tiny, especially if I’m comparing it to my own house in Redwood City. If I’m being nice—and my default setting is nice, I can’t seem to help it—I’d say it was “refreshingly minimal.” When I picture myself as an artist (like Leo’s mom, who’s a famous local sculptor) I can imagine living in a house like this.

I’ve never seen Leo’s room before. He’s invited me over a few times since we started going out, but his mom was always home. There was some unspoken understanding between them that we wouldn’t hang out in his bedroom, so we stayed in the kitchen or streamed movies on the living room sofa. Now, as we move down the hallway toward the inevitable (!!!) sex we’re about to have, I pause to look at the framed photographs hanging on the wall. Most of them are of Leo and Diana with various people I assume are relatives. I point at the photo of a toddler with something bright red—beets? tomato sauce?—smeared all over his face. “Aw. Look at you.”

He cringes. “My mom won’t take it down. She loves to humiliate me.”

“I think it’s cute,” I say.

“You’re cute,” he counters.

We come to a room crammed with tables and sculptures in various states of progression: his mom’s studio. She works with wax and clay in there and then takes it to a place in the city to cast it into bronze. I barely resist the urge to go inside and attempt to absorb some of her genius.

Leo, however, is not impressed. He tugs on my hand to get me moving again, toward a smaller bedroom at the end of the hall. His.

“Welcome.” He ushers me inside. Closes the door. “Make yourself at home.”

There’s nowhere to sit but on his bed. I perch on the edge and fold my hands into my lap, gazing around at the various posters on the walls. Most of them are of swimmers. Leo’s captain of the swim team at his school. By the look of it, he’s obsessed with Michael Phelps, and this other guy with a huge tattoo that covers most of his left arm.

I wouldn’t have pegged Leo for a posters-all-over-the-walls kind of guy.

“That’s Caeleb Dressel,” he explains almost shyly. “Two gold medals. Holds the world record in the hundred-meter butterfly.”