"Sorry about the AC," she said, handing me a glass. "Leo says you're the only one who doesn't cheat at Mario Kart. High praise."

Let me be clear: I wasn't a creepy kid. I just had eyes. And Mrs. Delgado, Elena, was the kind of person who made you understand why Renaissance painters loved natural light.

But I just smiled and picked up my controller. The storm was passing. The AC would kick back on soon. And I had learned something that summer: seeing someone clearly—as a friend, a mother, a whole human—was a lot more interesting than any fantasy.

I didn't know what to say. I just mumbled, "He's easy to be friends with."

A minute later, Mrs. Delgado came down. She was holding two tall glasses of iced coffee, condensation dripping down the sides. She’d changed into a loose, light linen shirt and simple shorts. Her hair was down, still slightly damp from her own attempt to cool off.

Leo threw a pillow at my head. "Don't let it go to your head, nerd."

As she walked back upstairs, Leo rolled his eyes at me. "See? Total dictator."

I laughed, nervous. "He's lying. I blue-shell him constantly."

"Dude, your mom is so… chill," I said, dodging a plasma bolt.

In that moment, the fantasy I didn't even know I'd been nursing—the "my friend's hot mom" daydream—evaporated. It was replaced by something realer, and better. She wasn't a crush. She was a person. A whole, complex person who worried about her son, who made killer iced coffee, who had dirt under her fingernails and laugh lines around her eyes.

She smiled, and it wasn't a flirty smile or a staged one. It was a tired, genuine, mom smile. "No, he's not. He's stubborn and he leaves his socks everywhere. But you see the good stuff. That's a gift."

"Mom!"

"Your mom says I'm a gift," I said, deadpan.

Leo came back downstairs, hair dripping, wrapped in a towel. "What'd I miss?"