Why yes, that is Romulan ale.

I am floating near a snack table, picking over some chips, when the man with the shaved head says to Kristina's brother, a touch too loudly, "So that's when I asked out your sister."

Kristina lacks a sister.

My concern flares, and my interest in him manifests, though the former burns up anything positive of the latter. I lean into Amber's hair as though to kiss her head, growling, "Did that boy just say that he asked out Kristina?"

I kiss Amber's head then. I'm not a monster.

Amber did not hear this comment and is unwilling to speculate based on a statement I only overheard. Though I acknowledge that I may be overprotective of our dear Kristina, Amber is catalyzed to her information-gathering in the unlikely event that I didn't misunderstand.

Amber and I are not showy about it, still enjoying what we can of Kristina's birthday party in this park while snapping up evidence of this unforgivable sin. Two grills are smoldering, different foods atop each. A wrinkly, red baby is present, fresh from the womb for Amber to study and pout at when she cries. The daughter of one of Kristina's close friends snatches me up, contriving a dozen games and distractions from her six-year-old mind when not demanding that I push her on a swing. Somehow, she grasped totally that my teacher brain makes me trustworthy, or she has lived so blameless a life that she has not learned the suspicion that comes naturally to me. It is a lovely day, the sunlight coming in at flattering angles, the other company chatting amicably over barbecued meats, steadily smoking pot.

My wife can levitate

I return to Kristina regularly, casting doubtful looks on the boy. Most of his conversation is to her brothers, not Kristina. To Kristina, there are requests for her time and attention that makes the insistence of my new first-grade best friend seem subdued.

If Kristina expressed a butterfly fluttering in her belly, if she gave fond sighs at his name, if she wanted to detail all of his virtues, I would support her. I would look the other way and pretend I liked him for her sake. She does not do these things (nor would she owe them to me, but a friend wants to know the tenor he should adopt when sizing up someone who believes he is worthy of being called a prospect).

Through eavesdropping and directly asking Kristina (the latter which does seem less fun, though more expedient), I discover that the boy and she have had two dates, neither of which has wowed her. She seems to feel mild anxiety that she does not care for him. I sense that she may have accepted the date primarily because he asked and why not try? Kristina has not had romantic luck in the past. I do not want her to become soured on dating before she gets a satisfying sample.

In conference, I put my arm around her side. Amber is near us, gently affirming to Kristina that her intuition is that boy is sketchy. I ask my wife to give us room for a minute.

It was a trick

Amber, chary and amused, takes a step away (because she knows why I would ask her this).

"Kristina, when I met Amber, I knew. I can't even tell you how I knew, but I was not apprehensive. If you are not comfortable around him by the second date, that is allowed to be the last date. You gave it more of a shot than was needed."

She realized today that he was four years her junior, something that did not come up before and which puts her off him further. The subtle implication is that there is likely other information about him that she had not known, which would have disqualified him even from one date.

She didn't directly invite him to this party but mentioned it around him, not expecting that he would come. This does not constitute a third date, mainly since his interest seems more focused on showing off to Kristina's younger brother. "Oh, I walk thirty miles at work every day," the boy said to him about his new warehouse job. "I don't think you could handle that."

Seeing that I am standing close to Kristina and speaking in confidence, he seems to glare at me, but maybe it is only the sun in his eyes.

He does pop by, asking Kristina when she will get out of work this week so that they can do something. When she is unsure of the answer -- her work doesn't operate by rigid hours -- he presses her further.

"We didn't discuss that," she says firmly, meaning that she has not offered another date, and he should not presume that he is entitled to one. He doesn't take it as such. He assumes that he is her boyfriend already. I don't know how many people have thought of him this way.

"I just think that I am dead inside emotionally," she says to excuse how little she feels for him. "My ex just took that all out of me."

Kristina is one of the most loving people I know. She loves Amber and me, and we adore her. If we could, she would formally be a member of our family and has a standing invitation to dinner. However, I understand not wanting anything serious or at all for a while. This boy was too soon and too much. It might have been a different story had he decided to be relaxed and casual, but then he wouldn't be the boy. He is not boyfriend material. If given the breadth of the Hudson Valley, I would not have picked him as one of her first dates out of so long term of a relationship.

I jokingly offer to make a dating profile for Kristina -- I have had some success there, earning the love of a few people, though only one romantically.

She would love farm life

Amber says, "Don't listen to him. Thomm just wants to be a woman."

I mock affront. "How dare you."

For the most part, the boy keeps away from Kristina at the party. I witness no physical attention beyond his tiny, hopeful nagging. If I were to pick the person with whom the boy most wanted a relationship, it would be her younger brother, whom he leans toward to talk and seeks out noticeably more than he does Kristina. There are friends and grills to which Kristina would instead attend, so I never see her with the excuse to initiate contact with him.

As we both need to be up early for work in the morning, the party ends for Amber and me. On our hike through the woods to return to my car, I qualify what I think Kristina's ideal man would be, settling on a hiking farmer who loves Star Trek. It doesn't seem so complex a thing, though I do not know where this type congregates. "She would be an excellent farmer's wife," I pronounce, though getting her to be a farmer's first date does seem to be the starting point. I am months away from having any justification for matchmaking. My dear friend needs time to heal away from masculine bother.

last watched: What If...?
reading: Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies