"I am a little," she admitted. "I forgot it was going to be so cold today. I should have worn pants." He stopped, and she looked curiously at his bemused expression and raised eyebrows. "But I don't really drink tea. Do you have Coke?"

"Sorry, I don't have any soda." His eyes flitted briefly back to her skirt hemline, waving her further into the house. She thought proudly that her little English schoolgirl outfit must be the reason for the sudden interest in her skirt, and she was glad that she didn't know that it was actually her reference to not wearing "pants." In England, she later discovered, they called underwear "pants."

It was sparsely furnished, but nice anyway, somehow. Huge book shelves lined one wall, but there were no other real decoration. Sparse. That was another vocabulary word. "Besides, soda wouldn't keep a girl very warm when she's not wearing pants, would it?" He smiled then, and she found herself smiling back, warm already. "Come on, live a little! Experiment…try life on the edge."

"Ok." She realized he was teasing and unable to come up with some witty reply, but wanting to. He winked and went into the kitchen, and she followed.

"So, geometry… your father says you'd like a little help?" He ran water into a kettle and lit the gas burner.

"Pul-eeeze. Get real." Cat snorted, forgetting herself and plopping down into a kitchen chair. "Is that what he told you, Mr. Slater?"

"You can call me David." He glanced at her wide sprawl and crossed arms with something that bordered between interest and amusement. "So what are you telling me? You don't need any help?"

"Well no, not exactly. I mean, geometry is not my best subject, I admit. Ok, so it's my worst. It's just my SATs. He wants my SAT score to be up to a certain level." Cat eyed some sort of cinnamon bakery confection sitting on the kitchen table.

"Ah. So we're really here to help you improve your geometry skills, hm?" He had his own arms crossed now, leaning back against the counter.