“We’re baking cookies,” I said, glancing at the clock and starting to feel guilty. “Did we wake you?”

“Not the cooking,” he said with a yawn as he knotted the tie on his plaid robe, the one he’d had forever. “It was someone running down the stairs outside our room.” I pointed at J.J., and my dad sighed.

“How is it that you are still waking me up at night?”

“I think you should be happy,” J.J. said. “I mean, other people’s children leave and never come back again. Aren’t you happy we stick around?”

“Not right now,” my dad muttered, rubbing his eyes.

“What is happening?” I turned to the kitchen doorway and saw my mom, in her pink fluffy robe, the one Danny had bought her for Christmas last year. “Jeff?”

“J.J. woke me up,” my dad said, pointing at my brother.

“Charlie was baking cookies, and the smell woke me up,” he insisted, pointing at me.

My mother just shook her head, then paused. “I think they’re ready,” she said, just as the kitchen timer went off.

“That was very cool,” Siobhan said, her eyes wide. “How did you do that?” My mom just winked at her, and I headed over to the oven.

Which was how, ten minutes later, we were all sitting around the kitchen table in our pajamas, with still-warm cookies in front of us. “I feel like I’m living in your comic strip,” Siobhan said as she broke off a piece of her cookie. “Like, this is something that would totally happen.”

My mother smiled. “We’d need to get the dog involved, though.”

I took a breath to agree just as the kitchen door slammed open. I jumped and looked over—and froze. Mike was standing in the doorway, totally naked except for a car floor mat pressed in front of his crotch.

“Uh . . . ,” Mike said, his eyes wider than I’d ever seen them as he looked around and clutched the floor mat with both hands. “What—what are you guys all doing up?”

“Hey, Mike,” Siobhan said, waving cheerfully, not even trying to hide the fact that she was checking him out.

Mike saw her and turned even redder. “Hi, Siobhan,” he muttered. He edged over to the staircase, apparently trying to move as fast as possible without showing us anything.

“What are you—” J.J. said, then started laughing so hard he had to stop and take a breath. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing!” Mike yelled as he made a run for the stairs and we all started laughing.

“Son,” my dad yelled after him. “Put some clothes on and then come down and give us an explanation, hm?”

“We have cookies,” I yelled after him, then turned to Siobhan, who was giggling. “Oh my god.”

“Of all the times to not have my phone to take pictures,” J.J. said, shaking his head. “Do you know what kind of blackmail shots I could have gotten?”

“Think he’ll come back?” my mom asked. “Or is he going to sneak out the front door and never return?”

“I’d call it even odds,” my dad said as I picked up my phone and pressed the button to FaceTime Linnie.

“What?” she asked as she answered, squinting at me blearily. “It’s after midnight.”

“Yeah,” J.J. said, leaning over to look at the screen. “And you guys are still youngish! Why aren’t you out clubbing?”

“What?” Rodney appeared next to Linnie, looking just as sleepy and confused—and somehow unfinished, without his glasses on. “Why is J.J. talking about clubbing?”

“I have no idea,” Linnie said. “Charlie, why did you call?”

“Because Mike just streaked across the kitchen wearing nothing but a floor mat,” I said gleefully.

“What?”

“Did your sister really need to know about this?” my mother asked.

“Is everyone awake?” Linnie asked, and I turned the camera around.

“Pretty much,” my dad said. “Nice pj’s, Rodney.”

“Thanks,” Rodney muttered, putting on his glasses.

“Ah!” J.J. said, smiling, and I looked over to see Mike standing by the kitchen stairs, now wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt, his face still bright red. “He returns.”

“I have so many questions,” my mother said, shaking her head. “You were wearing clothing when you left earlier tonight, weren’t you?”

“Do we really need to go into this?” Mike asked, shooting my dad a desperate look.

“Yes,” we all said—even Linnie, over the phone.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Why are we talking to Linnie?”

“I FaceTimed them,” I explained, and Mike closed his eyes for a second.

“You didn’t want to call Danny? Get the whole family involved?”

“There’s an idea.” I looked around. “Anyone else have a phone?”

“That’s okay,” my dad said, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sure we’ll fill him in later. Michael, do you want to . . . uh . . . enlighten us?”

Mike looked like he would have rather done almost anything else at the moment, but he took a step toward us anyway. “Okay. So, um . . . I was over at Corrine’s. . . .”

J.J. and I groaned, and over the phone, I heard Linnie do the same. “Can we not do this now?” Mike asked.

“Well, I think it’s nice when people stay together from high school into college,” my mother said, even though I knew for a fact she felt the exact opposite. “It shows an impressive level of commitment.”

“So you were at Corrine’s,” J.J. prompted, taking a bite of his cookie. “Proceed.”

“Well. Um. So we were . . . hanging out . . .” There was a long pause, and then we all seemed to realize what he meant at the same moment.

“God,” I said, shaking my head.

“I really didn’t need to hear this,” my dad said.

“Anyway,” Mike said, his face going a duller and duller red, like he was slowly morphing into a brick, “Corrine’s parents are really strict, so when they came home early, I kind of . . . climbed out the window.”

“Naked,” Siobhan clarified helpfully, and Mike looked down at the floor like he was hoping it might swallow him up.

“So Corrine tossed my phone and keys and clothes out after me,” Mike said, speaking very fast now, like he was just hoping to get to the end of this. “And I got the keys and the phone. But my clothes ended up . . . stuck in a tree?”

My mother made a kind of snorting sound, and I looked over and saw that her chin was trembling, like she was trying very hard not to laugh. “Well. Michael. You are an adult now and can make your own choices. But we still don’t approve.” She looked at my dad, who nodded, even though I could see he was fighting a smile.

“Yes,” he said, then cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t . . .”

“Shouldn’t jump out of windows without your clothes on?” Linnie finished, then started giggling.

“It’s not funny,” Mike said, shaking his head, and that was enough to set me off.

“Oh my god,” I said, laughing, “what—what did you do on the drive home? Were you just driving around naked? What if you’d gotten pulled over?”

“Have a cookie,” Siobhan said, pushing the plate over to him.

“Yeah,” J.J. said. “You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, coming over to sit next to J.J. “If we could never mention this again, ever, I’d be really happy.” He reached for a cookie.

“So . . . are your clothes still up in the tree?” Linnie asked, still chuckling.

Mike nodded. “My shoes, too. I guess . . . Corrine will try to get them down in the morning?”

I started giggling again as I reached for a cookie, broke it in half, and held out the other half to Siobhan, who took it.

“But seriously,” Mike said, turning to our mom. “This doesn’t go in the strip.” My mother hesitated, and it was like I could see it playing out on her face—she was already lining up the panels and the punch lines in her mind. “Really,” Mike said, not a trace of a smile on his face any longer. “Corrine’s parents are super strict.”