Sorry for the delay! My holiday season kind of tied me up.

That being said, sorry, but Hanukkah the last contains too many spoilers, so if you'd like to read it, message me and I'll direct you to the LJ, or if I get yelled at enough, post it here. But warning, it's FULL of spoilers.

It was a miracle that all of the pieces fell into place so neatly, but Zach had one more hurdle to jump over before he could rest easy.

He held his breath and dialed the number. "Ma."

"What took you so long to return my call?" She had called that morning; it was now three in the afternoon. "I know it's not because you're working."

Zach rubbed one hand over his face and wondered if it was too late to abort the whole stupid idea. "I'm going to propose something and you're not going to go crazy." He might as well have suggested the ocean not be wet, or the Earth to not rotate, or the Detroit Lions not to suck.

"What is it? Did you get your job back?"

Two years, and she still would not let that go. "No."

"Oh." Amazing how a single syllable could convey so much disappointment. He chose to ignore it, again.

"I'm bringing someone with me tomorrow."

"Who? The orphan?"

He let out his breath and wondered when his mother was going to stop referring to Darien as "the orphan" and Kevin as "that shagetz". Probably the day after never. "No. It's um, a girl."

Zach could hear his mother's breath hitch a little, and with good reason. He had never done anything remotely like this before, but until very recently he hadn't been in the company of women that were worthy of bringing to his mother's house. "WHAT? Are you serious? Zachary, you'd better not be playing with me—"

"I'm not."

"Who is it? How come I've never heard of her before? ZACH! Why didn't you tell me you were dating a girl?"

She was picking up steam; he had to cut her off. "We're not dating, Mom."

"What do you mean you're not dating?" He held the phone away from his ear as her voice picked up in volume. "You're going to bring a girl home to meet me at Hanukkah and you're not dating?"

"Yes. No. It's complicated."

"Zach, what are you going on about? Who is this girl?"

"Her name is Amy."

"Amy what?"

This was going just as expected. "Amy Mizzuno."

"Oh my G-d, she's Italian!"

"OK, before you start going off—"

"You spent all that time in California and you couldn't find a nice Jewish girl? We practically own Hollywood!"

"Mother."

"Did you ever sign up for JDate like I told you to? Tabby and Roger met over JDate, you know."

"You've mentioned that a couple hundred times." Roger was a decent guy, and made Tabby reasonably happy; otherwise, Zach would have cursed the entire concept of JDate straight to hell. "Mom, listen, Amy's kind of shy, and I had to really convince her to come and meet you, so please don't—"

"Why are you bringing her here then if you're not dating?"

That issue was an economy-sized can of rabid, fanged worms that he didn't want to get into, but it was too late to back out now. "We're not…not dating."

"What is that, what does that mean."

He swallowed and wondered why he had chosen to do this sober. "Uh."

"You're dating but you're not dating. Are you sleeping with her?"

Zach would never understand his mother's ongoing fascination with his sex life, or what compelled him to actually be truthful with her when she pried. "Yes."

"Did you get her pregnant?"

"No."

"Oy gevalt! Is that why you're bringing her over to meet me?"

"Ma, I said no!"

"So instead of a girlfriend, you're bringing over some random girl that you're sleeping with…why?"

"Forget it! We'll go to Kevin's house instead. We can eat bacon and sing songs about Jesus."

"Wait!" It was too easy to push her buttons. "OK, OK, bubeleh, what's going on? Something's going on. You never bring girls home to meet me."

With good reason. He wasted too many seconds trying to think of what to say, and his mother picked up on it like a shark smelling blood in the water. "Zach."

"Yeah," he sighed.

"Are you in love with this girl?" Her voice was gentle.

He didn't respond, and his silence spoke volumes.

His mother heaved a sigh hard enough to rattle the connection. "I guess it's all right. I just want to see you happy, honey, even if it breaks my heart."

Zach couldn't help rolling his eyes so hard that it almost broke his neck.

"I hope she's not lactose intolerant."

He decided to withhold Amy's vegetarianism for the moment. "See you tomorrow, Ma."