It started the day my son, Ben, had a hickey on his neck. Having a fairly close relationship with Ben, I asked him about it. First of all, like most 17-year-olds, he denied it was a hickey. I quickly grounded him in reality, stating that I most certainly knew what a hickey looked like. He was flustered but also pleased to be sporting this huge purple blotch on his neck.

"Who is she?" I asked. He had several friends who were girls, and I really couldn't imagine him wrestling romantically with any of them. They had always been strictly platonic. He wouldn't tell me who had delivered the hickey.

Being me, I started listing friends, and acquaintances, hoping to hit upon the right name.

"Kelsey? Miranda? Abby?" He denied them all with a foolish grin. As a joke, I brought up the name of a guy friend of his, who had just recently started showing up around our house. I hadn't met Alex yet, but I knew my son had been out with him the night before.

"Alex?" I teased.

"No," he said. But he smiled a smile that I didn't understand and left the room.

I thought about that for a while. As the days progressed, I started to notice some changes about Ben. He was dressing different, wearing newsboy caps, scarves, and sporting an "indie" beard. He was spending a lot of time with Alex, to the exclusion of his other friends... continued