Rules for Being a Girl - Candace Bushnell Page 0,50

overhead feel unforgivingly bright all of a sudden. “A relationship?”

Gray raises his eyebrows. “You tell me.”

I bite my lip. On one hand, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel something for him, that being with him doesn’t light a spark inside me, doesn’t fill my heart like a balloon inside my chest. On the other hand . . .

“I don’t think you’re a lot,” I tell him finally, which isn’t really an answer to his question. “Or I mean, okay, you can be. A lot, I mean. But in a good way.” I reach for his hand, the calluses on his palm scraping gently against my skin. “I would never tell you to fuck off. I mean, I’d never tell anyone to fuck off, let’s be real. But especially not you.”

Gray smiles. “Too polite, huh?”

“Something like that,” I tell him.

“Well,” he says, “you never know. You might surprise yourself. Maybe one of these days you’ll snap and start telling people to fuck themselves left and right.”

“Maybe.” I hold up the doughnut bag. “Peace offering?”

“There better be bear claws in there,” he says, and kisses me before I can reply.

Twenty-Six

I’m in the bathroom near the gym on Friday morning when the door to the stall beside me opens and Chloe comes out.

“Oh! Sorry,” I say, motioning at the sinks; there are only two in this bathroom, and only one of them has any water pressure. “Go ahead.”

Chloe shakes her head, blond hair bouncing; today the lapel pin on her uniform collar is shaped like a tiny palm tree. “No,” she says, “you can go.”

“No, really.”

“Marin,” Chloe says, an impatient edge creeping into her voice. “Just go, okay?”

“Okay. Sorry.” I wash my hands as fast as humanly possible, wrinkling my nose at the smell of the cheap green soap and grabbing a paper towel from the dispenser.

“So, um,” I try, sensing an opening. “How’s your day going?”

As an opening gambit it’s pretty pathetic; Chloe’s expression makes that much abundantly clear.

“It’s fine. No complaints.”

“That’s good.” I pull the sleeves of my uniform sweater down over my hands, wanting to howl at the thought of things being this awkward and impossible between us forever. It’s just me, I want to tell her. I’m still the same person I was before.

“Look,” I tell her, “I know this is a long shot, but there’s a book club potluck tonight, if you’re interested.”

Chloe blinks at me. “A potluck?” she repeats.

“I know,” I say, suddenly embarrassed by the earnestness of it—it’s the kind of thing we probably would have made fun of, three months ago. “It’s kind of like, very Midwestern mom of us? But it could be fun, right? And you don’t have to be in the book club to come, so . . .”

Chloe nods slowly. “Um, thanks,” she says. “I’ve got other plans, but . . . sounds fun.”

I wince. Other plans, like she’s some vague acquaintance on the T who doesn’t want to come to my weird church group and not the person who knows me best and longest, who always comes into a one-person bathroom with me when we’re out together and whose house I’ve thrown up in on two separate occasions.

“Sure thing,” I tell her. “Maybe another time, then.”

“Maybe,” Chloe says, leaning over the sink to reapply her lipstick. Neither one of us says goodbye before I go.

After Gray’s practice, we head over to the potluck together, his heavy hand on mine. I’ve always kind of liked being in school when it’s dark out, how it feels weirdly festive; Lydia and Elisa made decorations for the bio lab, brightly colored paper bunting hung up above the whiteboard, and a bunch of desks are pushed together and draped with a purple plastic cloth. Gray brought brownies one of his moms made, studded with walnuts and caramel chips and topped with flaky sea salt. Dave stopped at McDonald’s and got like five dozen Chicken McNuggets, and Chloe’s dad sent me with a huge to-go container of lamb meatballs with a yogurt dipping sauce from the restaurant. Even Ms. Klein brought something, though she’s always talking about how she doesn’t ever turn her oven on—tiny crostini spread with herby cheese and dolloped with fancy blackberry jam.

This is the first time we’ve all hung out where we didn’t have a specific book to talk about, and I was worried it might be as awkward as it was back at the very beginning, but to my surprise the room is echoing with conversations: Bri and