Page 40 of Guy's Girl
She grins. “I love wine. Let me see.” He hands her the bottle, and she eyes the label. A nice $6 vintage from Trader Joe’s. “This will be perfect with the spaghetti. Thank you so much, Adrian.”
They smile awkwardly at each other. Adrian wonders if she’s having the same realization that he is: this is their first time hanging out with their friends since everything started.
“Spaghetti?” Adrian leans over to eye the food steaming in the kitchenette behind her.
“Yes.” Her face shades over with nerves. “I hope that’s okay?”
“That’s great,” he says quickly. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
“You didn’t?” asks Clay from the couch through a mouthful of blueberry goat cheese. “Dude. That’s, like, her whole personality.”
“I’d like to think there’s alittlemore to me than that,” Ginny says, but Adrian can hear her pride.
“Seriously. She even went to culinary school.”
“What?” Adrian asks. “You did?”
“Oh, yeah,” Clay answers. “The summer after freshman year.”
Tristan scoops a grainy cracker into a melting wheel of brie. “After she came back, Gin would cook us these dope dinners every Wednesday. Fancy French food, you know? The good stuff.”
Adrian can imagine it: the four of them clustered around a scuffed-up coffee table bought from Harvard’s welcome-back yard sale, far too dirty to be holding the gorgeous feast sitting atop it. He imagines sweatpants, plastic cups filled with cheap wine, Ginny serving generous portions with a spatula she stole from the dining hall. The way she could take a drab, standard-issue dorm room and fill it with warmth, with butter and sugar, the smell of home.
The boys revolve around her, Adrian thinks.Ginny is the sun.
“She said it was the best way to hone her training,” Finch adds, “but I’m pretty sure she just likes to show off.”
Ginny turns her head over her shoulder, grins, and sticks out her tongue. Finch produces that same impish smile that always needled Adrian when they lived together. When Ginny turns back to the stove, the smile drops from Finch’s face, but he doesn’t look away. Just watches her work. And as he does, his eyes shift. Soften. Turn almost wistful.
Before Adrian can think too hard about the implications of that expression, Ginny turns around and sets the open bottle of red on the table. “Drink up, boys,” she says. “I want you suitably lubricated when the food comes out.”
So, Gin.” Clay drops his fork onto the empty plate and leans back into the sofa. “How do you like living with boys?”
Ginny snorts. “I lived with you assholes all of college.”
“You did?” Adrian asks.
“Oh, yeah.” Ginny shifts closer to him on the couch. They went through the bottle of wine before dinner had even been served. Now a rainbow assortment of hefeweizens and IPAs scatter across the coffee table, all chosen from Ginny’s personal collection. The alcohol did what it always does—quiets the anxiety, loosens the tongue, brightens the mood... and makes her want to sit as close to Adrian as possible. “Not freshman year, but we blocked together and lived in a quad in Lowell for the other three years.”
“No kidding. You didn’t like any of the girls you met?”
Ginny sips her beer. “Girls have never really been my thing.”
“No?”
“Nah. I grew up with three brothers, remember? I spent most of my time playing video games or smearing mud on my face.” She shrugs. “I guess it just stuck.”
“Yeah.” Finch leans forward, grinning. “Gin is justsucha guy’s girl.”
Ginny throws a wet noodle at his face.
He dodges, laughing. “What? You are. You know how to hang with the boys.” He props his chin on both hands and flutters his eyelashes. “Tell us, oh wise one—what’s it like to be a true guy’s girl?”
“Oh, that’s easy.” Ginny straightens, laying both hands on her knees. “If you want to be a guy’s girl, all you have to do is becomean excellent liar. As a first step, I recommend standing in front of the mirror and reciting these words.” She clears her throat: “None of them want to fuck me.”
Clay bursts into laughter.
“Repeat this lie until you believe it at least forty percent of the time,” Ginny continues. “None of them want to fuck me, none of them want to fuck me, none of them—”
