Rules for Being a Girl

“Yeah.”

I look at him skeptically, trying to figure out what on earth his game is. A random lax bro showing up here like some kind of Trojan horse who’s acting all interested to try and . . . what? Infiltrate my book club? That makes no sense.

Everyone else is watching silently. Dave clears his throat.

“Fine,” I say eventually. “You can stay.”

Gray smiles then, saluting me with his tattered paperback and making his way to an empty seat across the circle. Ms. Klein asks a question about Offred and the Commander, and the discussion is pretty animated from there. I’m expecting Gray to try to dominate the conversation, but to my surprise, he mostly keeps his mouth shut; when I glance over in his direction he’s leaning slightly forward in his seat, listening to Elisa with a furrowed brow. He’s so quiet, in fact, that as we’re about to wrap up, Ms. Klein nods in his direction.

“You’ve been keeping to yourself over there, Gray,” she says pleasantly. “Anything you took from the book that we haven’t covered?”

“Um.” Gray clears his throat. “I mean, I’ll be honest, I thought it was terrifying. My heart was pounding the whole entire time. I almost peed my pants when that girl’s plane to Canada got stopped on the runway.”

I frown. That definitely didn’t happen in the book, unless I somehow missed it. “Which girl?” I ask; Lydia and Elisa look at him curiously.

“The main one,” he explains, for once in his life looking vaguely uncomfortable at the prospect of this much female attention at once. “You know, the one who was on Mad Men.”

And there it is. “Uh-huh,” I say, satisfied. “That’s what I thought.”

“All right,” Ms. Klein says, barely hiding a smile. “We should break up for today anyway, but I’ll meet you all back here next week.” We’re going to read mostly short stories and essays, we decided, for the sake of being able to meet more frequently. “Any of you who want to take leftover Munchkins home, feel free.”

I pocket a couple of glazed and head out to the parking lot, where I’m surprised to catch Gray pacing back and forth in front of the building, stopping every few feet to frown down at what looks like his watch.

“You okay over there?” I call out.

Gray nods sheepishly. “Step counter,” he calls by way of explanation, waggling his wrist in my direction. “But it’s not working.”

I laugh, I can’t help it. “Seriously?” I don’t know what it is about this guy that makes me want to heckle him.

“What’s wrong with a step counter?”

I shake my head, walking closer. “I mean, nothing, if you’re my mom.”

“Is your mom extremely physically fit?” Gray fires back.

“If Zumba counts, absolutely she is.” I nod at his wrist. “What’s your goal?”

“Twenty thousand.”

I raise my eyebrows and shrug my peacoat around my shoulders. “Every day?”

He shrugs. “It’s not that much, really.”

“You don’t have to have false modesty about your step count,” I say with a smile. “I’m not that impressed.”

“Clearly,” Gray says, grinning back. I can’t tell if he’s flirting with me or not. Even if he is, I know it doesn’t mean anything. Gray is notorious for flirting with everyone.

“So what were you really doing in there, huh?” I can’t resist asking, nodding my head back toward the building. “With the book club, I mean.”

Gray makes a face. “College apps,” he admits. “I need to bulk up extracurriculars.” He tilts his head to the side. “I thought it was ballsy how you fought with Mr. Beckett though. So I came to support. Or like—” He frowns. “I guess ballsy isn’t the right word, huh?”

“Ballsy is fine.”

“Brave is what I meant.”

I smile again, more slowly, and this time nothing about it is a tease. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time in there,” I tell him.

“It’s cool,” Gray says. “I get it.” The st