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“You’re finally going on a date with Agatha?” Penelope’s voice was soft, despite the surprise in her face. Neither of them wanted Sir Bleakly to hear—he was prone to giving ridiculous detentions; they could end up dusting the catacombs for hours or proofreading confiscated love notes.
“After di
“Does Agatha know it’s a date? Because that just sounds like ‘Another Tuesday Night with Simon.’”
“I think so.” Simon tried not to turn and frown at Penelope, even though he wanted to. “She said she’d wear her new dress.…”
“Another Tuesday Night with Agatha,” Penelope said.
“You don’t think she likes me?”
“Oh, Simon, I never said that. She’d have to be an idiot not to like you.”
Simon gri
“So I guess what I’m saying,” Penelope said, going back to her homework, “is we’ll just have to see.”
—from chapter 17, Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, copyright © 2009 by Gemma T. Leslie
TWENTY-FIVE
Reagan was sitting at Cath’s desk when Cath woke up.
“Are you awake?”
“Have you been watching me sleep?”
“Yes, Bella. Are you awake?”
“No.”
“Well, wake up. We need to set some ground rules.”
Cath sat up, rubbing the gunk out of her eyes. “What is wrong with you? If I woke you up like this, you’d murder me.”
“That’s because I’ve got all the hand in our relationship. Wake up, we need to talk about Levi.”
“Okay…” Cath couldn’t help but smile a little, just hearing his name. Levi. She had a date with Levi.
“So you guys made up?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Holy crap, Reagan. No.”
“Good,” Reagan said. She was sitting on Cath’s chair with one leg tucked under the other, wearing an intramural-football T-shirt and black yoga pants. “I don’t want to know when you sleep with him. That’s the first ground rule.”
“I’m not go
“See, that’s exactly the kind of thing I don’t want to know—wait, what do you mean, you’re not go
Cath pressed both palms into her eyes. “I mean, not in the immediate future. We just talked.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been hanging out with him all year—”
“Things you pressure me to do: one, underage drinking; two, prescription drug abuse; three, premarital sex.”
“Oh my god, Cath, ‘premarital sex’? Are you kidding me?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Levi was my boyfriend.”
“I know.”
“All through high school.”
“I know, I know.” Cath was hiding her eyes again. “Don’t paint me a picture.”
“I lost my virginity with him.”
“Achhhh. Stop. Seriously.”
“This is exactly what the ground rules are for,” Reagan said. “Levi is one of my best friends, and I’m your only friend, and I don’t want this to get weird.”
“Too late,” Cath said. “And you’re not my only friend.”
“I know—” Reagan rolled her eyes and waved a hand in the air. “—you’ve got the whole Internet.”
“What are the ground rules?”
Reagan held up a finger. Her nails were long and pink.
“One. Nobody talks to me about sex.”
“Done.”
“Two, no lovey-dovey stuff in front of me.”
“Done and done. I’m telling you, there is no lovey-dovey stuff.”
“Three, shut up, nobody talks to me about their relationship.”
Cath nodded. “Fine.”
“Four…”
“You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?”
“I came up with the ground rules the first time you guys kissed. Four, Levi is my friend, and you can’t be jealous of that.”
Cath looked at Reagan. At her red hair and her full lips and her totally out-sticking breasts. “I feel like it’s too soon to agree to that,” she said.
“No,” Reagan said, “we’ve got to get this out of the way. You can’t be jealous. And in return, I won’t flex my best-friend muscles just to remind myself, and Levi, that he loved me first.”
“Oh my God”—Cath clutched her comforter in disbelief—“would you actually do that?”
“I might,” Reagan said, leaning forward, her face as shocked as Cath’s. “In a moment of weakness. You’ve got to understand, I’ve been Levi’s favorite girl practically my whole life. He hasn’t dated anyone else, not seriously, since we broke up.”
“God,” Cath said, “I really hate this.”
Reagan nodded, and it was like a dozen I-told-you-sos.
“Why did you let this happen?” Cath asked. “Why’d you let him hang out here so much?”
“Because I could tell that he liked you.” Reagan sounded almost angry about it. “And I really do want him to be happy.”
“You guys haven’t … relapsed, have you? Since you broke up?”
“No…” Reagan looked away. “When we broke up freshman year, it was pretty awful. We only started hanging out again at the end of last year. I knew he was having trouble in his classes, and I wanted to help.…”
“Okay,” Cath said, deciding to take this seriously. “What are the rules again? No talking about sex, no PDA, no talking about relationship stuff—”
“No being jealous.”
“No being u
Reagan pursed her lips. “All right, but be rational if this comes up. No being u
“And no being a horrible, narcissistic bitch who gets off on her ex-boyfriend’s affection.”
“Agreed,” Reagan said, holding out her hand.
“Do we really have to shake on this?”
“Yes.”
“Levi and I might not even be anything, you know. We haven’t even gone on a date. “
Reagan smiled tightly. “I don’t think so. I’ve got a good/bad feeling about this. Shake.”
Cath reached out and shook her hand.
“Now, get up,” Reagan said. “I’m hungry.”
* * *
As soon as Reagan left for work that afternoon, Cath jumped up from her desk and started going through her closet to figure out what to wear. Probably a T-shirt with a cardigan and jeans. There was nothing in Cath’s closet that wasn’t a T-shirt, a cardigan, or jeans. She laid her options out on the bed. Then she went looking for something she’d bought at a flea market last year—a little green knit collar that fastened with an antique pink button.
She wondered where Levi would take her.
Her first date with Abel had been to a movie. Wren and some of their other friends had come, too. After that, going out with Abel usually just meant hanging out at the bakery or studying up in Cath’s room. Swim meets during swim season. Math contests. Those probably weren’t dates, come to think of it. She wasn’t going to tell Levi that her last date had been at a math contest.
Cath looked at the clothes she’d laid out and wished that Wren were here to help. She wished that she’d talked to Wren about Levi before they’d started fighting.… Which would have been last year, before Cath had even met him.
What would Wren say if she were here? Pretend that he likes you more than you like him. It’s like buying a car—you have to be willing to walk away.
No … that was the kind of advice Wren gave herself. What would she say to Cath? Stop frowning. We’re prettier when we smile. Are you sure you don’t want to do a shot?
God, thinking about Wren was just making Cath feel worse. Now she felt nervous and sad. And lonely.
It was a relief when Reagan kicked in the door and started talking about di
* * *
“Wear your hair down,” Reagan said, tearing a piece of pizza in half. “You have good hair.”
“That comment is definitely against the ground rules,” Cath said, taking a bite of cottage cheese. “Number three, I think.”
“I know.” Reagan shook her head. “But you’re so helpless sometimes. It’s like watching a kitten with its head trapped in a Kleenex box.”
Cath rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to feel like I have to look different for him all of a sudden. It’ll seem lame.”