I slip through the sliding glass door, breathless.
“What did you do? Go for a run?” Courtney asks, her face buried in the latest gossip magazine.
“Yeah.” I pace across the family room, trying to catch my breath; then I open the fridge and grab a bottle of water.
“Chloe runs when she’s upset,” she muses.
“I know.”
“Are you upset?” She puts down the magazine and glances up at me.
I narrow my eyes at her. “No, I’m the happiest person in the world.” Then I force a smile. “See the big smile on my face.”
“Sorry for asking?” Courtney shrinks back into the couch. “There’s some pizza on the counter. I could heat it up for you.”
“I’m not hungry,” I say, continuing to pace between the family room and the kitchen, sipping water. “Where’s Ian?”
“He went home.”
I stop pacing. “Why?”
“So I could talk to you.”
“About?”
“Ryan.”
“What about him?”
“Ian said Ryan won’t tell him what happened, so we thought you’d tell us.”
“Well.” I narrow my eyes at her. “You thought wrong.”
“Seriously!” She stands up, offended. “Why are you so mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you, I’m just…”
“What?”
“Disappointed.”
She bites down on her lip and sits back down. “Because of Rob?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“I don’t know if I can make you understand, Cal, but with Chloe out of the picture, I just wanted a chance with him.”
I step closer and look down at her. “But she wasn’t out of the picture: She was just visiting her grandmother.”
“Yeah, but she thought about staying up there—going to school there and everything.”
“But you didn’t know that! You didn’t know anything, Courtney.” I pause. “None of us knew anything—and she had only been gone for a week!”
She looks at me, studies me. “Just like none us knew what was going on with you and your family.”
I head into the kitchen and grab a cold slice of pizza. I take a bite and return back to the earlier conversation. “You shouldn’t have done it, Courtney. You shouldn’t have gone after him…seriously, Rob Callahan?”
“But Chloe left him.”
“So! He’s still off limits!”
“Because of the rule?” Courtney was referring to the rules we wrote in eighth grade, back when there were seven of us. In an effort to solidify the friendship, we all came up with rules. It was Caitlyn’s idea, and the one rule that made sense was ‘No guy swapping!’ The rule had a row of endless exclamation points reaching the far end of the page.
“No, because of common decency, Courtney,” I sneer. “Listen, I still can’t believe you did it. Seriously, what were you thinking?”
“Maybe I wasn’t.”
“You think?” I toss scathingly. “Sometimes you’re like a guy, making decisions with your you-know-what instead of your—” I stroll over and tap the top of her head.
She shakes her head. “I just had a lapse in judgment, okay? It’s in the past. Let’s talk about something more important—like you and Ryan. I thought you were into him.”
“I was,” I pause, “but it turns out that he wasn’t into me.” I don’t tell her why…yet.
My answer silences her. “It’s not a big deal,” I say and enter the kitchen and grab another slice of pizza.
She gets up and joins me in the kitchen. “What do you want to do tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you mind if I join you?”
“Don’t you have plans with Ian?”
“I canceled them.”
“Why?”
“Because you needed a friend.”
“Yeah, I really do,” I say, wishing Chloe were here, but I have to give props to Courtney for putting a friend before a guy. That has to be a first. I may have lost all respect for her on Sunday afternoon, but I am gaining some of it back tonight.