The Fruit of My Lipstick Read Online Free Page B

notice stuff like that. I respect a guy for his brain, not his looks. But still.
    “Are you finished?” he asked. “Do you . . . want to walk down Fillmore and get something to drink?”
    I glanced at the clock over the door. “What, now?”
    “Sure. If you want.”
    “But it’s half an hour to lights out.”
    “So?”
    “So when our dorm mistress checks, I’ll get a demerit.” For such a smart guy, he really had a problem with the small stuff.
    He shrugged. “It’s just a demerit. Something for the staff in the office to count. Meaningless.”
    “Maybe to you, but with enough of them, they’ll call my parents. And believe me, that’s grief I don’t need.” I got up and closed the piano lid. “Come on.”
    The music rooms, which rang with people practicing from seven in the morning until after dinner, were all silent and dark as we walked down the hall toward the dorm wing. The happy glow in my chest was still there. He’d asked me out! So it was only a coffee or a soda or something, and I couldn’t go, but it was the thought that counted, right? Maybe I wasn’t such a loser after all.
    “Is your family pretty hard-nosed about rules?” He held open the double door that led into the main hall with its parquet floors and giant chandelier, and the common rooms for each of the dorms. Wow. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had held a door for me. In New York, a man is more likely to get a stiletto through his foot than a “thank you” for trying it.
    “It’s not so much the rules as it is excelling in everything. A demerit means you’re not doing that. And explaining why to my dad is not much fun.”
    “I know what you mean,” he said. “When I won the mathematics medal in eighth grade, all my dad could say was, ‘You got a C-plus in gym.’”
    “Some people aren’t happy with themselves, and they can’t be happy for other people.” I wasn’t sure if that was my dad’s problem, or if I was just one more Chang with performance issues in a family of type-A personalities.
    “Oh, he was happy,” Lucas said. “He just would have been happier if I’d been more—as they say—well rounded.”
    “I’m not well rounded, either, then. Phys. Ed. is something to endure. Though I have to say, it’s more interesting out here than on the East Coast. No more stupid field hockey. I took sailing last term and got an A.”
    An accomplishment I was pretty proud of, if you want the truth. It’s not everyone who can capsize a sailboat on purpose, get it right way up again, climb into it, and sail it back to the dock. But, working together, Lissa and I got it done.
    “Yeah?” Was that admiration in his eyes? I hoped so. “I’m a landlubber, I guess. Give me a track and let me run on it, and I’m good.”
    By now we’d reached our common room, which was as far as anyone with a Y chromosome could go in the girls’ dorm wing. I passed it and headed for the stairs.
    “See you tomorrow, Lucas.”
    He nodded. “Maybe we can still go out sometime. When’s your free period?”
    “Tuesdays and Thursdays after breakfast.”
    Call me smitten, but that disappointed look made me feel good. “Mine’s in the middle of the afternoon.”
    “We’ll work something out.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket, borrowed his pen, and wrote my cell number on it. “Call me. Good night.”
    “’Night, Gillian.” And he stood there, watching me walk up the stairs.
    Good thing he couldn’t see me walking down the hall to my room. Because I’m sure I was floating at least two inches off the ground.
    I couldn’t wait to tell Lissa and Carly that Lucas and I were friends again. I found the two of them in Carly’s room, surfing fashion Web sites.
    “What’s that?” I squinted at the screen, which was smaller than mine. “
Entertainment Weekly
?”
    Carly shook her head. “Fashionista.com. And guess who’s front and center, as usual?”
    “Don’t tell me.” I sat on the edge of the bed