301: Coffee? I'm the girlfriend, aren't I?

Source.

       Ginger is a seasoning, I want to tell him. A knobby little root!
       I turn the key in the lock, and before Drew can answer I’m closing the door on the image of his face—slate-blue-gray eyes looking up sheepishly through brown schoolboy bangs, mouth parted slightly, one foot lifted as if to step forward.
       I snap the lock shut and hurry down the hall to the kitchen. I close the kitchen door, pull down the shades, then crawl into the pantry, because that is one room farther away from Drew Ellis. As far inside my house as I can burrow. I yank the long cord to the bare bulb overhead, pull the door shut, and sit on the floor under the dim yellow light.
       Although we just ate dinner, I’m hungry. There’s nothing to eat in the pantry except for raw ingredients, though: flour, sugar, shortening, yeast, and polenta. I twist open a canister of rye flour and dig my hand into it. It’s dry and silty and tickles as it runs between my fingers. I scoop some into my mouth and try chewing. But you cannot chew flour. I cough and choke, then swallow, saliva turning the flour to a sort of doughy glob that sticks in the back of my throat.
       She’s more beautiful, for one thing. And Drew mentioned that she’s a Seattle SuperSonics fan. I tried to share Drew’s enthusiasm for his stupid Seattle team. “They have a deep bench,” I’d gush, watching the game with him, pretending not to prefer the Lakers, whom Ethan and I love. Loved. Whatever. Drew says the Lakers are too Hollywood, though, and I pretended to agree. That’s the dumb thing about dating—feigning similar interests.

Lolly Winston, Good Grief, pages 237-8.

Choose twelve of these words and phrases for your homework. Instructions: same as always. Have fun!

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to get together 
demoted (to demote) 
to move up the ranks 
on the verge of 
to meet family 
St. Christopher 
a fling (noun) 
hybrid freak 
conglomeration 
to muster 
to clutch 
“I see” 
to jam 
Ginger is a seasoning... 
knobby 
sheepishly 
bangs 
parted (to part) 
pantry 
to burrow 
to yank 
silty 
deep bench 
to gush 
too Hollywood 
to feign