i laughed at his ineptitude but helped him hide it , then helped him overcome it , and like most women he met i was charmed by his modesty , and there was maybe a three-day window when we might have moved from being friends to something more , but one day after i had waded in to protect blaise from the catty critiques of the photographer he had looked at me with so much gratefulness that i could no more date him than i could a saint bernard , but i was ten times more his friend than ever , and we became very good for each other , and i helped pull him away from the gravity of his brooding father and told him which of the girls coming on to him were nice and which were skanks or hos .