Текст книги " Bittersweet"

Автор книги: Sarah Ockler

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Seventeen

Chocolate Banana Snap Crackle Popcakes

Cold banana cupcakes topped with milk chocolate icing, sliced strawberries, and Rice Krispies; served in a bowl with a spoon and a splash of spilt milk (to cry over)

That sorry excuse for a triple ain’t happenin’, sweet stuff. Back on the glass until you nail it.

After the tenth consecutive wipeout, I pick myself up off the Baylor’s ice for another go, Lola’s voice scolding me at every turn. I pump my legs and rush toward the center line, but when I try the lift again, I lose my balance, crash, and skid to a halt on my ass.

Again! Lola shouts.

I stand and dust the cold from my hands, thinking about Parallel Life Hudson. She’d probably be doing this exact thing right now—prepping for a chance at Lola’s once-in-a-lifetime skating scholarship. If I’d stayed strong at Luby Arena that night, showed up at regionals, continued working with elite private coaches, I might’ve ended up exactly here anyway. Maybe I didn’t get that far off course. Maybe our divergent paths have finally fused. Maybe there’s still a chance. The chance.

I push across the ice and leap into a double axel/double lutz combo, pulling off a perfect landing. The crowd roars in my head, and when I close my eyes, it almost becomes real. The shouts and whistles from the stands, the crisp white smell of the air over a freshly smoothed rink, the chill rising from its surface.

Hudson Avery, ladies and gentlemen. The Cupcake Queen of Watonka, back for another shot on the ice. Can she impress the judges one last time? The crowd stomps their collective feet in a unified march, their energy a force field propelling me into another double/double combo.

A perfect score! Folks, this is figure skating history in the making….

I coast forward for one more go, taking the hard turns with speed and grace as I lap the rink. My lungs ache and my cheeks are numb, but I can’t stop now. I twist into a death spiral, the white of the ice swirling against the stands above until I stop, take a deep breath of chilled oxygen, and pump my legs toward the other end of the rink.

Swish …

I can do this.

Swish …

I have to do this.

Swish …

I push off from the back edge and spring forward, curling into the air for a single … a double … a triple flip. Ice-air-air-air-ice. Landing. First one I’ve nailed in weeks. And the crowd goes …

“Damn, girl. You still got it.”

I whip my ahead around toward the sound. A single spectator leans against the rails, arms crossed over her chest, strawberry blond braids poking out the bottom of her light blue hat.

Only she’s not a spectator. She’s laced up.

I swallow the lump in my throat to make room for the sarcasm. “You packin’ that ice pick today?”

“Not this time.” Kara glides toward the center of the rink, hands clasped behind her back. “Will said you’d probably be here, so I thought … I don’t know.” She looks down at her skates, black leg warmers pulled down over the tops. “Figured I’d dust these things off and see if they still work.”

“You talked to Will?”

“Texted him after I saw him on the news. That’s it.”

I shrug. “Free country.”

“Did you catch his interview?”

“Yep.” I swizzle backward toward the penalty box, putting some distance between us.

“Hudson, wait.” She follows me, her strides as graceful and balanced as ever. “I came to apologize for harassing you at your locker. New Year’s, too. I’m sorry I cornered you in the bathroom. I wanted to talk, but I had a couple drinks, and by the time you got there … I don’t know. Can I blame the booze?”

I grab a bottled water from my pack and take a swig. “You know what they say. Don’t drink and … stalk people in bathrooms. I mean … okay. I don’t know where I was going with that.”

Kara laughs. “Guess things got a little ridiculous between us, huh?”

“A little bit, yeah.” I tuck the bottle back into my pack and skate to the center line. “So, what’s up? You trying out for the Capriani thing after all?”

“Think I have a chance?” Kara laughs and follows me to the line. “I don’t want to compete, Hud. I told you that already. And I don’t want this to come out wrong, but I need to say something about Will. One thing, then I’ll shut up.”

“Again with the Will threats?” I know she liked him first, but that was forever ago. They had their chance, and it didn’t work out. She’s the one who dumped him, anyway. And it’s not like Will and I are together together. And even if we were, it’s none of her business. “Sorry, Kara. I don’t—”

“Just be careful. I know you’re helping with the Wolves, and you two are hanging out now, but as charming as Will is … look, once he gets what he wants, he moves on. You saw his interview today. Gorgeous smile or not, Will is all about Will.”

“Hockey boys, right? Comes with the territory.” I laugh to show her how much she’s not getting to me, just in case she missed it.

“I know, but Will—”

“We’re not having this conversation.”

“Point taken.” She fingers a loose thread on her jacket, the sleeve fraying at the end as she pulls. “Speaking of hockey boys … is Danielle Bozeman trying to talk to Frankie?”

My stomach knots up at the mention of Dani. “Frankie Torres? Doubt it. Why?”

“Ellie said … well, she thought they went out or something. And—”

“They hung out once before Christmas, but it was kind of a joke. She’s not into hockey boys.”

Kara laughs. “Smart girl.”

“Yep.” I skate away from her and twirl into a camel spin.

“Your moves are tight,” she says, skating a backward circle around me. “You ready for the competition?”

“Mostly. I’ve been working my ass off after every Wolves practice and whenever I can sneak away from work. I just hope it’s enough.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. You have, like, crazy talent.”

“Crazy talent that’s been hibernating for three years without a coach.” I bend down to adjust my leg warmers, pulling them off my laces a bit. Maybe they’re too heavy. Maybe that’s what’s throwing me off. “I’m still perfecting my triple/triple. I keep screwing up the first jump.”

“Looked good to me.”

“That was a one-in-a-hundred shot. I can’t replicate it consistently, which means I don’t have it.”

“Let me see.”

“What, here?”

“Better than Amir’s bathroom, right?” She skates back to the box. “Maybe I can give you some pointers. I remember stuff too, you know.”

“You sure you’re okay with this?”

“Why not? Come on.” Kara resumes her spectator position on the sidelines and I skate back to the center line. This was our routine for so long. For weeks leading up to our events, we’d practice together at Buffalo Skate Club every night, swapping critiques until we’d nearly broken every bone, perfected every move.

Now, after years of not speaking, it’s so strange to be skating for her like this again, but it’s kind of nice, too. I go through a quick version of some of my program moves, launch into my triple flip, and … crash and burn.

“See what I mean?” I stand up and check my laces. Everything’s tight. The leg warmers are clear of the blades. The skates aren’t a perfect fit anymore, and they’re definitely not in mint condition, but I don’t think that’s the problem. I try two more for her and get the same results: Ass, meet ice. Talk amongst yourselves.

“Your left foot’s dragging after the jump,” she says. She slides out to the center and demonstrates a version of my pre-jump in slow motion. “You’re pushing off the ice strong, but your trailing foot lags. You’re not pulling in tight enough for the triple.”

“You sure that’s it?”

She nods. “Try it again, but this time, lift you left foot a half second earlier.”

I skate back to the center, close my eyes, and lean into a glide. I speed up, concentrating on that lagging foot, counting my strokes, two … three … four … and launch …

“Yeah! That’s it!” She claps from the sidelines, and I open my eyes. I really did it. Triple flip, perfect landing. No missteps, no wipeouts.

“Try another, just to be sure.”

I skate back into position, glide up the center ice, and bang out another perfect triple.

“And there you have it,” she says. “Put it together with your triple toe loop, and you’re golden.”

I skate back to the box and grab my water. “Thanks. I’ve been crying over that move for weeks.”

“Should’ve called me sooner.”

“Um …”

“Kidding. You still have your old DVDs, right? Might help to watch them again. Make some notes from the outside looking in, you know?”

I nod, picturing the dusty box in the basement.

“You look good out there, Hudson. I’m sure you’ll kick ass next month.” She looks at me with shiny eyes, and my stomach lurches sideways. If I didn’t screw up that night in Rochester, maybe she’d still be competing. Maybe we’d be practicing for the Capriani Cup together, sharing tips and tricks, shouting out cheers and encouragement, may the best girl win. Instead, I’m training alone, lying to basically everyone I know, and she’s here apologizing about some stupid half-drunk bathroom exchange at a party when all she really wanted to do was warn me about Will. Protect me from getting hurt by the boy that was once hers.

I think I’m in love with Will Harper….

“I’m so sorry, Kara.” The words sting my throat on the way out. I take a deep breath and try again. “I’m sorry about kissing Will at that party when I knew you liked him. And I’m sorry about throwing the Empire Games. I got out there that night and I was pissed at my dad and kind of in shock and I just … I gave up. And after that, I disappeared. I couldn’t face up to anything. My parents got divorced, and I went into hiding because I thought it was my fault.”

Kara knew that my parents officially split up soon after Empire—everyone did—but by then we were no longer speaking. I never told her about everything that came before the divorce: The nights my father slept on the couch. The clipped arguments and silent breakfasts, forks scraping angrily on plates. All the endless pretending. How that night at the event, just hours after discovering the cheetah bra, I let my own dreams melt, right there on the ice in front of my parents, my coach, my skate club, and my best friend.

“He was having an affair,” I say. “I’m pretty sure Mom knew it all along, but I found the real proof that day, fifteen minutes before we left for Rochester. I didn’t fully realize what it was in the moment, but somehow I knew they’d split up. That night at the event, I saw it coming, and I freaked.” The ice machines tick below our feet and a shiver passes through my bones. “It’s not an excuse, but that’s what happened.”

Kara lets out a long, slow breath. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that by yourself. But you could’ve told me the truth. Maybe not that night, but after. Yeah, I would’ve been mad about losing our shot at the Empire sponsorship, but I would’ve understood. I would’ve … I don’t know. Maybe we’d still be friends today, instead of … not.”

I look out across the rink, tears blurring the ice into a white sea. “I know.”

“I thought I’d moved on,” she continues. “It was so long ago, I wasn’t competing anymore, we weren’t friends, why bother, right? But then I heard you were working with the hockey team, training again, hanging out with Will … I’m not the psycho jealous ex here, Hudson. Seriously. But every time I see you with him, it’s like watching the last three years unravel in reverse. I didn’t … I never forgave you.”

I turn to face her again and whisper over the tightness in my throat. “And now?”

She sighs, scraping a line in the ice with her toe pick, back and forth, back and forth. “So much happened; things are so different now. We’re different. But the other night at Amir’s, I realized something: Friends or not, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hating you.”

“Same,” I say.

“So let’s call this a mutual understanding. It’s the best I can do.” She smiles and holds out her hand. Despite the heaviness of her final words on my chest, I take it.

“Does this mean no more bathroom brawls?”

She smiles. “Afraid so. But, Hudson, I’m serious about Will. Right now he needs you for the team, but after that … just be careful, okay? And that’s all I’ll say about it.”

I drop her hand and nod toward her skates. “Fifteen minutes before I have to get back to work. Feel like giving those things a workout? Letting me kick your ass for old times?”

Kara raises an eyebrow, and for a second I think she might join me. I know we’re not friends anymore—not really. But I want her to say yes. I want her to skate with me again—to want to skate with me again. Because after everything that happened, if things can be okay with Kara, maybe it means my skating doesn’t have to be an either/or, a bittersweet choice that always leaves something else behind, some other dream unfollowed.

But Kara’s smile fades fast, her eyes turning serious and regretful. “I should let you get back to your training.”

“No, it’s cool. We could—”

“Some other time, maybe.” She taps her toe pick against the ice. “Good luck at the event, Hudson. I’m sure you’ll win the judges’ hearts. You always did.”

I nod, blinking back tears. Winning the judges’ hearts always meant more to me off the ice, after the roses and ribbons and camera flashes, when Kara and I sat side by side with a tuna melt platter in the window booth at Hurley’s, the celebration twice as special because we could share it, no matter who took first.

But things are different now. I made my choices, and so did Kara, and three years later our paths are as divergent as fire and ice.

Kara Shipley and I were supposed to skate around the world together. But now?

“Bye, Hud. See you at school.” She glides to the edge of the rink and slips the blade guards over her skates, and I take a deep breath, skate back to the center line, and without an audience, give that triple/triple another go.

Chapter Eighteen

Hester’s Scarlet Letters

Raspberry-vanilla cupcakes topped with chocolate Chambord icing, a fresh raspberry, and a scarlet monogrammed A

“I have news,” Will says in the hall outside my French classroom the following week. “Pun intended.”

It’s the first Friday after winter break, and despite Kara’s warnings, he’s been walking me to my classes every day, warming up my car in the school lot, dazzling me with his smile and unfailing intensity and all-around good-smelling-ness.

“Give it to me,” I say.

“You’ll never guess who’s coming to the game tonight.” Will slides his hand across my lower back, fingers curving around my hip. “My good buddy Don Donaldson. Heyyy.” He makes a shooting gesture with his free hand and clicks his tongue.

“Cheesy news guy Don? Why?”

“What can I say? I look good on camera.” Will flashes me his TV-ready grin. “I totally boost their ratings.”

I punch him in the arm.

“Hey! They like the human interest angle. Hometown heroes, underdogs, all that stuff. We are doing better than the Buffalo Sabres this season, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I smile. “What about Dodd? He’s cool with the media attention?”

“Not a chance. I’ve been dodging him since the interview last week. I figured I’d set this up now and apologize later.”

“You’re living on the edge, boy.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Will leans against the lockers and looks down the hall, his eyes suddenly dark. “Dodd doesn’t want any attention on us. My dad thinks he’s trying to get Watonka High to drop the hockey program altogether and funnel the leftover money into the football program.”

“Why?”

“Dodd wants a college football gig, but first he’s gotta make a winning high school team. To do that, he needs cash. Right now the Wolves are a money pit for the athletics department. By the way, this is all highly classified, need-to-know-basis type stuff. None of the guys—”

“Dirty secret, got it.” I smile just as the one-minute warning bell buzzes. “Hey, you okay? Should I be worried?”

“I’ll worry about me. You worry about this.” He slips his hand behind my neck and pulls me in, lips melting against mine in a totally sickening PDA special. Thankfully, the only witness is Dani; she sighs as she ducks behind us into the classroom.

“Gross. Get a room.”

It’s the most she’s said to me all week.

“Bonjour, étudiants. C’est une journée excitante!” Madame Fromme’s got her laptop open, rockin’ the I-can’t-wait-to-torture-you-with-a-pictorial-from-my-1980s-French-excursion glow. From her seat near the projector screen she prattles on, but I don’t pick out the French words for “vacation,” “trip,” or “boring as hell,” so maybe we’re safe.

“Dani,” I whisper as the room darkens and the presentation begins—French Impressionism. Much better than watching Madame traipse through the City of Light with her mall bangs and stirrup pants.

“Dani!” I say again, a little louder. Still no response.

I sneak my phone out of my pocket and send her a text, but when her purse buzzes on the floor, she ignores it, twirling her corkscrew curls around a pencil. Desperate, I go low-tech, pen and paper, and quickly sketch a pirate with Dani’s name tattooed on his chest. I even dot the i with a little heart and add a parrot on his shoulder. At the top I write, “A Pirate Sonnet: Roses arrr red. Violets arrr blue. I know we arrr fighting. But I miss talking to you. Arr.”

Pretty impressive, considering I’m not exactly a sketch artist. Or a poet.

I fold it into a triangle and toss it onto her desk. Casually, she stretches out her arm and nudges my note to the floor, unopened and unacknowledged.

At least … unacknowledged by Dani. Madame Fromme, on the other hand, swoops down like a vulture, capturing my note in her talon and tossing it into the trash without missing a beat on the slide show narration.

For the rest of class, I sit with my hands folded on my desk, face forward, soaking up some art en français. It’s slightly less lame than I predicted. Madame shows a bunch of winter scenes from Alfred Sisley, and they totally remind me of Watonka. Like first thing in the morning, when the sun’s just coming up and everything is quiet and undisturbed, snow still fresh and white, the day uncharted—on those mornings, you look out the window and you know anything can happen, because nothing’s gone wrong yet. No best friend fights or lying to your mom or kissing boys in the hallway. It’s just clean, pure potential. Hope.

I haven’t had a Sisley kind of day in a long time.

When the class bell buzzes, Madame Fromme flips on the lights and Dani packs up her stuff, rapid-fire. Before I can say attende, s’il vous plaît, she’s out the door, and Trina Dawes is perching her tiny little ass on the edge of my desk.

The girl is glammed to the max, eyes coated with thick black liner and hair pinned into a prom-style updo behind a rhinestone tiara. In her left hand she’s holding a thin silver wand.

“Hey, Hudson.” The queen bee fairy hooker taps me with the wand and sticks out her chest, letting her tight white T-shirt do the explaining:

Kiss Me, I’m the Birthday Girl!

“Happy—” Ohmygod. It’s January tenth. Friday, January tenth. A hundred people at least …

“Birthday,” I stammer.

She whirls her magic wand between us and bounces on her toes. “Are the cupcakes just so amazing?”

I nod emphatically. Bubble-Gum Bling, her signature theme? I had major plans. Heart-shaped dark chocolate and white chocolate cupcakes, a thick pillow of pink strawberry whipped cream frosting with a light sugar glaze, edible silver glitter, hard candy gemstone accents, all arranged on mirrored trays twined with white Christmas lights. Photo-worthy, cupcake-archive quality all the way.

Too bad they don’t exist.

“So amazing,” I say.

“Yay! Mom will be at Harley’s at five to pick them up.” Trina taps me once more with the magic wand and bounces into the hallway with her girlfriends, giggling about their so amazing Friday-night party plans. Best birthday ever!

“Hurley’s,” I say, but she’s already gone.

I look at the clock over Madame’s desk and do some quick calculations. I still have three more hours of classes, which leaves less than two hours after school to make two hundred blinged-out cupcakes for the birthday fairy. That’s barely enough time to mix and bake them, let alone cool, frost, and hand-decorate. I don’t even remember where I stashed the mirrored trays.

Attention, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test. I repeat, this is not a test. This is a bona fide, break-the-glass cupcake emergency.

And there’s only one desperately shameful way to fix it.

Operation Bake-and-Switch commences at the Front Street Fresh ’n’ Fast immediately after school.

I check my last shred of self-respect at the entrance, snag a rusty shopping cart, and beeline for the bakery. And by bakery, clearly I’m talking about the shelves where they stack all the stuff that was created by machines on an assembly line in Tulsa, injected with preservatives and high-fructose chemicalness, and shipped here on a truck for our postproduction enjoyment.

I’m pretty sure it’s one of those moments where everything is supposed to stand still for a few seconds so you can recognize the impending disaster and redirect the course of your life, but I don’t have time for any of that nonsense, because there’s a two-for-one special on prepackaged confections today, and I’m about to go bulk wild on this bargain.

Shame creeps along my neck and face, but I ignore it and load up the cart with enough flats of white-frosted cupcakes to feed Trina’s party people. Two hundred and ten tasty treats later, I zoom through self-checkout, stack the goodies in the backseat of the Tetanus Taxi, and floor it over to Hurley’s, eighty bucks less independently wealthy than when I left the apartment this morning.

Inside the diner, Mom’s office door is closed; her all-consuming preparations for the food critic should keep her off my apron strings awhile. In three quick trips, I unload the cupcakes and trash all the packaging, just in case Mom pokes her nose out of the office for a report. I ignore Trick’s raised eyebrows as I dive into the walk-in cooler for my leftover stash of buttercream, add a few drops of red tint, whip it into a nice, mellow pink, and load the whole mess into a frosting gun. I’m generally more of a pastry bag kind of girl, but hey, this is war. Or it will be, if I don’t get these babies done in time.

“What are you doin’?” Trick finally demands.

“Target shooting, Trick. What does it look like?” I raise my cupcake weaponry and get to work, squirting pink, lopsided hearts into the center of the white-frosted Fresh ’n’ Fast cakes.

Trick stomps over and grabs my arm. “Hudson Avery, you been doin’ some messed up stuff lately, but I know this isn’t what it looks like. Right?”

“Um … no.” I swallow hard. I’ve never seen him angry—not even when I screw up orders or we run out of bread on French toast day. “I don’t know. What does it look like?”

He lowers his voice and leans in close, bacon fumes emanating from his pores. “It looks like you’re tryin’ to pass off those cupcakes as your own, but I must be wrong. The Hudson Avery I know would never sink to that level.”

I look at the floor and shrug, eyes burning with near tears.

Trick sighs, but he doesn’t loosen his grip on my arm. “Let’s forget for a minute that there’s probably some kinda tax law against reselling those things. But come on, girl. Cupcakes are your art. How can you put your name on something like that? That’d be like Dani buying a frame and telling everyone the fake picture that comes with it is hers.”

“No, it’d be like Dani forgetting a major order and trying her best to make it right before it’s too late.”

Trick shakes his head. “That’s a load of crap and you know it.”

My cheeks go hot. Trick’s the closest thing to a dad I’ve had in years, and the disappointment in his voice stings. But still, I’m out of options on this one, and the clock is ticking. I pull free from his grip.

“You think I’m proud of this? Think it’s my shining moment? I’m barely keeping it together over here, okay?” I continue my mission, applying pink hearts with machine-gun speed. They’re actually less heart-y and more round-y, but to the untrained eye, which I hope includes the Dawes family, they still look halfway decent. “Mom’s breathing down my neck, Dani’s not speaking to me, I haven’t seen my brother for more than five minutes all month, and—”

“Your brother’s in the dining room,” Trick says. “You can see him right now. Last time I checked, Fresh ’n’ Fast don’t sell stand-in brothers, so get him while he’s hot.”

“Bug’s here? Perfect.” I poke my head out the dining room doors and wave him back into the kitchen. “Hey, sweet pea. Want to learn some cupcake tricks and help me with an order?”

His eyes get huge. “You said I’m not allowed to work on customer projects until I’m older.”

“Well, now you’re older.” I steer him over to the sink to wash his hands, then set him up at the prep counter. Some people call it child labor. I call it … let’s not get technical.

“When I hand you the cupcake, dip it lightly, like this.” I roll the top of a cupcake in a flat bowl of edible silver glitter and set it in front of him. “See?”

“Yum.”

“Don’t eat it.” I squirt a pink buttercream heart over a new cupcake and pass it over. “Let me see you try one.”

He’s a little slow, but he gets the job done.

“Beautiful,” I say. “Congratulations, you’re my new Vice President of Glitter. Any questions?”

Bug crinkles up his face. “Can I be Glitter Czar instead?”

“Done.”

“One last thing.” Bug pulls the spiral notebook from his back pocket and tears off a strip of paper. “Can you give me a blood sample?”

I look deep into my brother’s pleading brown eyes and raise an eyebrow. “Bug, seriously … did Mom drop you on your head? Like, last night?”

“You can’t trust anyone these days, Hud. Even relatives. And I don’t want to go into business with someone who won’t submit to a basic drug test.”

“Give me that.” I snatch the paper from his hand and smear on a sample with red frosting tint. “Does this work? Stabbing myself with a fork is probably a health code violation.”

“Good point.” The Glitter Czar takes the red-smeared paper, shoves it in his pocket, and gets to work.

With Bug’s meticulous help, we finish decorating relatively quickly. I add chocolate piping around a few dozen for a little flair and arrange them carefully into bakery boxes. Then I wrap ten metal trays in foil sheets and stack them together with the order. Some assembly required, but I think we pulled it off.

“Very classy, if you ask me.” Bug high-fives me with a glittery hand. “We make a good team.”

“The best.” I pass him the frosting gun, dinner of champions and Glitter Czars alike. “Couldn’t have done it without—”

“Trick?” Nat sticks her pink-haired head through the window over the grill. “Some lady’s here for a cupcake order. Did Hudson leave anything to—”

“I’m here, Nat. Tell her I’ll be right out.”

Operation Bake-and-Switch is a raging success. Back in the kitchen, I lean against the counter and untie my baker’s apron, Mrs. Dawes satisfied, cupcake crisis averted. Time to wolf down—pun intended—dinner and get to the game. Less than an hour till face-off.

Just as I bite into my chicken Caesar wrap, Mom’s office door flies open. “Hud, that you?”

I swallow and give her a half wave. “Hey, Ma.”

“Marianne’s got the flu. Can you stay for the dinner shift?”

“Not really. Did you call Dani?”

“Tried. She’s got plans tonight.”

“So do I.” As if to remind me, my phone buzzes with Josh’s number, but I silence it. What does she mean, Dani’s got plans? With who?

Mom crosses the kitchen and takes the stool across from me and Bug. “You going out with that Josh boy?”

“Is that the friend with benefits guy?” Bug swipes one of my sweet potato fries. “He’s funny. I like that guy.”

Under the table, I kick his foot.

“Ow! Hudson—”

“No,” I say. “I mean, I don’t have a friend with … I’m not going out with Josh tonight. I just wanted to go out. For coffee. With … um … a girl from my French class. Trina. It’s her birthday. Besides, I don’t have my uniform here.”

Mom frowns and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Hud. It’s only till about eight—Nat and I can handle it after that. It’s not a school night, so I’ll keep Bug here. You can scoot out after first shift. Sound okay?”

I shrug and jam a few fries into my mouth. Like I have a choice.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks.

“Nothing.” I shake my head and smile through the food. I can’t let her see me crack. Trick, either—not after the cupcake disaster I so narrowly dodged. I have to find a way to handle this. It’s just a few more weeks, anyway. Once I nail that competition, no more Hurley’s shifts. No more scraping by. Everything will change. “I really wanted to go out early tonight, that’s all.”

Mom stands and shoves her stool back under the counter. “Excuse me, darlin’, but there’s a lot going on these next couple of months, and most of the time, you come and go as you please. In return, I expect—”

“No, it’s fine, Ma.” She’s right. I should be grateful that she doesn’t bug me about my every move. I am. I know she does a lot to keep us all going. I just wish those expectations of hers had better timing. “I’ll stay.”

“Thank you.” She leans over and kisses me on the cheek, then swoops in for a Bug-hug. “There should be extra uniforms in the closet. I’ll be counting milk cartons in the walk-in cooler if you need me.”

I relinquish the rest of my fries to Bug, grab a spare uniform, and change in the ladies’ room. There’s an unidentifiable red streak crusted down the front of the dress like a jagged zipper. Who knows how many decades old it is.

Mad hot, Hudson. As usual.

My phone buzzes on the bathroom counter—Josh again.

“Hud, where are you?” he asks when I pick up. “It’s almost time. The crowd’s awesome. The news is here tonight—it’s crazy.”

I lean against the tiled wall, facing the mirror. “Will told me the news would be there.”

“Why aren’t you here?”

“Dude, I’m stuck at work.”

“You can’t be! That’s so lame!”

I scrape my thumbnail over the red streak—no change. “Seriously. You should see what I’m wearing.”

“Mmmm,” he says, his voice going low and smoky. “What are you wearing?”

I know he’s trying to be all cheesy porn star, but the way he’s breathing into the phone sends a squiggly shiver down my back. “Um … it’s … I’m … the Hurley’s dress … thing.”