Текст книги " Bittersweet"

Автор книги: Sarah Ockler

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Twenty

The Perfect Storms

Eggless white vanilla cupcakes topped with a thin layer of mashed blueberries and white meringue frosting; dusted with powdered sugar and served chilled

Fillmore is empty and unblemished, the sky darkening to a dusty gray as I lean against the signpost and lace up my skates. They’re calling for a storm, and other than the seasonally confused seagulls, I’m the only one stupid enough to hang out on the lake. Especially since the only other person who knows about this place is the one I’ve been dodging for two weeks.

In the wake of my championship make-out fail and subsequent realization at Niagara Falls, I’ve been too mortified to face Will or Josh. The morning after, Will sent out a group text announcing my retirement from special techniques coaching, and that was it. My time with the Watonka Wolves was over. Done. Since then, I’ve spent every lunch period alone with a PB and J and a cupcake magazine in the library. Beelined for the nearest bathroom whenever I caught either captain at my locker or truck. Ignored calls and texts and hockey party invites. Dove into the Hurley’s kitchen when Josh and Frankie showed up at the front counter, wolfing down hot chocolate and cupcakes with Dani while I hid behind the safety of my mixer.

I still go to the games, but only as a spectator, sitting in the stands with the parents and siblings while Dani cheers with her new friends across the rink and rushes into Frankie’s waiting embrace after every win. I’ve tried to talk to her at the concessions stand, but always after the first greeting and awkward smile, the silence seeps in and pushes us apart again. Even at work we hardly speak—just enough to do our jobs and keep Trick, Mom, and the waitresses in the dark.

Here at Fillmore, the wind whips against my fleece, and I lean back and shake out my arms and legs. Across the white expanse of the lake, the cold rushes me and that dead, desperate emptiness blows straight through my bones.

I know what it’s like to miss someone. Despite how mad he makes me, I still miss my father. I miss the way things used to be in our family. Sometimes I even miss Kara, the way we’d calm each other before an event, laugh about it at the diner after, blowing endless bubbles into our loganberries. But I’ve never before missed someone that I’m physically with almost every day. Dani and I work side by side, sometimes for hours on end. We sit next to each other in French. We cross paths in the halls and at the hockey games. We’re not outwardly fighting anymore—things are quiet. Civil. Friendly enough, but not friends. Every day, she looks through me and I look through her and even though it’s like I’m watching her disappear right before my eyes, I can’t seem to make it right between us.

After three inseparable years, my best friend and I don’t know each other anymore.

I don’t know if things are serious between her and Frankie—they’re always together in the halls and after the games, but she doesn’t call me out for a smoke break to dish the romantic details. She has no idea that whenever I see Josh, my heart beats triple time, and that I’m still too scared to tell him.

I’m clueless about Dani’s big photo project, and I never saw the pictures from her dad’s New Year’s Eve show. I didn’t get to confess my cupcake fakery, how guilty I felt when Trina raved about her Bubble-Gum Blings the following Monday in French class. She hasn’t seen my father’s last three blog posts from Utah, the ones I couldn’t bring myself to unsubscribe from. She didn’t get the in-person demo of RustBob SpareParts, the robot that Bug finally put together from all that old computer stuff.

And Dani doesn’t know about the thing that’s tearing a hole in my heart, shredding my dreams. I try to ignore it, to let it pass, but it always comes back, standing on my chest, breathing against my throat.

Doubt.

Despite all my so-called natural talent, the unimaginable potential, my months of retraining, and an intense wanting like nothing I’ve ever felt in my life, some part of me believes that I’m really not good enough. That in seven days I’ll pour my soul out on the ice for those foundation judges, and sit in the kiss-and-cry room as I wait for the scores that will change my life….

And the numbers won’t even come close.

The wind shifts over the lake, pelting my eyes with frigid wetness. Storm’s coming. Fifteen minutes, tops.

Just as I’ve done a hundred times this winter, I recheck my laces and slide out to the center of the runoff, but suddenly, it doesn’t seem far enough, daring enough, challenging enough to prove I have what it takes. The wind howls in my ears and I swear I can hear old Lola again, pushing me, reminding me how hard it is to stand out, to truly compete.

Ignoring the warning in my head, I rush forward, faster, racing to the edge where the shallow meets the lake. The cold seeps through my clothes and I glide out farther, slipping over the border from safe to unknown. Across the lake, Canada vanishes beneath a white curtain. The forbidden thrill of imminent danger rises hot from my toes to the top of my head, propelling me farther still. I close my eyes and throw my head back, big impossible flakes landing on my face and blotting out the sound, and for a moment, everything is still. I’m trapped in a giant snow globe, bound to the surface of the ice, nothing left to do but wait for someone to upturn and shake the world, set me back on my feet, and watch the sky fall.

Maybe I’ve always been waiting for that.

“Hudson!” My name floats on the wind, but it’s far away, or maybe just an echo in my head from a time when things were better, and I ignore it, skating closer to the white wall of the storm against every ounce of logic in my mind. Hudson Avery, do you have what it takes? …

“Hey—back! You’re—far and—I can’t—the ice …” The words are distant and broken; bright red berries dropped in the snow and carried off by the winter gulls. I barely comprehend that it’s not a memory, that someone is speaking to me. I close my eyes. My body wants to keep going, the ghosts of Fillmore beckoning me into the abyss like some evil thing.

“Hudson!” It comes once more, then again, loud and distinct. “Hudson Avery! Come back here!”

Josh.

The words reach me deep inside, shake me out of my fog. I open my eyes and turn toward the sound of his voice, so suddenly grateful he’s here. Whatever we are now, whatever we aren’t, God I missed the sound of his laugh, the swish of our skates as we carved up the ice together.

This is it. Now or never. I have to tell him. I have to skate right up to him, look into his eyes, and confess. I listen to your music every night. I close my eyes and replay that postgame hug like a movie and feel it even now, weeks later, my insides still buzzing with the memory. I smile when I picture you doing those crossovers, eating my cupcakes, making my brother laugh. I don’t care that you’re unreadable and I don’t care what anyone says about me and Will and you and Abby, because I can’t stop thinking about you….

I take a deep breath and set my toe pick against the ice, ready to rush back to shore, back to safety and Josh and whatever comes next. But in that simple movement, the minuscule transfer of pressure from one foot to another, the whole world changes.

I feel it before I hear it, ice moaning softly under my feet. Then there’s a crack, a quick snap like the breaking of a brittle bone.

My stomach bottoms out and Josh shouts across the distance, his voice cutting through the pulse of blood, the whoosh of my life passing before me. The ice creaks again and I can’t move. Legs immobilized, breath a series of small white bursts as Josh skids to a stop on the lake, just out of reach.

“Hudson, listen to me.” He’s close now, voice gentle. Soothing. The promise of a warm bath and a crackling fire. “You’re fine,” he says. “You have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I can’t come any closer. You have to come to me. As carefully as possible, lie flat on your stomach.” Josh gets to his knees and motions for me to lie down. “Do it now.”

I hold my breath, certain that taking in any more air will upset the balance, that the weight of one more snowflake will send me plummeting. I kneel slowly. The lake moans and I stop, hands flat in front of me as the water rushes beneath, humming through solid ice.

“Stretch out a little more. You have to get on your stomach.”

“I can’t.” I mouth the words. Anything louder will shatter the ice.

“Yes, you can. You’re okay. Keep your eyes on mine. Look at me. Look—Hudson—no, right here. I’m getting you out of this, okay? I promise.”

“But my arms are sh-shaking. I c-c-can’t—”

“Do it, Hudson! Stop screwing around! Just shut up and do exactly what I say!”

The panic in his voice sets me on high alert. I take a deep breath, hold it, and press myself flat against the ice.

“Use your arms and legs to inch forward. Go slow. Keep your eyes here.” He points to his eyes and I follow his instructions, moving a millimeter at a time, gaze locked on his for all eternity.

“Reach, Hudson. Just a little more. Come on!”

My resolve fades and I shiver again, inside and out. Cold and fear suffocate me from all sides. The ice cracks against my ribs like fingers reaching up through the cold and I start to cry and I wonder if the deep blue-gray eyes of Watonka Wolves varsity co-captain number fifty-six Josh Blackthorn will be the very last thing I see before …

“Gotcha!” Josh wraps his hand around my wrist and pulls, dragging me as he inches backward. His grip is tight, energy seeping into my limbs. I rise to a crawl, slow at first, faster as we shuffle on hands and knees toward the safety of the runoff. When we reach the edge where the ice ends and the ground begins, Josh stands and tugs me so hard that he slips backward into the snow. I collapse on top of him. I know I should get up but my arms and legs won’t cooperate and all I can feel is his heart banging against mine like the first time we met, tumbling together on the ice. I’m still crying and he’s shaking beneath me as the wind rushes us, full force.

“I just … I thought you …” He’s breathing hard and jagged, holding me firm against his chest. “Jesus, Hudson. What were you … why did … God.” He takes my face into his gloved hands and I close my eyes, cutting off the tears.

The wind roars across the ice and chokes me with another gale, wet and sharp on my skin. Josh grabs my hands and pulls us up and together we fight our way through the swirling white gusts, collecting my backpack and boots, clomping through deep, heavy snow to the rusted outer building of the mill. We don’t stop until we’re inside, shielded from the bitter bite of the wind, thrown suddenly into blackness.

“We have to wait it out,” Josh says, trying to catch his breath. He pulls off his hat and rubs the snow from his hair and we both look around, eyes adjusting to the dark.

The ground floor is mostly empty. Steel bones jut out from walls lined with white veins, ever-widening cracks where the outside light leaks in. When the wind blows, puffs of snow slip through the gaps, piling up on the floor like loose powder.

I sit on an old wooden crate and change out of my skates, grateful for my boots and an extra pair of wool socks stuffed in the bottom of my bag.

The mill feels hollow and haunted, black inside, the faint clangs of old metal ringing like a ghost ship adrift at sea. The sadness of the place snatches at my soul and I shiver.

Ten minutes ago, Josh saved my life.

“Why did you come?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you out here lately, and things have been … we haven’t talked in a while.”

Josh pulls off his gloves and blows hot breath into his hands. “Not since you stopped working with the team. Will isn’t saying anything about it, so I decided to stalk you today until you tell me what’s going on.”

“So you are a stalker. I knew it.” I smile. I missed this—our easy and familiar banter, still there beneath the sparks.

“I stopped by the restaurant but the pink-haired waitress—Nat, I think?—she told me you’d left already.”

“Yeah, I asked her to cover my shift.”

“I figured I’d find you here,” Josh says. “Only you’d be crazy enough to skate Fillmore today. Not that I expected to find you on the actual lake, but—hey, what’s wrong?” His eyes are soft and warm, two bright lights in all the darkness. My heart fills with a mixture of happiness and dread, the craziness of the last few weeks finally catching up. I open my mouth to speak, but my throat tightens, tears spilling from my eyes as I think about falling through the ice again. He wraps himself around me and presses my head to his chest.

“You see the videos,” I say absently, “but you never think it’ll happen to you. If you weren’t out there today …”

He kisses me on the forehead, caressing my cheeks with his thumbs. “But I was. And you’re lucky I’ve seen a lot of those survival shows.”

“With the guy who eats bugs?”

“Precisely.”

“You’re such a boy. No wonder my brother likes you.”

“Your brother likes me? Score!”

“Score if you like robots, army men, and hamsters.”

Josh laughs. “Who doesn’t?”

Grateful for the levity, I pull away from him and heft my backpack over my shoulder. “Just so you know, I have a granola bar, half a thermos of hot—well, cold by now—chocolate, and some slightly mashed cupcakes. I’m not eating any bugs.”

“Good to know. Watch where you step.” Josh reaches for my hand, gingerly leading me across the building to another large room, where a bunch of desks and file cabinets line the perimeter, covered in junk and cobwebs. On one end, a rusty sign hangs over a doorway, crooked on a single hinge: DANGER—HOT ACIDS!

“This place is so strange.” I swipe a finger over an old desk, leaving a clean line in the dust. “It’s like they all just got up and left. Nobody packed or took stuff away or knocked it down. It’s just …”

“Abandoned.”

The wind slams into the wall outside, and the entire building moans and shudders against the onslaught. I shiver and retie my scarf, memories slipping through my head like snow through the cracks in the walls. The horrible, slushy sound of the lake beneath the ice. The frozen expanse cracking against my ribs. Everything changing in an instant. How could I be so reckless? Ten more seconds and—

“Hudson?”

“Sorry.” I shove my hands in my fleece pockets, momentarily comforted by the familiar crinkle of Lola’s foundation letter. “I was just … do you think this place is haunted?”

“Nah, it’s not like everyone died here. They probably thought it would reopen and they’d get their jobs back. There’s tons of places like this in Ohio, too. Welcome to the Rust Belt.” Josh picks up a weathered jar of something that looks like bright pink cat litter, but is probably one of the aforementioned HOT ACIDS.

“Careful with that,” I say. “There’s a reason all the fish around here have two heads and no eyes.”

“Ah, good point.” Delicately, he sets it back on the shelf next to a row of similarly filled containers, some pink like his and others gray or white. “Help me look through the drawers. We need matches or a lighter or something.”

I rummage through file drawers and cubbies until I find an old Zippo lighter with a World Trade Center emblem, 9-11-2001 etched on the back. Obviously, we’re not the first urban explorers to visit the place since its closure, though I can’t think of anyone who’d willingly hang out here other than Dani, who’d probably shoot a thousand pictures in this creeptastic corner alone.

I wish I could tell her about it.

Josh drags a metal trash can over near an opening in the wall and fills it with paper and dead leaves and any other dry material we can safely identify as not a HOT ACID. He starts the fire easily with the lighter, gray smoke billowing up toward the glassless window frames.

“Nice job, Boy Scout.” I rub my hands over the flames. “If we had a can of beans and a harmonica, we’d rock this joint hobo-style.”

“Pull another stunt like that on the ice and I’ll throw your ass on the next coal train myself. Then you’ll know hobo-style.” He sits on a large, empty worktable. “What were you doing that far out, anyway?”

I stash my backpack under the table and take a seat next to him. “I … don’t know. I was skating on the runoff, then I felt like … like I wanted to go … away. Something was daring me, and I couldn’t get far enough. Crazy, right? It’s like I was trying to skate to Canada.”

The fire reflects in his eyes, and in the soft orange glow of the flames, he looks older. Serious. “Hudson—”

“Thanks for … you know. Out there. What you did.” I shudder when I think about it again, imagining the rescue squad fishing me out, blue and gone. Josh explaining to my mom what happened. That he tried, but couldn’t save me …

The tears creep back into my eyes but I force them away. “Hungry?” I hop off the table and grab my bag. “We can have a two-course lunch, assuming you actually prefer cupcakes and granola bars to insects.”

“It’s an emergency,” he says. “I’ll make do. But can I ask you a question?”

“As long as it’s not about eating bugs.”

Josh slides off the table and finds some more cardboard for the fire, dusting his hands together over the popping flames. “You doing okay? I mean, are you warm enough?” Pop pop pop.

“I’m fine. Still kind of freaked out, but I’m warm.” I resume my place on the table and dig out the goodies. “The fire was a good idea.”

“Good.” He sits next to me and takes a cupcake from the Tupperware balanced on my lap, our legs touching. Pop.

“Yeah.” Pop pop … pop.

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t freezing.”

“I’m okay.” Pop. “It’s comfortable.”

“Good,” he says.

“Not too hot, not too—”

“What’s going on with you and Harper?”

POP!

“Nothing.” I keep my eyes fixed on the flames.

“So you guys are just … hanging out?”

W.W.H.D.? Hester? Any ideas? No?

“Not exactly,” I say. Come on, Hud. Now’s your chance. Tell him. “We’re not … we kind of … it’s not like he was my boyfriend or anything.” I unwrap my cupcake and toss the paper into the fire, wishing I could channel the fearless determination I felt on the ice the moment I heard his voice. The second before the ice cracked and everything changed. “Anyway, what about you? How’s, um, Abby? Angie? What’s her name?”

Oh, Hudson. Your suavity is an example to all.

“Abby?” Josh’s forehead crinkles. “She’s … she’s good.”

“She doesn’t go to Watonka High, right? How did you guys meet?”

“I see you didn’t get the memo.” Josh laughs, and then his face turns serious. He looks at me a moment longer, like he’s trying to decide how to break the girlfriend news, or how much of his secret relationship he wants to reveal.

He takes a deep breath and rubs his head. “Okay, here’s the story. Abby and I go way back. We basically met in the hospital when we were born.”

“You’ve known this girl your entire life? Like, literally?” That’s flat-out no competition right there. Born on the same day, in the same hospital? They’re practically soul mates.

“Yep.”

“Whoa. So do you … does she … um …”

“Abby’s my sister, Hudson. We’re twins.”

“Oh thank God! I mean, thank God … that you … have a sister … what a special … um … napkin?” I pass it over and jam half a cupcake in my mouth to prevent the release of any more stupidity. A sister? He has a sister? And all this time, I thought she was his girlfriend? How hard did I hit my head that first day on the ice?

I meet his eyes and he smiles, my stomach launching into its own triple/triple combo.

“It’s kind of complicated.” Josh downs the rest of his cupcake and tosses the paper into the fire. “I don’t talk about it much. I guess I figured Will told you or something.”

I shake my head.

“Ever seen Rain Man?”

“Mmm-hmm.” And that’s the most intelligent thing I’ve said all morning.

“It’s kind of like that with my sister. She’s, like, off the charts brilliant, but she’s super-particular about order and rules. My mom homeschools her. Abby likes it, but she gets a little stir-crazy. That’s why she calls me all the time. It’s never urgent—just stuff like what happened on General Hospital or which neighbor she saw taking out the trash in their bathrobe. But if I don’t answer right away, she freaks. Half the time I’m just calming her down, reassuring her I’ll be home later. It gets intense. My mom had to get permission from the school so I could keep my phone on during class. Thing is, she’d probably be better off in a place with full-time care, where they could work with her one-on-one. But we don’t want to do that to her. She’s ours, you know?”

I think about Bug, how I dumped him off with Mrs. Ferris this morning, how he hugged me and waved and pushed up his glasses without a word of protest. I can’t picture him not being Bug, not being okay, not being home with us.

“How do you … I mean, do you guys take her out on weekends or whatever? Do other stuff? Or does she have to stay at home?”

“We go out sometimes. She does okay—depends on the situation. Hockey games are too much for her—she doesn’t like the goal buzzer. But she’s hung out with me at Amir’s a few times. She does better when it’s just a few people. Oh, and she doesn’t like Will. Too much talking freaks her out.”

I laugh. “I don’t blame her. Sounds like you guys are close, though. That’s cool.”

“Abby’s seriously my best friend.” Josh smiles. “I tell her pretty much everything. We talk about hockey and school and … well, whatever. Stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what were you gonna say?”

Josh’s face reddens, the tips of his ears as bright as the flames. He stands to stoke the fire with a loose hunk of metal, his back to me. “Okay, so I told her about you, right? How you helped the team, how we’ve been skating a few times, even about the cupcakes. And now she won’t leave it alone. ‘How’s Hudson, where’s Hudson, are you skating today, what does she look like, where does she live, how many cupcakes can she bake in one hour, what’s her favorite color, when can I meet her—’”

“Blake Street. My record is two forty in an hour, but they weren’t very good. Purple.” I take a deep, silent breath as the fire sparks. “And I’d be honored to meet her.”

Josh drops the makeshift fire poker and crosses the space between us in two steps, hands gripping my arms. I look up to meet his eyes, serious and determined and the rarest, most intense colors I’ve ever seen. It’s like I’m on the lake again, the rest of the world fuzzing out around the edges, the beauty of his eyes the only thing left. I lean closer, our gaze unbroken, fire crackling and warming the air around us. He swallows and then he’s there, right before me. My heart slams into my ribs and my neck goes hot and I close my eyes just as our lips brush and my breath catches and …

And Josh pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, hands sliding down my arms. “Sh—I’m so sorry, Hudson. I didn’t mean … you and Will … I was so … not … thinking.” He rubs his head, his eyes everywhere but on my face.

“Josh, it’s okay, I’m not—”

“Can we just … can we pretend that didn’t happen?” He crosses to the other side of the fire and slumps in an old office chair, the swivel kind with wheels and an adjustable back, and presses his fists into his thighs.

Across the room, the fire is strong between us as he stares at the dusty, broken floor, and my heart rages against his words. After weeks of mixed signals and crossed wires, he finally kissed me—tried to, anyway. And now he wants to pretend it didn’t happen?

The wind pelts the walls with a blast of wet ice and his foot bounces on the ground, chair twisting back and forth.

I stand and cross the room. “Will isn’t … can we—”

“No. I better …” He’s out of the chair before I get to him. “I’m gonna get some air. I’ll be back. I promise.”

He doesn’t go too far—the shape of him blackens the bright spot of the doorway where we first came in. He pulls the hat from his back pocket and yanks it over his head, looking out across the great white bleakness, and I curl up on the desk and watch the flames, trying to figure out how to rewind and instant replay the last few minutes. This time, when our lips brush, I’ll lean into him and pull him close. This time, I won’t let him talk. I won’t let him apologize. I won’t let him go.

As Josh dips in and out of the doorway, I unzip my bag and dig out my thermos and the smashed granola bar, occupying myself by making cold chocolate oatmeal in my mouth. I pace the perimeter of the room, tracing lines in the dust on all the desks. I peel swaths of paint from the walls, olive green, probably laced with lead. Toss rocks and metal chips into the standing half of a cracked porcelain sink behind the HOT ACIDS sign. Flip through decaying manuals on treating burns and chemical wounds. Throw paper time cards into the fire, one at a time, yellow flames sizzling like Trick’s grill as all the old work hours turn into ash.

“It finally stopped snowing.”

I drop the remaining cards and turn around.

“Should we chance it?” Josh asks, rubbing the chill from his hands. He looks at me a moment, and it’s like I can read his thoughts as they flash behind his eyes. No. Let’s stay. We’ll stay up all night talking about the funniest movies and the best place to get hot wings and what happens at the end of the world, and in the morning, everything will be sparkly and bright, and no one will ever know about this place but us, our forever winter secret.

“Josh, can we—”

“Yeah. I mean no, you’re right.” He scoops some snow into the trash can, fire hissing into wet dust. “I just thought … nah, we should head out while we can. Car’s buried, though. We’ll have to walk.”

Josh stomps down a path outside. He looks back at me and smiles, cheeks red from the cold, eyes sparkling like the unblemished whiteness behind him as I reluctantly follow. Together, we make our way through snow-covered streets as the good neighbors of Watonka emerge from their homes to help one another clear footpaths and dig cars from the drifts.

Everyone waves and smiles and asks if we’re okay, and yeah, maybe we’re fine, just like Josh tells them, but I can’t shake that moment in the Fillmore building, Josh’s lips brushing mine by the fire. The weight of it sits between us like a magnetic force, drawing us close, then pushing us apart. Is he imagining what it would be like to kiss me again? Or does he wish he could take it all back? Is he really, truly sorry?

I stop in the middle of the white street and step in front of him, his jaw set, eyes far away. My voice is rough and my mouth dry, but this much, I know: Josh Blackthorn saved my life. And then he tried to kiss me. No matter what happens next, I’m not letting this turn into another two weeks of silence, the entire history of us summed up in a series of near misses and almosts just because neither of us had the snowballs to say anything.

“Feel like stopping at Hurley’s for hot chocolate?” I ask. “Hang out with me for a while?”

“Hmm.” He finally meets my gaze, his shy, playful smile slowly returning. “With or without marshmallows?”

“With. Duh.”

“You got yourself a deal, Avery.”

We settle in at the front counter and Nat brings us two mugs of hot chocolate with double marshmallows. One sip, and that’s it—I can’t hold it in another second. “Josh, me and Will … we’re not together. We hung out for a little while, but it’s over. Over over.”

Josh stares into his mug, dunking the marshmallows one at a time with his spoon. “That’s cool, Hud. You didn’t have to—”

“Hudson! There you are!” Mom bursts out of the kitchen, practically rocket-launching herself onto the counter to reach me. “I was so worried about you with the storm and—”

“I’m fine. I was … we hid out at … Sharon’s Café. Just until it passed.” I look at Josh for confirmation and he nods.

“Next time, answer your phone.” Mom runs her hand over my head, her gaze slowly shifting to the adjacent seat. As soon as she notices Josh, her face lights up. “You must be Hudson’s boyfriend! I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

“Ma!”

“I’m Beth, her mom.”

Josh takes her outstretched hand, not correcting her on the boyfriend thing. “Nice to meet you. I’m Josh. Hudson and I are … we know each other from school.”

Mom smiles, checking him out. Meanwhile, my head is about to explode like a marshmallow in the microwave, but no one around here seems too concerned.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she finally says, “but can I see you in the office when you’re done, Hud? I’m putting in the meat order and I want you to learn how it’s done.”

“Meat order. Awesome.” That’s what I get for dropping by Hurley’s when I’m not on the clock. “Be right there.”

Mom disappears into the kitchen and I bury my head in my hands, willing myself to apparate to Parallel Hudson’s world. Olympic training, product endorsements, Ice Capades … wherever she is, it’s got to be better than this.

“Hudson.” There’s a hand on my back, warm and solid. Slowly, I unfold my arms, and Josh leans in close to whisper in my ear. “Come to the game tomorrow night.”

Goose bumps roll across my skin, and I shiver.

“Come to the game,” he whispers again, “and then have dinner with me after. Just us. I know a cool place.”

I look into his eyes, my heart speeding up like it did the moment his lips touched mine. “Not Hurley’s?”

“Definitely not Hurley’s.”

“In that case, you got yourself a deal, Blackthorn.”

“So now you’re making fun of me, huh?”

“Never. Well, maybe a little. But mostly never.”

“Good. See you on the ice tomorrow, then. The indoor ice. Better yet, the sidelines of the indoor ice. I’m not taking any chances with you. Got it, Avery?” He pulls on his gloves, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Josh, I—”

“Hudson?” Trick yells from the little window over the grill, examining his slotted spatula as if he wasn’t spying on me. “Your mom wants to get that order wrapped up, hon.”

“Thanks for keeping such great tabs on her schedule. Tell her I’ll be right in.” I look at Josh. “You okay to get home?”

“I’ll ask one of the neighbors to dig me out.” He zips up his jacket and heads outside, bound for the snow-covered path back to Fillmore. I drop our chocolate-coated mugs and spoons in the bus bin, my heart light, my insides buzzing and alive.