Текст книги " Bittersweet"

Автор книги: Sarah Ockler

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Chapter Eleven

Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda Cakes

Miniature banana cupcakes smeared with a thin layer of honey vanilla icing

The halls of Watonka High are buzzing with the news of this weekend’s win. No one’s volunteering to don a giant wolf head as team mascot, but by Monday morning, everyone at least knows we have a varsity hockey team. Baby steps, right?

“Bienvenue, étudiants,” Madame Fromme trills as we settle into our seats for another excruciating conversation about nothing. “Mademoiselle Avery, comment s’est passé votre week-end? Avez-vous cuit beaucoup de petits gâteaux?”

“Non, Madame. Je …” and then, because I forget the French words for “hockey” and “party” and “ex–best friend awkwardness,” I revise. “Oui, Madame. Lots—I mean, beaucoup de petits gâteaux.”

I try to smile en français, but then I remember the stack of cupcake flyers in my locker—another of Mom’s brilliant advertising plans—and I’m not sure the smile translates. She moves on to her next victim and, after a bit of forced banter, hands out the test.

Sacrebleu! Verb conjugations and future tense! I totally forgot. I chance a sidelong look at Dani, desperately seeking confirmation that we’re in this big yellow failboat together, BFFs unite hoo-rah, but she’s already got her head down, pen scribbling frantically across the page.

So much for solidarity.

“The only way I’ll pass French is if I keep bringing cupcakes,” I say to Dani as we head to lunch later. “I totally forgot about the test today.”

“Cupcakes?” Dani laughs. “Not to sound all après l’école spéciale, but you could … I don’t know … study?”

“I could … I don’t know … punch you right now?”

“Don’t hate on me for being prepared. I tried to quiz you at work yesterday, remember?”

“By translating your pirate fantasy? Not helpful.” I grab a tray from the stack in the lunch line and slide it along the metal rails. “Sorry. I’m just distracted with skating stuff.”

I don’t want to fail French or any other class, but with just over six weeks before the Capriani Cup, I have to focus on training, and right now, parlez-vous-français-ing can’t do jacques for my on-ice game.

“Speaking of distractions,” she says, “hockey hottie, twelve o’clock.”

Will sneaks into line behind me, smiling at a shy freshman girl who gladly lets him cut.

“Hey,” I say, trying to appear cool and calm in the wake of Saturday’s touchy-feely fest and ensuing Kara weirdness. “Great game this weekend.”

“That was, like, off the hook crazy, right?” He loads up his tray with a double order of fries and something that looks like cheese sticks and/or human fingers. Desperate to avoid anything French, I skip the fries and go for a turkey sandwich and carrot sticks.

“You guys should sit with us,” he says after we pay. Dani and I follow him to a table by the window. A handful of the guys are there, and they shuffle around to accommodate us. Dani ends up between Will and Frankie Torres, with me and Josh side by side across from them. All the boys are still glowing from Friday’s win, and when Josh inches his chair closer to mine and smiles, my stomach fizzes again.

Brain to stomach: We talked about this! Knock it off!

“Carrots?” Josh inspects my tray. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Don’t tell me you’re on a diet,” Frankie says. “Because that’s some messed-up stuff right there.”

“I’m not on a diet,” I say. “Just boycotting France. Besides, carrots are good for your eyes.”

“So get glasses, Pink,” Rowan says. “Baumler’s a four-eyed freak and we keep him around.”

“Look who’s talking, carrot top.” Will bounces a fry off of Rowan’s forehead and the rest of the guys crack up.

“I totally need glasses,” Dani says. “I can barely read that crap Mr. Rooney writes on the board. I’m all, cosine what?”

“I have Rooney eighth period. I’m failin’ that class,” Frankie says. “I’ll probably be in summer school. Math blows.”

“At least you can see what you’re failing,” Dani says.

I point to my food. “Have some carrots. They’re good for your eyes.”

“Then you have some fries.” Josh nudges his tray toward me. “They’re good for your … I don’t know. They’re just good.”

“Do any of you guys have Keller?” Will flips through a black-and-yellow CliffsNotes booklet. “I flunked his Scarlet Letter quiz and now he’s making me do an essay on themes. Man, I hate that book. Man, I hate themes.”

“I have Keller sixth period,” I say. “I like the book. Hester’s a tough broad.”

“You would say something like that, Pink,” Amir says.

I hold up a carrot and point it at his chest. “Don’t make me bust a carrot in your ass, Jordan. Hester’s my girl.”

Will looks at me as everyone laughs. “Good. Since you’re so in love with her, you can help. You around Friday night?”

“I think so. I should totally charge you, though.”

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Will says. The boys roar, fries flying everywhere.

“I’d read the fine print on that deal if I were you,” Josh says.

Dani taps my foot under the table. “We were gonna check out that ballerina movie Friday night.”

“We’ll see it over break.” I pop one of Josh’s fries into my mouth. Yum. Boycott of all things French officially over.

“No ladies’ night, then?”

“Hold up,” Amir says. “You guys have ladies’ night?”

Dani shoots me a look. “We used to have them. Then you guys came around and started hijacking all the Fridays.”

“How do I score an invite?”

“I don’t know,” she teases. “We may have a spot opening up soon.”

“I’ll see the movie with you,” Frankie says. “Ballerinas are hot.”

Dani smiles. “You’re on.”

Something buzzes next to my right leg, and Josh digs the phone from his pocket. The caller ID confirms my suspicions: Abby’s cell. Josh sighs and pushes out his chair.

“I’ll catch up with you guys later. Hud, eat the rest of those fries. Seriously. Oh, and let me know what you thought of the music mix.” He wriggles his thumbs in the international sign for “text me later” and ducks out into the windowed hallway that branches off from the cafeteria, taking my fizzy stomach with him.

Who is this Abby girl, and why is she always calling him during school? Doesn’t she have her own classes to go to? Or is she in college? Out of college? Or … oh no! What if she’s some kind of dyed-blond middle-aged cougar ex-stripper nympho with a smoker’s cough who wants to teach him a thing or two about—

“See, this is why I never answer my phone.” Frankie reaches for Josh’s abandoned fries. “It’s like she’s got the boy LoJacked.”

Rowan punches him in the arm. “You don’t answer your phone because no one ever calls your broke fugly ass.”

“It’s better that way, trust me.” Amir nods at Dani and me. “No offense, you two, but females are trouble. Uh, don’t tell Ellie I said that.”

“I don’t know, ninety-nine. Some of them are worth it.” Will stares at me from across the table, Mr. Razzle-Dazzle himself.

“Oh, barf.” Dani piles her lunch scraps onto a spent tray. “I’ll see you guys later. I have to check on some stuff for photo class. Text me about Friday,” she says to Frankie. “You better not stand me up. I’ll LoJack you for real.”

She waves bye and joins one of her photography friends at a nearby table, leaving me alone with the partial wolf pack. The boys trade insults and jokes and food for the rest of the period, but Josh doesn’t return. He’s still on the phone, still pacing the windowed hallway. I can’t hear their conversation, but I watch him through the glass; his face is tight, the lines of his jaw set. He runs a hand over his hair and looks up at the ceiling, as if to ask some unnamed god for intervention.

I look across the room at Dani, but she’s already got me in her sights, totally busting me for spying on Josh. I shrug and give her a half smile, but she turns away, folding herself back into the conversation at her table as if I’m not even here.

Amir is totally right. High school girls, French girls, dye-job cougars, adulteresses from the Puritan days—the lot of us are nothing but trouble.

With the promise of a free cupcake at Hurley’s every Saturday for the rest of the year, I secure permission from Principal Ramirez to hang a few of those cupcake ads around school. After my government class at the end of the day, I stop by my locker for the flyers and the masking tape Mom shoved in my bag this morning.

But before Operation Mortification commences, someone taps my shoulder, and not all that gently, either.

“Hey,” Kara says when I turn around. “We really need to talk.”

Perfect. Apparently, since she ran out of the party after catching me and Will together, she’s miraculously rediscovered her vocal cords. Judging by the crazed look in her eyes, she spent the rest of the weekend prepping for this confrontation.

I loop the roll of tape over my wrist and hug the flyers to my chest. “I’m kind of busy right now, so—”

“I’m serious,” she says. “I wanted to call you this weekend, but I don’t have your cell number anymore, and …” She trails off.

I turn away from her to close my locker, but she beats me to it, hand slamming against the door. Kara’s got me locked down, her arms framing my head, our noses almost touching when I face her again. Some dude in the hallway holds up his cell camera and asks if we’re gonna kiss.

“We need to straighten out a few things about you and Will,” she says, ignoring our audience.

The presumption shakes me out of my stupor. “First of all, there is no ‘me and Will,’” I say with more confidence than I feel. “And last I heard, there was no ‘you and Will,’ either. So remind me why you’re all up in my face?”

“Kiss her!” Someone shouts from the steadily gathering crowd.

She drops her arms and sighs, but doesn’t put any space between us. “I don’t think you realize what you’re—”

“Kara, unless you guys got back together in the last hour, this conversation is over.”

The muscles in her jaw clench, her face turning red and blotchy. I’ve never thought of Kara as a bruiser, but other than Friday night at the concessions stand, we haven’t spoken in three years. What do I know about her anymore? That her best friend bailed on her and never explained or apologized? That a few months later she caught said best friend making out with her soon-to-be boyfriend in the closet at some stupid party? And that three nights ago a near-identical scenario played itself out in Luke’s living room?

Shared history and risk of suspension aside, I know what I’d want to do.

“I have to go.” I look down, unable to meet her eyes again.

“I can’t believe you!” She swipes the flyers from my arms. A snowbank of white papers slips across the hall, lost in the boot-slush undertow of the crowd. “Whatever you think you’re doing with the Wolves, you better forget—”

“I know you didn’t just threaten my best friend.” Dani appears at my side, calm and quiet, steady, her eyebrows raised in defiance as she takes another step toward Kara. “Because I don’t think you’re that kind of girl, so I probably misunderstood you. Right?”

Kara looks from Dani to me and back again, eyes glazed with the same tears gathering in mine. She shakes her head and slinks away, and when the crowd finally scatters, Dani scoops up the cupcake flyers, takes my hand, and leads me to the exit.

Dani passes me a cinnamon-smelling Mocha Morris from Sharon’s Café, the cat-themed coffeehouse near school, and leans against the bench at Bluebird Park. On this cheery, once-a-decade winter anomaly, the sky is the color of sapphires and the entire world is covered in diamond dust, snow sparkling under the rare, white sun. A yellow lab bounds toward us and I lean forward to scratch behind his ears; I have to hold my drink above his head to keep him from slobbering it all up.

“Feel better?” Dani asks.

“A little.” I sip the mocha and let the hot liquid coat my insides. “I don’t know why Kara still gets to me.”

“I don’t know why she’s being such a bitch. No offense, but was she always so … you know.” Dani swipes the air with a cat-claw motion. “Rawr! No wonder you ditched her.”

“It wasn’t like that. I … it was all my fault.” I take a deep, icy breath. There’s something about Bluebird that forces me to tell the truth. Maybe it’s the trees, stripped of their leafy coats, naked and gray as bone. Or the dogs, living only for right now, running when they feel like running, chasing one another when they’re in the mood for company, no thought wasted on drama and cover-ups. Maybe it’s just this place, made sacred by our regular picnic pilgrimages in the summer, a safe haven whose hills I wouldn’t dare pollute with lies and schemes.

I tell Dani the whole story about the Empire Games and the party with me and Will, how Kara liked him first, how I was more excited about finally getting my first kiss than I was about staying behind that unspoken line that best friends—even ex–best friends—are never supposed to cross.

Dani wasn’t the one I hurt, but it still feels like a confession. Guilt creeps over my skin as I speak of my past failures as a best friend, and for the first time in the history of our relationship, I can’t look her in the eye.

“I deserve it,” I say. “I was a total jerk.”

“Honestly?” Dani squeezes my knee. “I think you’ve beat yourself up for too long. I’m not saying it wasn’t messed up—if you pulled that stuff with me, I’d kick your ass. The point is, it happened. It’s over. You were both younger, and you had a lot of bad stuff going on. She got together with Will and then she dumped him anyway.” Dani sips her mocha, kicking at the snow beneath our bench. “Whatever happened to forgive and forget? All that happy holidays, give peace a chance, can’t we all just get along stuff?”

“I never told her how sorry I was. Never even tried to explain. I wanted to, but … I lost it. I couldn’t. And now it’s been so long …”

“You could try to talk to her, though. I mean, I’m not telling you what to do. Just that if it’s really bothering you, and you want to tell her you’re sorry—”

“No. Sometimes it’s, like, too little too late.” I think back to that day with the cheetah bra, the drive home from Luby Arena with Mom and Dad and all that unspoken tension, the endless shouting match that exploded as soon as they thought Bug and I were asleep. I think back to the days that followed, my father’s bags piled by the door like some cheesy brokenhearted country song. The phone call that attempted to explain why this was better for everyone. The news of his planned move out west, the fairy-tale promises that we’d see each other for holidays and vacations and all the important stuff in between. The e-mails and blogs, detailing his perfect new life. And never once did I hear an apology. Would “sorry” have made any difference? Does it ever? It’s just a word. One word against a thousand actions.

A springer spaniel nudges my knee, cocking his head as if he’s waiting to hear my rationalizations, too. I scratch his ears and swirl the hot liquid in my cup until a thin curl of steam rises from the hole in the lid.

“I have to nail that scholarship, Dani.” My voice breaks when I say it, but I realize now how crucial it is, here in this place of truth on a bench beneath the trees. “Do you get it now? Why I have to focus on stuff with Will and the team? I have to keep training. I have to win. It’s my way out. Everywhere I look in this town, everyone I see, it just reminds me of the biggest screwup of my life.”

“The Empire Games?” she asks. “Kara?”

“That stuff, yeah, but even what happened before. I’m the one that showed my mom the bra. She must’ve already known Dad was cheating, but that’s what made it real. I knew. And the second I dropped it on her dresser, she couldn’t deny it anymore. Why didn’t I keep pretending for her? Maybe they’d still be together …” I shake my head and look over the path that leads to the silver maples on the western edge of the park. Their pale branches bend toward one another in a delicate archway, narrow and knobby like finger bones encased in ice. A cold breeze rolls through and the trees shift soundlessly, hardly moving at all.

Dani follows my gaze across the bright white park, eyebrows furrowing into jagged, thoughtful lines. “It wasn’t the bra, Hud. Come on. Even if your mom never saw it, she had to know what was going on. You said it yourself. Your dad was cheating on her. Things were already messed up, maybe for a long time before that. It’s not your fault.”

“I know it’s not my fault that he cheated. Just that he left.”

“No, that doesn’t—”

“You know what I remember most about that day? It wasn’t the bra, or even how pathetic my parents looked in the stands. It was what my dad said on the drive home. He kept telling me not to worry, that there’d be another chance. But it was the way he said it. Like he wasn’t really talking about skating. It was like he was trying to convince himself that it wasn’t the end of our family, even though he obviously wanted out. And I kept thinking, all the way home while Mom wasn’t saying anything, and all night when I crawled into Bug’s bed and covered his ears so he wouldn’t hear them fighting … I kept thinking that if I’d stuck it out, if I’d just done my best and won that event, that maybe it would’ve given my father something to root for. A reason to stay.”

Dani and I sit in silence for a long time, watching a pair of dalmatians romp on the path, their tails flinging snow all around them.

“Hudson, no one can be your reason to stay. You have to want it. Your father wanted to leave, and you guys couldn’t be his reason not to. Harsh, but there it is.”

I down the last of my mocha. She’s right. And despite our friendship, despite my mother and my baby bird of a little brother, despite the town that’s all I’ve known my entire life, I want to leave, too. More than Will and hockey, more than the mistakes of my past, more than canceling ladies’ night, if anything can come between me and my best friend, it’s that.

I look out at the craggy silhouette of the steel mill that’s always visible in the distance—the backdrop of our lives. Behind our bench, the wind shakes the branches of the oaks, and an icicle dives from the top bough, spiking the snow like a dagger.

“We should head back,” Dani says, dropping her Sharon’s cup into the trash. “School locks up in an hour, and we’ve got cupcake flyers to hang.”

I toss my cup in after hers and we head out, ducking under the ice-coated finger-bone trees, walking arm in arm as the snow crunches like hard candy under our boots.

Chapter Twelve

Dirty Little Secrets

Vanilla cupcakes with crushed chocolate cookie crumbs, topped with Baileys cream cheese frosting and a light dusting of cocoa powder

Will lives just a few miles behind me on the other side of the railroad tracks. Not the movie version of “the other side of the tracks,” though—it’s still Watonka. Same dark alleys. Same tiny, plain houses. Around here, even the snow looks like an afterthought: a dingy, threadbare blanket thrown on and stretched thin in the middle, yellow-brown wheatgrass poking through the holes of it like the fingers of a dirty kid.

The guy who answers the door is dressed in stonewashed jeans and a Buffalo Sabres jersey with a white turtleneck underneath. He has the same broad smile and thick, blond hair as Will, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “I assume you’re here for William?”

Well, I’m definitely not here for you, Mr. Serious Pants. “Yeah. Yes. I’m Hudson. We’re … friends from school.”

“Friends, huh?” He eyes me suspiciously. Something tells me he’s not the it’s-cool-to-have-friends-of-the-opposite-sex-over-for-no-reason type of parent.

“We have a group project for Monday,” I say. “I mean, the Monday after Christmas break. In English lit. The Scarlet Letter.” Too bad I only brought the paperback—a hardcover would be much better for smacking Will in the head, which he totally deserves for subjecting me to this.

“Upstairs. First door on the left.” The man closes the front door behind me and I head upstairs. From the top landing, I hear Will’s voice, low and muffled through his slightly open bedroom door.

“I’m trying. It’s not that easy. They’re better this year.”

Pause.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Longer pause.

“Don’t worry. You know I want to.”

Pause. Laugh. Pause.

“See you Sunday. Later, Coach.” Will closes the phone and finally notices me in the doorway, his face reddening and quickly recovering.

“Coach?” I ask.

“Yeah.” He tosses the cell onto his desk. “What a jackoff.”

“A jackoff you’re making Sunday plans with?”

“Spaghetti dinner with the family, every weekend. Lucky me, huh?” Will laughs. “What’s in the bag?”

“Tropical Breeze Cupcakes.” I hand him the brown paper shopping bag I brought, a box of six of my latest creations nestled securely inside. “Don’t get too excited—they’re for your mom.”

“You serious?” Will opens the box to inspect the goods.

“You said she liked them. Is she home?”

“She works late at Mercy Hospital. Trauma nurse.”

“Well, these have pineapple and coconut and they’re perfect for a midnight snack. Especially after a long night.”

Will doesn’t say anything for a few seconds—just stares at the cupcakes, totally zoned out. I know my baking skills affect everyone in different ways, but I’ve never seen them hypnotize anyone before. Maybe I should raise my prices.

“Thanks,” Will finally says. “That was really cool of you.” He sets the bag on the floor and hangs my backpack on the hook behind his bedroom door. It’s the first time I’ve ever been in a boy’s room other than Bug’s. It smells like him, that delicious cologne-and-soap smell.

He sits on his half-made bed and offers me the desk chair.

“Seriously, what’s the deal with Dodd?” I ask.

“He’s …” Will leans back on the bed, watching the snow collect in the screen outside his window. “Listen, if I tell you something, you have to swear it doesn’t leave this room.”

“It won’t. I swear.”

Will turns to face me, his eyes dark and serious in a way I’ve never seen them before—not even during his hardest practices.

“Will? What’s going on?”

“Dodd’s my father’s best friend. My godfather. Known him my whole life. I really don’t want the guys finding out.

“Why not?”

“When I first joined the team, I didn’t want them to think I was getting special treatment. And now everyone just hates him for ditching us, which I totally get, but … you know. I’m in the middle. It sucks.”

“But if he’s your godfather, why did he bail on your team in the first place?”

Will shrugs. “I know it’s lame. But he has a job to worry about, and he’s under pressure to show results. Until last weekend, the Wolves had no results. Now he’s committed to the football team, and they still have another six weeks, plus championships.”

“How can you be okay with that?”

“No choice. It’s just the way things are.”

I shake my head. “That’s crap. What about your father? Doesn’t he—”

“No. He’s out of it, too.”

I run my thumbnail over a tear in the desk chair. “No one knows about this? Not even Josh?”

“Nope.” Will shakes his head. “Hudson, I’m serious. You can’t tell the guys about this. Especially not Blackthorn.”

“I’m not. I just don’t—”

“Come on. The guys are still high from that win. Think I’m gonna bring them down with this pathetic story? No way. Besides, who needs him? We have Princess Pink.”

I smile. “For now, anyway.”

“Wanna take a look at my essay? See if I’m on the right track?” He sits up and leans over me to wake up his computer, eau de Harper going right to my head. “Check it out.”

I slide the chair closer and read out loud. “‘The themes of The Scarlet Letter are about how people who commit sins like cheating usually get caught, and if you live in a tightwad society like the people in this book, you also get dissed by everyone else, even when it’s not their business.’”

“What do you think?” he asks.

“Okay, I kind of see where you’re going with this, but—”

“Good, ’cause I don’t. I can’t get into that book. Why don’t they let us read stuff that isn’t two hundred years old?”

“Because then the district would have to buy new books for the first time in twenty years. Anyway, you can save this essay. You just have to put yourself in Hester’s position.”

“No way I’m wearing a dress and hooking up with a minister.”

“At least not on the first date, I hope.”

Will shakes his head and laughs. “Not on any date.”

“So let’s start with the getting dissed part. How would you feel if you had a fight with Amir, then everyone took his side and totally ignored you? Like, kicked you off the team, stopped eating lunch with you, wouldn’t call to hang out, that kind of stuff? Oppressive, right?”

“Yes! Oppression. Good theme word. Here, switch seats so I can type.”

I give Will the desk chair and walk him through sin and forgiveness, society, the nature of evil, even feminism—though that topic gets rejected after about three seconds. An hour later he’s got a complete essay, and at least seventy-two percent of it makes sense. That’s usually enough to please Mr. Keller, so he prints it out and flips off the computer.

“You like working with us, huh?” Will asks, sticking his essay into a folder on the desk. “I mean, the skating stuff?”

“Yeah. It’s funny, right? I like skating, but … you know. Hockey? Plus, I didn’t think the guys would be down with it, especially after that first meeting.”

“They love you, though.”

“They love the game. Obviously you do, too.” I look around the room, checking out his hockey paraphernalia. There’s a wall of Sabres posters, a bookshelf full of trophies and autographed pucks. At the other end of the room, there’s an entire section dedicated to the Colorado Avalanche, including a signed jersey mounted in a frame.

“Hockey’s in my family.” He nods at the Avs shrine. “That stuff is from my uncle Derrick. Colorado recruited him right out of high school, but he screwed around and partied and totally blew it after his first year. My dad doesn’t even talk to him anymore.”

“That sounds kind of harsh.”

Will nods. “My father’s older than Derrick. He got injured senior year and couldn’t go pro, so when his little brother got the chance two years later and lost it … anyway, now it’s all on me. That’s my big family legacy—get a Harper back into the NHL.”

“Which is why I can’t believe your dad isn’t pissed at Dodd for—”

“He is pissed, but he knows Dodd’s in a bad spot. Coach isn’t ditching us to go party like my uncle. He’s worried about his job. It’s just …” Will runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have laid this on you. I don’t even want to talk about it. All I can do is focus on the team and my so-called destiny of greatness, you know?”

“In that case, I’ll do what I can to help you fulfill your destiny.” I smile, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s cool how far the Wolves have come, just in a couple of weeks.”

“It’s awesome. But you don’t have to help with any more destiny crap,” he says. “The guys already learned a ton of stuff from you.”

I narrow my eyes and give him a playful glare. “What happened to all that ‘we have Princess Pink’ stuff?”

Will laughs. “I’m just saying … I know you’re working a ton of hours at the diner, plus your own training stuff, and everything with school … I don’t know. I don’t want us to be a distraction. I feel bad for dragging you into this.”

Panic shoots through my insides, and not just because Will is being uncharacteristically sincere. If I walk away now, the deal is off. I’m back on Fillmore, trying to train on that ragged, windblown patch of ice. “Please. My schedule is fine. I really want to keep helping the team. I’m not done with you guys yet.” I cross my arms and go for the tough-girl look.

“If this is about ice time, don’t worry. Baylor’s is almost always empty. Marcus will let you train as long as you want—he’s cool.”

I unclench my shoulders. That is the most important thing, right? The ice time? Still … I made a real breakthrough with the guys last week. And now that they’ve won a game, they’ve started to accept me. I know it sounds crazy, but for the first time since the Bisonettes, people are counting on me to skate. I know I have to focus on my training, but I made a deal, too. Not just with Will. With Josh. With all of them.

“No,” I say. “I’m staying on. I mean it. I’m learning stuff from you guys, too.”

“Okay, okay. Princess stays. But you’re already an amazing skater, Hud. I’m not kidding.” He sits next to me on the bed, so close that I fall into him a little when the mattress sinks. “Probably the best in Watonka since that two-hundred-year-old Olympics chick.”

“Lola Capriani.” I wonder what Lola would say if she were in the room with us now. You’re speed skating down the toilet with this boy, Avery. Right down the crapper. “She was my coach.”

“That explains a lot.” Will smiles. “I still think you’re better than her. Definitely got her beat in the hotness department.”

I laugh and cross my legs, casually inching away from him. “Don’t change the subject. I was talking about the boys. They need me. They don’t have the NHL genetics like you do.” I’m teasing, but the smile fades from his lips. He looks back out the window as a gust of wind pelts the house with wet snow.

“I don’t know about the guys. I’m just looking for a way out of this place.” He meets my eyes, and for a second there’s something familiar behind them—vulnerability, maybe. Something empty and unfulfilled. But then it’s gone, his usual charm and gregariousness back in place, his fingers looping through the end of my ponytail. “Anyway, I’m surprised they can focus on hockey when you’re on the ice.”

“Give me a break.”

Will moves closer. “That’s not what I’m gonna give you.” And before I can present him with the trophy for the cheesiest one-liners in a single bound, he wraps his arms around me, pulling me toward him. His lips are millimeters from mine, breath warm and silent, all discussion of hockey boy skills and sin in the Puritan age blown out the window into the swirling snow. Will smiles at me, and for a split second I wonder whether this might be a stupid, pointless venture. For weeks my thoughts have been consumed with a single boy, and his name is definitely not Will. But then, not-Will is not here, not now, not running his hand down my back, not slipping his fingers behind my neck, not watching me with ever-intensifying eyes and flashing that deviously sexy smile. He’s probably home, waiting for another call or text from someone else. And I’m here. Now. With Will.