“Cupcakes, huh?” Josh nods appreciatively. “Okay. But I’m walking you out.”
“You just got here. You should stay and skate.” I check out his scuffed black hockey skates. They’re not new, but they’re definitely good quality. Sturdy. Probably fast. “At least until the storm hits.”
“Nah. I’ve had enough crashing and burning for one day. Besides, someone has to look out for you, Avery. You’re dangerous.”
My breath catches in my chest and my heart speeds up again, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just smiles and puts his arm around me, one hand on my elbow as he guides me off the ice. He trades his skates for boots and I follow suit, slipping rubber guards onto my blades and wrapping them safely in a plastic Fresh ’n’ Fast bag in my backpack.
We walk together over a stomped-down opening in the fence, past Fillmore’s infamous Graveyard of Signs, every one scrawled with blue graffiti and bent like a broken cornstalk. FALLOUT SHELTER—IN CASE OF NUCLEAR EMERGENCY, USE BRYANT STREET ENTRANCE. HARD HAT AREA—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. COMPROMISED STRUCTURE—BEWARE OF FALLING DEBRIS. CONDEMNED PROPERTY—DO NOT ENTER. NO TRESPASSING—VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED. When we reach the end near the parking lot, there’s a lone car parked under another sign: LOT B—OVERNIGHT EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“Need a ride?” Josh digs the keys from his pocket. His breath fogs as he waits for my response, soft and even like the plume of a distant train.
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of Watonka High’s gossip network, but I try to recall everything I’ve ever heard about him. Co-captain of the Watonka Wolves. Moved here last year from Ohio or Chicago or some other lake-effect place that ends in an o. Hangs out with the other guys on the team and their various rotating “hockey wives,” though I don’t think he has a girlfriend—at least not from our school.
“It’s not far,” I say. “I like the walk. Besides, if my mother sees me in a car with a strange boy … not that you’re strange or anything. And not that there’s anything wrong with riding in a car with you. It’s just …” Brain to mouth! Must! Stop! Moving!
“Nah, I hear you.” Josh smiles and unlocks the car.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and press my hand against my jacket, the foundation letter crinkling softly inside, reminding me of its presence. “Sorry if I ruined your ice time today.”
“You didn’t. Actually, it was kind of cool … um … running into you.”
“I’m not usually so clumsy out there,” I say quickly. “I mean, I just didn’t see—”
“I know.” He’s still smiling at me, but not in a teasing way. It’s almost self-conscious, like he’s trying to be calm and collected, but he just can’t help that smile. Which, of course, makes it that much more adorable and—
“So, see you around?” he asks.
“Definitely. I mean, yes. Okay. Um, bye.” I turn away before any more stupid comes out of me.
Josh warms up his car as I jog up to the main road, skates bouncing lightly against my back. The sound reminds me of Lola on that first night, eyes dark and serious as she whacked her gloves against her hip, again and again and again.
You gotta want it, kiddo. Really want it.
I turn back toward the car. It’s close behind me now, tires crunching over the snow. Josh pulls up next to me and lowers the window.
“Watch your step, Avery,” he says, easing onto the road. “Slippery out there.”
I raise my eyebrows and give him a half smile. “That’s good advice, Blackthorn.”
“Winter in Watonka, right?” He waves and glides down the slick street, break lights flashing at the stop sign. I walk backward in the opposite direction and watch until his taillights disappear around the corner, my boots slipping in the slush only once, all the way back to Hurley’s.
Chapter Three
No One Wants to Kiss a Girl Who Smells Like Bacon, So I Might as Well Get Fat Cupcakes
Double-chocolate cupcakes served warm in a sugar-butter reduction; piped with icing braids of peanut butter, cream cheese, and fudge; and sprinkled with chocolate chips
Saturday breakfast is in full swing when I get back, bacon popping on Trick’s grill like cholesterol was just recategorized as an essential nutrient by the food pyramid people. If I don’t already smell, T minus ten minutes to maximum porkaliciousness.
“There’s my girl,” Trick says as I throw my stuff into the staff closet and change into my kitchen sneakers. “Thought you went out lookin’ for a new man.”
“Nah. You know you’re the only man in my life.” I laugh, but it’s basically true, and not in a dirty-old-man way, either.
Trick smiles from beneath his Buffalo Sabres cap, dark brown skin crinkling around his eyes. “Hey, take that box in the office for your brother tonight. I found a bunch of computer parts for his school thing—he left before I could tell him.”
“It’s not for school.” I wash my hands and dig out my frosting gear. “He’s building a robot playmate. Says he—”
“Finally!” Dani pushes through the kitchen doors and sticks an order ticket into the strip over the grill. The top of her retro lavender Hurley Girl dress is splattered with the morning’s sludge. “You’re never that long on break. Where’ve you been?”
“Nowhere.” I tie a semi-clean apron around my waist and look at Trick. His back is turned for the moment, but his ears have multidirectional sonar capability and his mouth is even bigger than his heart.
“All right,” she says, taking the hint. “Get started on those cupcakes while I do a flyby on my tables. Smoke break in fifteen?”
I nod. We don’t smoke, but we break. It’s all very complicated.
Fifteen minutes later we’re out in the trash alcove otherwise known as the smoking lounge, warming our hands in the heat leaking through the propped-open back door.
She stamps her feet to chase away the ice-blue air. “Spill it,” she says. “Quick. My equatorial ass can’t handle this cold.”
“I ran into Josh Blackthorn from school. We sort of …” Pow! I slam my palms together like Josh did earlier, imitating our crash.
“Hold up—you did it? With the hockey captain? On your break? What the—”
“No! We crashed on the ice at Fillmore. I was skating. Fully clothed. Besides, I totally reek.” I pull my red-blond ponytail across my face for a whiff. “No one wants to do it with a chick who smells like bacon.”
Her brow creases. “Everybody loves bacon.”
“Not as a signature scent.”
“True, but some people—wait. You went skating with Josh Blackthorn?”
I play with the zipper on my jacket, yanking it up and down. Voop. Voop. Voop-voop-voop. “Not exactly.”
Her eyes narrow. When it comes to my on-again, off-again affair with the ice, Dani knows the highlights, but we don’t talk about it much. She and I got close during the post-skating part of my life, right after Mom, Bug, and I moved to the apartment near her house.
She taps my foot with hers. “Hud, why are you acting all, like, twitchy? What’s going on?”
I let out a long, slow breath, remembering how alive I felt today on the ice. I think about the Capriani Cup and the warmth that rises up inside when I land the perfect jump, make the hard turns, nail my favorite moves, even all these years later.
And then I remember Josh Blackthorn’s hand brushing the hair from my face.
“Hudson?” Dani asks again, her big, copper-penny eyes searching mine.
“Danielle!” Trick shouts from the kitchen. “Two steak-and-egg specials up for table three!”