Bittersweet

  And dear Mr. Napkins, as if he senses the weight of the moment, rolls out from under the chair and crashes into my leg.

  “Merry Christmas,” I say. “Now let’s find a way to make this breakfast thing happen.”

  “No Bug omelets,” my brother says.

  “No. I’m cooking something special for you two.” Mom stands and dusts her hands together. “And after we eat, we’ll go outside and make a snowman.”

  Bug cheers, and I dig out the marshmallows for hot chocolate, and even though Mom’s smiling and this is pretty much the best Christmas morning we’ve had since my father left, I can’t ignore the burn in my stomach when I think of New Year’s, the way my mother always expects me to be there whenever she needs me, whenever Bug needs me, no questions asked.

  I set the bag of marshmallows on the counter and rinse out our coffee mugs, my heart sinking as I picture another night on the couch with Dick Clark, everyone else laughing and dancing and ringing in the New Year together at Amir’s.

  Missing out on dinner with Will is one thing. But I have to find a way to get to that party.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cupcakes with Benefits

  Vanilla cupcakes topped with whipped peanut butter cream cheese icing, milk chocolate chips, crushed pretzels, and a drizzle of warm caramel

  “But you have to find a way to come to Toronto,” Dani says. “My parents finally caved and said I could bring you. We’ll have a suite overlooking the city and everything.”

  “Don’t rub it in.” I flip the mixer on high and dump in a pile of shaved chocolate, batter churning into a clumpy mess. First time in history I get not one, but two invites for New Year’s, and Mom decides it’s the perfect night to pimp herself out to the local business community. “I’m rockin’ the couch with Bug and Dick Clark.”

  Dani pouts and stamps her foot, kindergarten-style. “What about Mrs. Ferris?”

  “Mom doesn’t want to impose. Besides, I dropped a small fortune at the gas company this morning. No way I can cover her New Year’s rates—she’s a total extortionist.” I pour another cup of milk into the cupcake bowl and scrape the sides with a rubber spatula, beaters growling against the paste.

  “This is so not fair.”

  “No kidding. What am I supposed to tell Will about our date? I haven’t even …” Perfect. So not how I wanted to tell her about me and Will, especially after canceling Christmas brunch on her yesterday. I flip off the mixer and tip the beaters upright. “Will asked me out for New Year’s. But it doesn’t matter, because I can’t go.”

  Dani’s eyebrows shoot up under her corkscrew bangs. She’s gawking at me like I just pulled a cupcake out of … well … somewhere cupcakes aren’t supposed to come out of.

  “Smoke break. Let’s go.” She grabs my arm and stomps across the kitchen, dragging me out through the back door.

  “When did this happen?” she demands once we’re outside. “How?”

  I lean back on the wall and rub my arms so the cold won’t stick. “At his house on Friday.”

  “Ah, you mean the private tutoring session formerly known as ladies’ night?”

  I shrug. “We were working on his essay and goofing around, and then … well … he kissed me. Like, for real kissed me. And then he asked me to dinner and Amir’s party.”

  “He kissed you, and you didn’t tell me? That’s totally withholding information!” Her mouth hangs open, breath freezing white around the gaping hole.

  “Relax, Detective Bozeman.” I laugh, but it comes out kind of jagged on account of I’m shivering my ass off in my supershort Hurley Girl getup. “This week was crazy with work and Christmas and everything—”

  “You couldn’t call me?” Dani folds her arms over her chest. “Or tell me about it any of the five million times I saw you at work?”

  “It was only six days ago! I didn’t want to get into it on the phone. And Trick and Mom are always around here, and we haven’t really hung out alone since—”

  “Don’t remind me. Know who I spent ladies’ night with? Frankie Torres. Who is not a lady. And the Friday before that, we ditched plans to go to the game. And before that you had practice, so I didn’t even see you. Something wrong with this picture?”

  Guilt bubbles in my stomach, but I swallow it down. She’s more upset that I didn’t tell her about Will two seconds after it happened than she is about an estrogen imbalance in her weekend plans. “You know I have a lot going on right now. I’ve only got five more weeks to train, and the scholarship—”

  “Oh, right. How could I forget the all-important scholarship?” Dani throws her arms up, alerting a seagull that’s camped out behind the Dumpster. He screeches at her once and darts back into the shadows.

  “It is important. Super-important. We’re talking about my life’s dream!”

  She jams her hands in her apron pocket, shoulders clenched tight against the cold. “How come you never talk about it, then? You’re always gushing about Will and Josh and hockey, but you hardly ever talk about figure skating. And when you do, it’s never about how much you love the ice or how excited you are for the competition. All you care about is getting out of here, and that scholarship is a means to an end. You act like Watonka’s a prison sentence.”

  The blood rushes to my head, chasing away the chill. “You act like it’s the only place in the world that matters. But it isn’t. There’s so much more to—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get you.” Dani edges backward to the kitchen doorway. “You hate Watonka, and you’ll do anything to leave. So now you’re hooking up with random hockey boys in exchange for ice time? Classy, girl. Real classy.” She kicks a chunk of ice across the pavement and disappears into the kitchen.

  Back inside, I finish up that clumpy batch of cupcakes—passable, but definitely not my best work—and hit the floor for my breakfast shift. Thankfully, everyone in this town must be home ogling their Christmas loot, because it’s dead today. Dani and I have the space to work around each other, talking only when we absolutely have to. She runs my food when I’m in the bathroom, I deliver her drinks when she’s stuck with a chatty customer. She buses one of my tables, I cash out one of hers. We work as a team to get things done, but we don’t look at each other. And when Nat and Marianne show up for the next shift, I don’t wait around to split a plate of Trick’s corned beef hash at the prep counter or offer her a preview of my latest cupcake experiments. I just hang my apron on the hook, pack two non-clumpy cupcakes for the road, flip open my phone, and text the only person I know who doesn’t have any expectations of me—past, present, or future.

  My blank canvas.

  meet me @ fillmore in 1 hr? :-)

  Josh leans against the signpost and tightens his laces, head bent beneath the thin ice warnings so that when he looks up at me and smiles, the Department of Parks and Recreation sends me a totally new message.

  DANGER:

  JOSH BLACKTHORN SMILING!

  “Thanks for coming,” I say, returning his grin. “You totally saved me.”

  He stands and blocks out the rest of the warnings. “Bad day at the diner?”

  “Put it this way. Another five minutes and they’d be calling it ‘going waitress’ instead of ‘going postal.’”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  “It’s stupid.” I say. “Things have been a little off with me and Dani lately. And now she’s pissed because Will asked me to Amir’s New Year’s thing and I didn’t call her five seconds later with all the gory details.”

  “Um …” Josh rubs his head, looking out over the lake. “Wow.”

  “Holy melodrama, right? Told you it was stupid.”

  “No, I … um … so you’re going to the party with Will?”

  “I’m not going anywhere with anyone. I have to babysit my brother.” I stab the ice with my toe pick and sigh. But then I realize I’m not exactly taking a stand against melodrama here, so I plaster on another smile. “Anyway, in exchange for your heroic selflessness in meeting me o
n such short notice, I have a present for you.” I reach into my jacket and fish out his USB drive.

  “You’re regifting my music? Can you even do that?”

  “No way.” I shake my head. “That would be a complete gift violation. This is your drive, but my music. Totally reloaded. There’s even some old obscure blues stuff on there from Trick.”

  “Nicely done, Avery.” Josh slips the drive into his pocket and tugs his hat over his ears. “But don’t be too grateful. My motives weren’t all that selfless. I need help with the—shoot. Hang on.” He checks his ever-buzzing phone. Great. I hope Cougar Mama doesn’t show up at Fillmore. An ex-stripper against an ex-skater? Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

  “Sorry, one sec.” He sends out a text, turns off the phone, and buries it in his jacket pocket. “Anyway, I totally suck at those backward crossover things you showed us. So, yeah. Help.”

  I laugh. “Follow me.”

  The indoor rink is definitely better for technical work, but I was actually starting to miss the ruggedness of Fillmore, my original secret spot. If I was more clearheaded when I left work, I probably would’ve just come here alone. But for once, I didn’t stop to analyze everything. I just did what I felt like doing.

  I felt like being with Josh. No kissing, no coach secrets and weird family politics, no subtext. Just two friends hitting the ice.

  Now I lead him through backward speed drills, slowly working him up to the crossovers. After several falls (his) and laughs (mine), he’s finally getting it, and I give him a wide space to perfect his moves.

  I run through my figures as he works, looping across the runoff, skates rubbing uncomfortably against my toes and ankles. The leather has stretched with my growing feet; it’s thinned and scuffed in spots, torn near the eyelets, but the blades are still sharp. Like all my skates, my father got these for me. A brand-new, custom-made pair. I spent months breaking them in, working them on the ice until they were perfect, soft and buttery.

  They fit me a whole lot better back then, just like the pair before that and the ones before that, all the way back to the very first time I ever felt the ice beneath my feet. It was during the winter Olympics more than a decade ago. I was a toddler, mesmerized by the twirls and turns on TV and the way the skaters’ feet seemed to float as if they were dancing on water. I’d never before wanted to be anything as much as I wanted to be that—a ballerina on ice. So one morning my father drove me to Miller’s Pond, this old place out in the country. He parked the car and came around to my side, kneeling in front of me with a big white box. I took it into my lap, legs dangling over the edge of the seat as I tore off the lid and pulled out miles and miles of tissue paper. Inside, two magical silver blades shone under soft leather boots, bright as snow. Dad laced them up and set me on the ice like dust on spun glass, and he pulled me around and around and around until my face was numb from smiling in the cold, the same question spilling from my lips for hours.

  Please, can you take me again, Daddy?

  Soon he’d be paying for lessons at the community center two towns over, then private instruction when they started throwing around phrases like “unlimited potential” and “incredible natural talent.” Not too long after that came Lola Capriani, and that was it. Pro track, all the way. Before he finally split, my father must’ve spent a boatload on my dreams, his entire future staked on the destiny I was supposed to claim.

  Still, through all the winters of lessons and competitions, through all the dizzying spins and hard-earned bruises and medals, it never meant as much as it did on that first day at Miller’s Pond when he surprised me with those magical skates. That day, I really was a ballerina and he was my whole world and if I let myself now, I bet I could still feel the warmth of his hand around my tiny pink mitten.

  Don’t worry, baby girl. I promise I won’t let you fall.

  But I don’t let myself feel that warmth. Even now, as I prepare for another competition and wade through all the old memories, the ghosts of my father’s promises don’t take up nearly as much space as they used to.

  “That’s it,” Josh calls out, skating toward me. “I can’t take it anymore.” He stops close, his face pink from cold and exertion. “Now that I’ve thoroughly embarrassed myself, how ’bout showing off some of your killer moves.”

  “You’ve seen my moves.”

  “Not really.” He stretches his arms out before the lake. “All this room. No walls. No rails. No Brad Nelson running his mouth. It’s just us and the seagulls. And I promise not to crash into you.”

  I smile. “There you go, being a hero again.”

  “You’re competing in a month, right?”

  “One month, six days, and a handful of hours, give or take.”

  “Then put your money where your skates are.” Josh nods toward the ice. “Come on, Avery. Show me what you’ve got.”

  “That a dare, Blackthorn?”

  He shrugs. “Call it what you like. You down?”

  “Down? I’m about to make you wish you never got up,” I say, strictly for the cameras. What’s a high school action rom-com docu-drama without a few corny but well-placed one-liners?

  I hand Josh the puffy outer layer of my jacket and push off with my toe pick, gliding backward to the other side of the runoff. I haven’t choreographed my full program yet, but with Josh smiling at me across the ice, I set my nerves to steel and silently count to ten.

  A cold breeze rolls over my skin, and in the next heartbeat, the music starts in my head. Not “Bittersweet” this time. Maybe “Freaktown,” the Undead Wedding song with the paper birds that Josh likes so much. My muscles recall the beat and tense, uncoiling like a spring to launch me forward. I take long strides, tucking in my arms and head as I pick up speed. As I approach the edge, I look for the perfect spot to curve, looping at an angle as I gain momentum for my first jump. My skates cross over … one, two, one, two … and up … my feet drift through the air; I rise to the sky for a single axel. Josh whistles from the sidelines, but hold it, boy. I’m just getting warmed up.

  I move through another set of jumps and spins, forward and backward, fast and slow, making up the sequence as I go. I speed up again, zipping around the perimeter of the runoff, legs burning from the effort, lungs on fire, heart ready to burst out of its cage, but this is it. This is the stuff I was made for, the freedom, the speed, the furious jog of my heart, the cold breeze biting my skin. When I look across the ice and see Josh watching me—really watching me—I spring into my triple flip.

  But I know as soon as I leave the ice that I won’t get enough lift for the full rotations.

  I manage to turn it into a double and land without wobbling.

  Josh cheers, and I launch into another double, land, and twist immediately into a camel spin. The song in my ears starts to slow, and I let the spin fade into a gentle glide, the bright white sky motionless as I sail uninhibited beneath it. I push off one more time, gaining momentum, zooming closer and closer. Then, in my favorite finish, I cut my blades hard and shower him with ice.

  Phishhhh …

  I can almost hear Lola laughing. Enough showboating, greenblades. I was making moves like that when I was six. But she’d smile when she said it. And so would I.

  “What do you think, fifty-six?”

  “I think I’m glad I don’t have to skate against you in the competition.” Josh hands over my jacket. “You were wrong about one thing, though. You didn’t make me wish I never got up.”

  His comment hangs in the winter air between us, blood rushing back to my cheeks as I catch my breath.

  “I messed up that jump,” I say. “I’ve been working on this crazy triple/triple combo at Baylor’s. Back in the day, it was my signature move. Lost my edge a little.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “You’re not a skating judge.”

  “You’ll figure it out in time, Pink.” Josh nudges me with his hip, but as usual, I don’t see it coming. He grabs me just before I fall, catching me a
gainst his chest, arms tight around my waist, neither of us moving for a moment.

  “Hudson,” he whispers, and I look up into his eyes, so bright and blue in all this whiteness … my heartbeat quickens as he leans closer. His grip tightens and my legs go wobbly in a way that has nothing to do with slipping on the ice. He could kiss me. He could kiss me right now, and then I’d know for sure.

  We’re alone out here, just us and the seagulls and the harsh December wind. I close my eyes and lean forward, ever so slightly, waiting for him to make the move.

  Here’s your chance, Blackthorn! Now or never!

  “Sorry,” he says, letting go of my arms as my eyes pop open. “I didn’t mean to knock you over. You okay?”

  “I’m … um … I brought snacks!” My announcement is loud and awkward enough to wake all the ghosts of Fillmore, but it works to break the not-so-momentous moment. I skate over to my backpack and dig out the small box of cupcakes and some balled-up Fresh ’n’ Fast bags. Side by side, but not too close, we sit on the plastic bags beneath the signpost and chow down.

  At least now I know for sure. Friends. Just friends. I can live with that.

  “How lame is it that I have to stay home on New Year’s every single year?” I ask between bites of chocolaty goodness. “I swear, if I’m ever allowed out for the ball drop, Dick Clark will accuse me of cheating.”

  Josh taps the blade of my skate with his. “You and Dick, huh? Sorry, I don’t see it.”

  “Aw, you just don’t know Dick like I know Dick. Dick and I are like this.” I cross my fingers and hold them in front of Josh’s face. “Like this!”

  Josh snorts, dropping crumbs down the front of his jacket. “The party isn’t all that, anyway,” he says, brushing them into the snow. “Believe me—your eight-year-old brother probably needs less supervision than those guys.”