Bittersweet Read online

  “Dude, shut it.” Will smacks Frankie’s arm while the other guys laugh. “Seriously, you all right to keep going, Hud?”

  I press my hand against my fleece pocket, Lola’s letter crinkling inside. You gotta want it, kiddo. Really want it. I take a deep breath and feel the rink beneath my blades, the familiar solidity coming up through my legs. All winter I’ve come to the ice sporadically, a secret affair. Without reason. Without direction. Looping like a tiny snowflake swirling on the wind, no idea how far I’d drift or where I’d end up, hoping only that I wouldn’t melt before I got there.

  But here, now, my reason skates to the surface.

  Will and I made a deal. I’m laced up. I’m on the ice. And for the first time since I ditched the competition track three years ago, I have a purpose.

  And like old Lola used to say, “I didn’t keep myself alive another lousy day just to watch you half-ass your way across the rink, bambina. Capisce?”

  “Wolf pack, right?” I ask, newly emboldened by the stone-cold Lola-cool in my voice. “That’s what they call you?”

  “How-ooooo!” JORDAN, ninety-nine, goalie. Amir Jordan is actually howling. Head thrown back, olive-brown skin and shaggy black hair gleaming under the fluorescents like a real wolf in the moonlight. The whole thing is pretty frightening, and I don’t mean in the sexy “Team Jacob” kind of way.

  I suck in a breath of cold air and channel some more Lola, slapping my gloves against my hip. “All right, wolf pack. When was the last time you won a game?”

  Slap.

  “Tied a game?”

  Slap.

  “Lost by less than a point?”

  “Speaking of points, Princess Pink … you got one?” Brad again. You know, for someone so hot, he shouldn’t be so wound up.

  “Chill out, Nelson,” Josh says.

  “But homegirl doesn’t know jack about hockey! You just want to—”

  “Ever hear of James Creighton?” I glide toward them, skating along the blue line.

  “Who?” Micah Baumler asks.

  “Creighton. Father of ice hockey?”

  Skates shuffle. Helmets bow.

  “He’s in the hockey hall of fame,” I continue. “And by the way, wolf pups, the father of your favorite sport was also a figure skating judge. So let’s drop all this ‘homegirl doesn’t know jack’ b.s. and focus on the biggest challenge this school has ever seen: breaking your flawlessly pathetic ten-year losing streak.”

  “Ten years?” Rowan laughs. “It hasn’t been that long, Hudson.”

  “Have you read the files?”

  He looks up at me, lowering his voice as if we’re sharing some big secret. Which, apparently, we are. “What files?”

  “From the—”

  “If you’re done with the history lesson, can we go now?” Chuck Felzner whines, still messing with his phone.

  “Yeah, I’m starving,” Brad says. “You guys wanna hit up Papallo’s? Ten-cent wings tonight.”

  Frankie fist bumps him. “Man, you know I want in on that.”

  Josh holds up his hands. “Come on, guys. Practice isn’t over.”

  Oblivious to his protests, the team shuffles collectively toward the locker room.

  “You coming out with us, Princess?” Brad winks at me again before he leaves, but I shake my head and he follows the rest of the pack off the ice.

  Will and Josh, the only two wolves on the rink, exchange a frustrated glance.

  “I’ll try again,” Josh says. He skates to the edge and slips the guards over his blades, hobbling into the locker room to find his teammates.

  “Sorry about that,” Will says. “Not bad for your first try, though.” He squeezes my shoulder. I remember Dani’s “smoldering” comment in French class the other day and gently shrug him off.

  “If that’s what you call ‘not bad,’ no wonder your team sucks.”

  Will laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Ouch.”

  “Sorry.” I’m not trying to hurt anyone’s feelings out here, but … not bad? Seriously? On the scale of things going bad, one being my infamous Black Melons cupcake fail—watermelon cupcakes with black licorice icing that even Bug refused—and ten being, let’s say, the Cold War, I’d call today’s meet and greet about a seven thousand. Hot-pink zip-up? Training Watonka’s hockey thugs? My so-called candy-ass moves against ten-cent wings at Papallo’s?

  “It’s okay. It’s just the first night.”

  “Will, this isn’t going to work. The guys don’t—”

  “The guys don’t realize how much they need you. But they will.”

  “I don’t belong out here with—”

  “Yes, you do. It’s hard for them—no one wants to admit we need outside help.”

  “You mean help from a girl.”

  “I mean help from anyone not on the team.”

  I slip my gloves back over my hands and flex my fingers. “Why don’t we talk to the coach, then? If he signs me on officially, maybe the guys will—”

  “No way.” Will shakes his head. “Dodd is still technically our coach, but he doesn’t care about helping us win. And if he knew about you, he’d flip. Not to mention we’re probably violating some school insurance policy. I’m serious, Hudson. You can’t tell people about this—especially Dodd.”

  I shove my hands in my fleece pockets, gloved fingers scratching against the foundation letter. “You’re giving me a lot of reasons to walk away.”

  “I’m also giving you a big one to stay.” He looks out across the empty, unblemished rink and smiles, and we both know he’s right. Surly hockey boys or not, I need the ice time.

  “You don’t have to decide right now,” Will says. “You wanted the ice tonight after practice? It’s all yours. Just let Marcus know when you’re done. He’s the manager here. He’s in the office down the hall—white ponytail, Sabres hat.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have a good workout.” Will gives me one last squeeze and skates off toward the locker room.

  Once he’s gone, I check the laces on my skates, do some light stretching, and push off the back edge. Methodically I loop into my figures, eyes closed, the cut and swish of the blades bringing me back to the only place besides the predawn Hurley’s kitchen that calms me. I’m still mangled from the Wolves firing squad, but a deal is a deal, and holy snowballs—compared to Fillmore, the ice here at Baylor’s is a downright dream.

  I pick up speed as my legs get a feel for the place, each muscle rejoicing at the smoothness of the groomed indoor rink. I’m much faster here. Looser. Uninhibited. Just like I remember.

  I skate hard to the other end and loop back, twisting into a scratch spin, tight and fast, arms high above my head as my feet twirl against the ice and …

  Bam!

  My ass hits the rink with the thud heard round the world.

  “This sucks.” I drag myself up for another go.

  “Rough night, huh?”

  I whip around so fast, I almost lose my footing again. Almost. Josh smiles and glides across the rink, still in his skates and practice gear.

  “Just you and me,” he says. “Will went to Papallo’s to talk some sense into them. I didn’t have any luck.”

  “No luck, and no wings, either? Talk about a rough night.”

  Josh laughs and motions for me to follow him around the perimeter. I fall in next to him, both of us taking long, comfortable strides along the edge.

  “Hudson, when I first asked you about this … I mean, if I’d known Will would rope you into the team thing, I never would’ve mentioned it to him.”

  “No. I really need the ice time. I just don’t know why he thought I could help the Wolves. I might as well be invisible out here.”

  Josh shakes his head. “Will believed me when I told him about you—about what I saw at Fillmore. That’s why he thought you could help.”

  I keep my eyes on the ice, my cheeks burning. “In that case, sorry I let you down.”

  “You kidding me? The guys ar
e mostly idiots, Hud. Seriously. Sometimes I think we need sensitivity training more than technical work.”

  “Perfect! Next time I’ll bring journal prompts. We can all write about our feelings, and after that, we’ll listen to some Indigo Girls and make friendship bracelets.”

  Josh’s eyebrows go up. “That … sounds pretty awesome. Hockey with feelings. I can dig it.”

  We continue our shoulder-to-shoulder loop, picking up speed until we’re practically racing. He’s taller than me, and definitely strong, but I keep up with him anyway, matching his increased pace at each turn. On our fourth time around, I stop at the box for my water bottle.

  “Man, I’m out of shape.” I try not to pant like a straight-up dog, but my lungs burn.

  “Come on, you’re holding your own out there. I’m impressed.”

  I take another swig and cap the bottle. “Don’t be. I’m good on the short bursts, but I suck at endurance stuff.”

  “I know a trick for that. Something you probably didn’t learn at skate club.”

  “I’m all ears. Um, skates. Whatever.” I clamp shut my cornier-than-thou mouth and follow Josh to the center line.

  For the next twenty minutes we practice a hockey drill—some sort of sideways run-hop-slide move. I have no idea what it’s called officially, but if my lungs and thighs have their say, we’ll be calling it the Crusher. Or the Killer. Or the What-the-Hell-Have-You-Gotten-Us-Into-You-Stupid-Girl-er. By the time we finish a few sets, I’m ready to curl up and zonk out, right here on the rink.

  “Strange night,” I say when we finally change out of our skates and pack up our gear. “Not sure I can handle a weekly dose of this stuff.”

  “Whatever you’re training for, it has to be important, right?” Josh asks.

  “Just my only chance at going to college and getting out of here. NBD, as my little brother says.”

  Josh zips up his bag and throws it over his shoulder. “Then you have to do it, right? Give us another shot? Your future totally depends on it.”

  “That’s a fact, fifty-six?”

  “Just looking out for your best interests.”

  “Aww, how selfless.” I laugh as we wave good night to Marcus and head out the front door together, my hips already feeling the burn of tonight’s workout. Josh walks me to the Tetanus Taxi, the banged-up Toyota 4Runner I inherited from Trick, and waits in the passenger seat until it’s warm and ready to roll.

  “What do you say? One more chance?” He looks at me and smiles, his eyes softened by the muted green lights of the dash, and I revise my original estimate on the night’s badness scale from seven thousand to three.

  “The thugs of Watonka can’t scare me off that easily,” I say, thinking of that smooth Baylor’s ice. “I’ll be back.”

  “Sweet!” He pulls his hat over his ears and slides out of the truck, breath fogging as soon as it hits the outside air. “See you in school, Avery.”

  My muscles ache, my bones are battered, and my feet feel like they ran a shoeless marathon over broken glass, but tonight, after I pay Mrs. Ferris, get Bug to bed, and sink my head into that cool, worn pillow, I pull the comforter tight beneath my chin and sleep better than I have all year.

  Chapter Eight

  The Good, the Bad, and the Cupcakes

  Oatmeal pumpkin cupcakes shot through with chocolate fudge, topped with a thin layer of fudge icing and toasted coconut tumbleweeds

  “So, the stretchy jeans. Did they or did they not get the job done?” Dani demands, watching me over a bowl of peaches-and-cream batter on our usual Saturday-morning shift. “Usual” meaning I still had to be here before sunrise to bake, only now, instead of hitting up Fillmore for a late-morning break while my cupcakes cool, I’ll be working the floor. After nearly a week of training, I’m still not winning any customer service awards, but it is getting easier.

  I pour the batter into cups and slide everything into the oven. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

  “Are you kidding me with this right now? I gave up ladies’ night so you could hang with the hockey boys, and you’re making conditions?”

  “Promise!”

  “Okay, okay. No laughing.” She drops a stack of laminated menus on the counter for their weekly wipedown. “Now tell me!”

  I clear my throat for dramatic effect. “For starters, every time I see hockey boys, I bite it on the ice.”

  “You fell? Again?” Dani’s cough-that’s-supposed-to-cover-the-laugh-she-promised-not-to-do is only slightly muted by the howl of a passing ambulance out back.

  “Hey! I said no laughing! This is so not funny.”

  “It’s totally funny. You’re the most graceful person I know. I can’t believe you’re such a klutz around your crush.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Dani tosses an unsavable grease-stained menu into the trash. “You know, hon, it occurred to me that this whole Wolves thing might be a really bad idea. What kind of a hockey team has not one, but three black dudes? No wonder they can’t win.”

  “You think we live in Norway or something? Amir Jordan is Pakistani. There’s also an Asian guy, some Puerto Ricans, and the starting left wing has, like, carrot-hair. He must be Irish. It’s the whole UN over there.”

  “Yeah, but did you ever notice there aren’t many black guys in the NHL? There’s no hockey in the homeland, Hud. It’s unnatural.”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s no corned beef hash in the homeland, either, but you dogged that stuff Trick cooked up like it was your job.”

  Dani laughs. “You’re just a regular, hockey-playing Sherlock Holmes, aren’t you?”

  I scoop some brown sugar into a bowl of buttercream, add two drops of orange tint, and flip on the mixer. “I’m not playing. Just helping out with a few practices so I can train afterward. Which, by the way, was your idea.”

  “I know.” She lets the air out of her lungs, slow and loud, all the funny stuff suddenly erased. “Hudson, listen. I get that you pretty much skated right out of your mother’s uterus, okay? No doubt you can rock the rink from here to Antarctica, and that scholarship is a kick-ass opportunity.”

  “Okay, one: Don’t mention my mother’s uterus. And two: That scholarship is the only reason I’m doing this.”

  “I know, and I’m with you. If you want to get back out there, pull on those skates and lace ’em up, girl. I’ll be in the stands, stompin’ out my Hudson cheer. Just be realistic, too. You have a lot going on right now, and—”

  “Hold up.” I flip off the mixer. “You have a Hudson cheer?”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s no singing involved, is there?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Trust me, Dani. I can work this. They just need me once a week. And with the extra money from waitressing, I’ll pay Mrs. Ferris to stay longer with Bug. All I have to do is keep up with cupcake orders, put in my Hurley Girl time, and fly under the Mom-radar long enough to train for my competition. Two, three months tops.”

  “Then what?” Finished with the menus, Dani grabs the clean silverware bin and a stack of paper napkins. “The wolf pack comes back from the dead, you score the Capriani thing, and you and the boys dash off into the sunset on your magical golden ice skates? How ro-man-tic.”

  “And leave all this behind?” I sweep my arms around the steel kitchen, air saturated with bacon and cupcakes and my entire family history. “No way.”

  “You know you can’t get extra-hot extra–bleu cheese chicken finger subs in any other city. And if you ditch me right after high school, I’m not FedExing them.” She tries to laugh, but it comes out too fast, a soft rush that disappears as soon as it hits the light.

  Dani’s a Western New York girl, all the way. We’ve talked about going to college in Buffalo together, sharing a dorm or apartment, staying close to home. Even if I got stuck helping out at the diner on weekends, we could still live together, still see each other every day. But now, with this skating opportunity, I could do something else. I
could actually leave here. And we both know it.

  I lean on the counter as my best friend methodically rolls forks and spoons into napkins, not meeting my eyes. When I saw her the first morning at my new bus stop freshman year, she was like the one-girl welcoming committee, all dimples and crazy black curls that bounced when she laughed. She’d recently moved to the neighborhood, too—from some place in North Buffalo—and everything about her was different from me and the world I’d just left behind. When she smiled, it was like when the sun unexpectedly comes out in the middle of a harsh winter, and I just turned to the light of her.

  Still, things had blown up with Kara and I wasn’t ready for a replacement. I kept my distance—polite yet cool, friendly but not too inviting. It was the I-fly-solo vibe that I’d spent the aftermath of my father’s disappearing act perfecting, but it didn’t faze Dani. She’d wait for me at the bus stop every morning and sit next to me for the ride, sharing her cherry-frosted Pop-Tarts and asking me what kind of music I listened to and how I liked our apartment and whether I had any siblings. Nothing about skating or competitions or coaches. Nothing about Kara and the friends I’d ditched. From that very first day, Dani looked at me like no one else had in years—without expectations, pity, or disappointment.

  I fell in love with her then.

  “Mom will be here any minute,” I say softly. “Let’s make sure everything’s ready.”

  “Cowboy at table seven’s yours today, babe,” Dani says, armed with an empty coffee carafe and a devious grin. “Be warned: He likes to send his food back a lot, and he only tips a dollar, no matter what the bill is. Watch his hands. Oh, and don’t bend over in front of him.”

  I tighten the strings on my apron. “Thanks for the A&E biography. If you know him so well, why don’t you take him?”

  Dani shrugs. “Consider it your final rite of passage. If you can handle Cowboy, you can handle anyone.”

  “That’s what you said about the Buff State frat boys at table twelve.” I tug on the bottom of my dress, square my shoulders, and head out to face the country music.