So I do. I grab Evan’s shirt and pull him toward me.
“Wha—?” he starts to say, but then my lips are mashed up against his and he can’t say anything.
As our lips meet, I expect to feel butterflies and to hear angels and to see fireworks. Instead, all I feel is sweat, my sweat dribbling down my temple. And all I hear is Evan’s breathing, quick and panicked-sounding, almost like he’s drowning. And all I see—wait. Why are my eyes open? My eyes shouldn’t be open! And his are open too. They’re so wide and so close to my face that it’s actually kind of scary.
I stagger back, pulling my lips away. Evan blinks at me, looking like he was the one smacked in the head with a dodgeball.
“Are-are you okay?” I stammer, wiping the sweat from my upper lip. I can’t help noticing how very wet Evan’s lips look too. Oh my goldfish. Did my sweat drip on him while we were kissing?
“Lee! Riley!” Mrs. Da Silva yells across the gym. “No canoodling in my class!”
A few of the kids nearby snicker as they head to the locker rooms. Holy baked rhubarb. Did that just happen? Did I actually kiss Evan Riley during gym class?
“Where did that come from?” Evan says finally.
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer because I don’t know what else to say.
“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “I was just surprised.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his. “Really, I didn’t mind at all.”
“Lee! Riley! To the locker rooms or to the principal’s office, you decide.”
We have no choice but to let go of each other’s hands and rush away, but Evan flashes me a little smile over his shoulder. I did it. I can’t believe I did it! I kissed Evan Riley! Suddenly, it feels like I’ve earned all the bonus points in the world.
Chapter 13
During the first hour of my shift at the bakery that afternoon, I keep hearing Chef Ryan grunting and cursing in the back as he works on a wedding cake. Briana barely even blinks as she stares at her phone, while I try to ignore the sounds as I pack up cupcakes and help customers.
The phone rings, and Briana stares at it like she’s never seen a phone before.
I sigh and grab it even though talking on the phone is so not my forte. “Ryan’s Bakery.”
“Rachel? It’s Angela. Is Chef Ryan nearby?”
“No, he’s in the back room—”
Crash!
“Oh good. It was you I wanted to talk to. He showed me a sketch of the cake he’s thinking about for my birthday party, and it’s kind of boring. I mean it’s pretty and stuff, but it doesn’t really scream little kid party, you know?”
“Did you try telling him that?”
“He said it would look better in person, but I’m starting to get worried. Any chance you could talk to him for me?”
I gulp. “I can try. He’s not the easiest person to talk to.”
“I would super appreciate it! Everything else for my party is going to be so perfect. The cake has to be too, you know?”
I do know, so I promise her I’ll take care of it, and then I hang up the phone. Another loud crash rings out in the kitchen, and I hear Chef Ryan let out a lionlike roar of frustration. I steel myself and tell Briana to watch the store for a minute. Then I peek my head into the kitchen, ready to retreat if need be.
Chef Ryan is hunched over a four-tiered cake, a bag of icing shaking in his hands. I take a step forward and almost wipe out on a glob of frosting on the floor. That’s when I notice the frosting clinging to the walls and dripping from the countertops. What the Shrek?
“Is everything all right?” I ask.
Chef Ryan’s eyes shoot up at me. “Fine.” Then he scrunches his face up in concentration and goes back to shakily holding the icing bag over the top of the cake. “Who ever heard of a bee-themed wedding?” he grumbles.
“Bees?” I say with a shudder. As I inch closer, I see that Chef Ryan is covering the cake with tiny little flowers. Except they’re lopsided. And they have wings. “Wait, they’re having you draw bees on their cake?”
Chef Ryan sighs in frustration and takes a step back. “Hundreds of them. I’ve been working on them for hours, but my hands are so cramped up that I can’t do any more. And the cake needs to be done tonight.”
“Maybe I could help,” I say softly.
He gives me a long look, and I expect him to shoot me down. So I almost die of shock when he nods in defeat and says, “Fine.” He wipes his free hand on his apron. “But I’ll be watching the whole time. Got it?”
I nod. This is it. My big chance to show him what I can do!
He ceremonially hands over the icing bag like it’s a crown. I carefully get in position and realize my hands are shaking with nerves. If I do this right, hundreds of people will see this cake. They’ll probably even take pictures of it and post them online! And if I mess it up… Well, it’s better not to think about that.
I gulp in a breath and get to work. Slowly, I make one tiny bee, as similar to the ones on the bottom tier as I can. It looks like an ant.
Chef Ryan sighs. “Maybe I should—”
“No, let me try to fix it!” I say. Then I carefully fill in the wings and round out the body. When I’m finished, I’m relieved to see that it looks more bee than ant. I glance at Chef Ryan, and he only nods. That’s all the encouragement I’m going to get, but it’s enough.
I make another bee. And another. After the third one, I realize I’m barely breathing. No wonder my entire chest hurts.
Finally, I get into a rhythm where I’m icing and breathing at the same time. And I have to say, the bees look pretty good! The wings aren’t quite as perfect as Chef Ryan’s, but they look like little insects. When I get to the last one, I even manage to give it a little smile.
I step back, realizing that for a minute I actually forgot Chef Ryan was looming over me. When I glance at him, he’s looking back at me with an expression that’s totally unreadable. I guess this is what people mean when they say someone has a poker face.
“Well?” I say. “Is it okay?”
He gives it one more look, like he’s searching for flaws, and then he nods. “It’s okay,” he says. “Now get back out front.”
“W-wait,” I say. “I was wondering about your plan for Angela Bareli’s cake, the little kid birthday one?”
He sighs. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“But maybe I could—”
“Rachel,” he says, his voice softening a little. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you have to crawl—”
“Before you can walk,” I finish. “I know, I know.”
“Now get back to work,” he says, and the conversation is over.
Chapter 14
Whenever I go over to Evan’s house, I dread Briana opening the door. This time when I ring the bell after dinner, it’s even worse. His mom is the one whose unsmiling face greets me in the doorway.
“Oh hello, Rachel,” she says. “Come in. Evan is in the family room.” Her stiff tone makes it sound like she still sees me as the cleaning lady’s daughter and not like her son’s girlfriend, even though Mom and I haven’t cleaned the Rileys’ house in weeks. “How is your mother?”
“She’s good,” I say. “Um, busy.”
Mrs. Riley sighs. “I may have to give her a call again. Our latest housekeeper has been far from stellar.”
I bite back a smile. If Mrs. Riley tried to hire Ladybug Cleaners, I have no doubt Mom would say no. After Mom found me trying to vacuum up pieces of glass that Briana had oh-so-nicely sprinkled all over her bedroom carpet, she made it pretty clear that we were done putting up with the Riley drama. Thank goodness Evan is nothing like the rest of his family!
I find him in the family room among mountains of files. “What is all this?” I ask.
Evan sighs. “My dad asked me to help him clean out his home office. I’m
supposed to sort all these files and put them in alphabetical order. It’s taking forever.”
“Need some help?” I ask.
He gives me a grateful smile. “I asked my sister, but she laughed in my face.”
“Were you really surprised?” I can’t help asking.
“I know, but I keep thinking the twin thing will kick in sometime.” Upstairs, a door slams, and Evan gives me a crooked grin. No doubt that’s Briana storming around up there.
As I sit down next to him on the carpet, I realize this is the closest I’ve been to him since our gym class kiss. I’m suddenly really aware of how much (or little) space is between us. Should I sit closer to him? Is that what couples who’ve kissed do?
I think about those couples I saw making out in the hallway. I don’t want to be obnoxious like they were, but I also don’t want to be afraid of holding hands with my own boyfriend! Now that I’ve been brave enough to kiss him, I can’t start wimping out again.
I inch toward him on the couch until our knees are less than six inches apart.
“How’s stuff going at the bakery?” he asks, leafing through a file folder. He doesn’t seem to notice that I’ve moved closer, so I scoot over a little more. Five inches apart. Four. I can practically feel the heat from his knee radiating into mine.
“Okay,” I say, and tell him about Chef Ryan finally letting me help out with one of the cakes this afternoon and about Angela’s cake.
By the time I’m finished telling him about work, I’m so close to him that our legs are actually resting against each other. Evan doesn’t move his away, so he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t mind. I can’t believe I was so freaked out about the idea of kissing Evan at the airport before I went to visit my dad, and now I’m the one making the first move!
“So I was thinking,” I say slowly, “that I should make my own cake for Angela’s party.”
Evan’s eyebrows go up. “How will Chef Ryan feel about that?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But if I do an awesome job, maybe he’ll see that I deserve to do more at the bakery, and maybe he’ll actually let me help with the Montelle-Brennan wedding cake.” Even if I can’t get on TV, at least something I touched might.
“So what would you make?” he asks.
I sigh. “That’s the problem. I’ve been totally uninspired recently. Everything I’ve come up with seems so boring. Want to help me think of some ideas?” I figure since he actually went to birthday parties when he was little—unlike super-shy me—he might have some pointers.
“Sure!” he says. “Well, I loved parties when I was a kid because it was the only time I was allowed to eat candy. And the cake was always this huge sheet cake with the kind of frosting that you could pull off in one swipe, you know?”
“Okay, what else?” I ask, taking out my baking journal. As he talks, I start furiously scribbling down notes.
“Although,” he says finally, “if Angela’s having a pony, then maybe you should go with the whole horse theme. Decorate the cake to look like a stable or something.”
“Complete with manure?” I ask.
Evan laughs. Soon we’re coming up with weirder and weirder cakes as we sort through his dad’s files. My favorite is Evan’s suggestion to make a perfectly innocent-looking cake that oozes green slime when you slice it. Angela would never forgive me for cake-sliming her, but imagining the look on her face is pretty hilarious.
“Maybe when I make another batch of pastries for Chip Ackerson, I should fill them with slime too,” I say.
“That will definitely get his attention!” Evan says.
We’re giggling so hard that I don’t even realize I’m leaning against Evan, my head practically on his shoulder, until Briana stomps down the stairs and Evan jumps away from me on the couch. He has a weird, guilty look on his face, as if his sister caught us doing something wrong.
I expect Briana to glare at us or to ignore us and keep going, but instead she pauses in the doorway and says, “What are you two laughing about? I can hear you all the way upstairs.”
Evan and I look at each other. I don’t think either of us knows how to explain all the silly things we’ve been giggling over. “Slime,” Evan says, and we start laughing again. But I can’t help replaying that moment when he leaped away from me as if he was embarrassed to be seen so close to me, as if he couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
Before Briana can say anything snide, Evan’s dad comes into the room. I’ve met him only a couple of times before, but I barely recognize him. His usually clean-shaven face is scruffy and haggard-looking, and his clothes are crumpled like he slept in them.
“Oh, hey,” he says vaguely. “I was just…” He looks around like he forgot why he came into the room. “Water,” he mumbles before wandering into the kitchen.
The three of us are silent for a minute after he’s gone. “Um, is your dad okay?” I finally whisper.
“He’s fine!” Briana says. “God, why do you have to be such a nosy freak?” Then she turns and runs back up the stairs.
Evan flashes me a sympathetic smile. “Sorry about her—” he starts to say, but I wave his apology away.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m starting to learn not to take anything she says to heart.” I clear my throat. “So, is your dad okay? I don’t mean to be nosy, but he seems…”
“He’s been kind of a mess since he lost his job,” Evan says softly. “The whole thing blindsided him. One minute he was totally happy there, and then the next, they fired him because of some big misunderstanding.”
“Wow,” I say. “But you guys will be okay, right?” After my parents split up, my mom was constantly worried about paying the mortgage and stuff. Evan’s house is so big and fancy that I can’t imagine how much it must cost to live there.
“Dad has a couple interviews next week,” Evan says, “so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.” He chuckles. “Especially my mom. It’s driving her crazy to have him around so much.”
“I’m sorry,” I manage, not sure what else to say.
“Hey, it’s not so bad. At least we get to be at the same school now, right?”
“Are you sure it’s worth it?” I ask. “You loved your old school.”
He smiles and squeezes my hand. “Yeah, but you weren’t there. So how good could it really be?”
Holy freeze-dried cranberries. He is so cute. The doubts I had start to melt away. Whatever made him jump away from me, it had nothing to do with how he feels about me. Evan likes me and I like him. Plain and simple like vanilla ice cream.
Chapter 15
When I get home from Evan’s, Mom is sitting on the couch absently flipping through TV channels. She’s not even really looking at the screen, as if she’s focused on something far away.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
She seems to snap back to reality. “Oh, Rachel! You’re home!” She clears her throat. “Have a seat for a second, will you?”
Uh-oh. This can’t be good.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong! In fact, things are great!” She lets out a little chipmunk laugh that tells me things are not great.
I sit down and wait for her to spill. Luckily, it doesn’t take long.
“Okay, you’re going to think I’m nuts.” She laughs again, even shriller this time. “Honestly, I think I must be nuts to even consider this! But Robert brought up the idea of us coming to live with him.”
“Mr. Hammond?” I gasp. “Is this your weird way of telling me that you guys are getting married?” They’ve been together for only a few months, but I know they’ve already said the L-word. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to start thinking of him as my stepfather or anything. I mean, he keeps telling me to call him Robert, and I still can’t stop referring to him as Mr. Hammond!
“No, nothing like that,” Mom assures me
. “Neither one of us is rushing to get into another marriage. But he lives in that big house all by himself, and we really care about each other. It wouldn’t happen right away, of course. Maybe not at all. But I told him I’d think about it, and that I’d talk it over with you, of course.”
I stare at her. My parents know how bad I am with change, so why do they keep throwing it at me every two seconds?
“Robert said you might not take this well,” my mom adds.
I blink at her. “Why? What did he think I’d do?”
“Well,” Mom says slowly, “you did take things a bit hard when you found out we were dating. Remember when you told him your father was only away on business, even though we all knew that wasn’t true? And then there was all that nonsense about his underwear…”
I cringe, remembering the rumor I accidentally started about Mr. Hammond wearing adult diapers. “I didn’t do that on purpose!”
“True. But you can’t blame Robert for wondering if it was your way of lashing out at him because you were feeling threatened.”
I stare at her. “But that’s crazy!”
“I know you wouldn’t do that,” Mom says. “But look at it from his perspective. He’s done nothing but try to get you to like him. Things are better now, but they started off a bit rough, didn’t they? I think he’s still not sure where you two stand.”
“He’s fine,” I say. “We’re fine. I like him and everything. I’m glad you’re happy. But moving in with him… It feels like a lot, you know?”
Mom’s face falls. “It was just a thought, but it’s nothing that we need to consider right now. Forget I said anything, okay?”
I’m about to nod and pretend the whole conversation never happened. But then I think back to writing all that stuff about my mom in the Truth Game and how she’s put up with so much of my drama recently. She’s always trying to support me, even if she doesn’t always go about it the right way. Maybe it’s time I support her.
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