Bittersweet

by Sarah Ockler

  “You ready?” I ask Bug over the flawless horn work of Charlie Parker.

  Bug checks the ties on his apron and pushes up his sleeves, looking at me across the counter. “First, let’s get one thing straight. Since I’m no longer just the Glitter Czar, I need a new title.”

  “Have something in mind?”

  Bug nods. “Since you’re the Cupcake Queen, I should be the Cupcake King.”

  I wash my hands and join him at the counter. “How about the Cupcake Prince? You can work your way up.”

  He considers the compromise. “Okay. One year as the prince, then we reevaluate. I also want stock options.”

  “Done and done.”

  “Awesome. Let’s do this thing, girlfriend.”

  As Bug measures out ingredients for his custom-made batter, I make very minor corrections, but otherwise let him experiment. That’s how I learned—a blank canvas, trial and error. Sometimes the flavors you think would be perfect together form a disastrous combo, while the ones you’d never imagine hooking up blend to perfection. Sampling and tasting, burning and undercooking, sweetening and mellowing—it rarely comes out great on the first try, but developing the focus and energy and passion for these experiments is what saved me when my father left. What helped me put a smile on my baby brother’s face when sadness was all we knew. What kept Hurley’s alive at times when our chances didn’t look so hot.

  Like I always say: I’ve never met a problem a proper cupcake couldn’t fix.

  “Dad’s never coming back, is he?” Bug asks, showing off his mind-reading skills. His eyes stay fixed on the mixing bowl as he dumps in a measure of melted chocolate.

  “I don’t … why would you say that?”

  “It’s okay, Hudson. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  I smile at my baby brother, his arms stretched across the counter, elbows-deep in ingredients for his first official batch of cupcakes. Maybe he’s right; he’s not a kid, even though he’s only eight. His father left. His mother works a lot. As resident big sister in a single-parent home, it’s been my job to look after him. I promised Mom I’d never relinquish the role of chief Bug protector and homework helper, but I think we could all use a little more honesty around here.

  “No. He’s not coming back.”

  “Is it that lady? The one who does Elvis stuff?” He licks a smudge of chocolate from his hand and goes back to stirring. “I didn’t know he was a fan.”

  “How do you know about Shelvis?”

  “Google. Dad used his real name on the domain registration for his blog.”

  “Um … I don’t even know what that means.” I lean over his shoulder to check the consistency of the batter and guide his hand into a slower stir. “Dad’s gone, sweet pea. I don’t think he stopped loving us, he just doesn’t really know how to show it right now. Pretty lame, if you ask me.”

  Bug continues to stir, scraping the sides at regular intervals, just like I taught him. “It makes me sad.”

  “Me too.”

  “Then again, if Dad never left, you probably wouldn’t be the Cupcake Queen. And if you weren’t the Cupcake Queen, I wouldn’t be the Cupcake Prince. And then I couldn’t do this.” He spoons out a huge dollop of chocolate batter and shoves it straight into his goofy, giggling mouth.

  “Hey!” I laugh. “Save some for the customers, Prince!”

  “It’s quality control, Hud. We are a rare oasis in the culinary tundra. We can’t feed the good people of Watonka any old garbage.”

  “Just don’t put that spoon back in the bowl, okay? We already dodged one health code violation this month—let’s not push it.”

  “NBD.” He flings the spoon into the sink and grabs a fresh one.

  I back off and let him work, loading the used bowls into the dishwasher. As I pack up his extra ingredients, I glance at the frame hanging above the pantry—the picture Dani finally submitted for her photo project. She took it last week—me and Mom and Bug, all leaning over a bowl of cupcake batter that Bug accidentally exploded when he set the mixer too high. Mom’s laughing with her eyes closed and Bug’s got chocolate goo all over his face and glasses. And me, I’m just digging right in there with a spoon.

  Passion.

  She got an A.

  “I think the Chocolate Cherry Fixer-Uppers are ready for the cups,” Bug says.

  “Fixer-Uppers?”

  Bug nods, his grin lighting up the whole kitchen. “Once they’re cool, we break them apart and then spackle them back together with cherry cream cheese frosting, mini chocolate chips, and chopped Martian cherries or whatever those things are. I was thinking of using a little whipped cream in the frosting so it doesn’t get too pasty.”

  “Um, okay, wow.”

  He shrugs, pushing his glasses up his nose with a chocolate-smudged finger. “Mr. Napkins thought they had potential when we discussed them last night.”

  “More than potential.” I kiss him on the forehead and set out the silicone baking cups. “I gotta watch my back. These babies are gonna be best sellers, kiddo.”

  After we pour out the batter and slide the CC Fixer-Uppers into the oven, Bug retreats to the dining room for grilled cheese and gravy fries and I head out back for my nonsmoke break. The sky has darkened to a deep purple, flecks of faraway lights flickering on the other side of the hill. Beyond the rise, the train screeches against the tracks, chugging and idling until it decides where it’s off to next.

  “They never stay long, do they?”

  I know that voice.

  Josh.

  I turn to find him behind me, looking over the hill toward the plume of smoke billowing from the train engine. We haven’t spoken since they came into Hurley’s after the finals. A wave at school here, a half smile in the parking lot there, but no real words. Nothing close. Nothing like before.

  “Five minutes, give or take,” I say.

  “Your brother told me you were back here. I hope it’s cool. I mean, I know you’re on break. I don’t want to—”

  “It’s cool.” I force myself to meet his gaze, the icy blue-gray of his eyes, intense as ever. He’s got a short, scruffy beard now. They all do—some playoffs superstition thing. I shiver and pull the coat close around my neck.

  “Look,” he says. “I know things got kind of … weird between us. I didn’t mean to freak out like that at the semis. I was pissed at Will, and when he said that stuff about you, it just … it bugged me. And everything with the coach …” Josh shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “I understand.” Until that night at semifinals, I didn’t know the extent of Will’s plans, but it doesn’t matter. I was willing to keep his secrets because I needed mine kept, too. I was doing the same thing—using the team to get what I needed, running away from the truth.

  “Will told Dodd about you, by the way,” Josh says. “The night after the fight, he told him everything. How you’ve been helping us, how the whole team came together because of you. He also told Dodd he’s not interested in ditching us, and that the coach can either come back and start acting like a real coach, or let us do it on our own. Either way, he’s pretty convinced we’ll go to nationals, with or without Dodd’s stamp of approval.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Josh nods. “You saw what happened this season. And Will’s right—it was all because of you.”

  I shake my head, that train still idling at the station. Catching its breath. Bracing for the long, cold journey ahead, grateful it doesn’t have to stay here long. “You guys are really good. You just needed a push.”

  “And you gave it to us. We made it into the division championships, Hud. We could win this thing.” He steps forward, closing the space between us. “I came to say thank you. I mean it.”

  “You’re … um … you’re welcome.”

  “This is for you. It’s from everyone.” Josh hands me a package from inside his coat, warm from resting against his chest.

  “What did you guys do?”

  He grins. “Just op
en it.”

  I tear off the paper to reveal a baby-soft pile of blue-and-silver fabric. It can only be one thing.

  “A jersey? That’s so cool!”

  “Not just any jersey. Check it out.” He unfolds it and holds it up so I can take a closer look. AVERY, it says, stitched across the back over my very own number: forty-two.

  “That’s my favorite number!”

  “Well, it’s yours now, forty-two—no one else can use it. But the best part?” He flips the jersey around. On the front, there’s a wolf’s head, just like on the boys’ jerseys. But mine’s a she-wolf. And she’s wearing a sparkling pink tiara.

  “What do you think, Princess Pink?”

  I slip off my jacket and pull the jersey on, right over my Hurley Girl dress. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Josh smiles. “Say that you’ll come back and help us train for nationals. We’re good, but not undefeated. I think you can still teach us a few tricks.”

  My heart races, but I force it to slow down. I know in every bone, every muscle, that I belong on the ice. Not as a solo competitor in some glossy-perfect parallel life, but as a team skater. A part of something more than glitter and roses thrown on the rink after everyone else has been eliminated. I think about Amir and Rowan and Gettysburg and even Will, and how much they grew together as a team this season, despite Will’s initial solo plans. I helped them get there. And they helped me. And now they want me back.

  “Do you remember that day we crashed at Fillmore?” I ask.

  “I’ll never forget it.” His fingers reach for my forehead, but stop just short. “I thought I gave you a concussion.”

  “Then you came to Hurley’s and asked if we could spend some time on the ice together. Just the two of us.”

  Josh nods. “But you got suckered into training the whole pack. Lucky you.”

  I pull the jersey sleeves over my hands and sigh. “Josh, listen. I’m not training with the wolf pack again. I promised my mom I’d stick it out at Hurley’s until we bring in some new people, and I want to spend more time with Bug. But if the offer’s still on the table, I wouldn’t mind skating with you sometimes. Just the two of us.”

  “You sure?” he asks.

  “As long as I don’t have to give back the jersey? Yes.”

  “You got yourself a deal, Avery.” He pulls me into a hug, but it only lasts a few seconds, the awkwardness of everything creeping back up, fracturing our momentary reunion.

  Below us, over the hill, the train starts up again, its breath ragged and loud as it prepares to exit the station. Josh puts his hands back in his pockets, and I know in my heart that this is one of those times, those now-or-never moments that we grow to look back on for the rest of always, asking whether we did the right thing, the best thing, the true thing. Maybe he doesn’t want me—maybe I misread all the signs and looks and the near kiss. Maybe he really does want me, and we’ll fall in love and then one day he’ll decide he wants a female Elvis impersonator instead. Or maybe there’s a real romantic pirate-ninja-assassin love story in there somewhere, just like in Dani’s books.

  Anything is possible. The only thing I know for sure is that he won’t make the first move, and if I let him walk away now, we’ll forever be a “just”: Just hockey player and skating coach. Just music swappers. Just friends. A not-quite-almost whose time passed through as quickly as the train, fading into the distance before it even had a real chance at staying, at becoming something more, because I didn’t speak up. Because I waited for someone else to do it for me.

  “Josh, wait.” I grab the sleeve of his jacket. “That night with Will, when he said that stuff about me—”

  “Stop.” He holds up his hand. “You don’t owe me an explanation. I overreacted. I’m not …” He trails off, shaking his head.

  “I need to say this.” I grab his hand, holding it tight. “Will and I were seeing each other for a while, but it ended a couple weeks before the storm at Fillmore. Because—”

  “Hudson, you—”

  “Because I realized I was falling for another guy, fifty-six.”

  He raises his eyebrows and takes a step back, but I force myself to keep going, to follow him, to catalog the intensity in his eyes. All the colors. The tiny scar near his temple. The new, temporary scruff along his jaw. The soft lips that once brushed across mine during a storm.

  Josh takes a deep breath. “I don’t—”

  “Blackthorn? Please. Shut. Up.” I grab the collar of his jacket and pull him into me, answering every last protest with a kiss—a real one, deep and intentional.

  After months of imagining this moment, his lips on mine fully, unbroken, uninterrupted, nothing could have prepared me for the real thing. Maybe Will was well versed on the technical points of a good kiss, but this?

  Josh pulls me tighter, looping his arms around me. Our hearts find their familiar opposite beat, banging against each other through our clothes as Josh slides his hands into my hair, his beard tickling my lips, thumbs caressing my ear, my face, my neck. Being with Josh is like being touched from the inside out. An unexpected blaze of sunshine on an otherwise bleak winter day. Wrapping your fingers around a mug of hot chocolate after walking home in that frigid lake-effect wind. A fire crackling softly beneath your outstretched hands. The perfect combination of cupcake and icing, the kind where you can’t quite identify all the secret ingredients, but you feel them melting together on your tongue, and you know that for as long you live, this will be the best thing you’ve ever tasted.

  Not almost.

  Perfection.

  Josh pulls away slowly, shell-shocked and smiling. “Um, okay. Now that we’ve got that straightened out,” he says, a little breathless, “explain to me again how this whole ‘friends with benefits’ thing works?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s just … all right. Those cupcakes smell really good, and I was thinking maybe I could score one. Or four.” He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear and steps closer, kissing the sensitive skin beneath my jaw. The spark from his kiss travels straight to my toes and I shudder, nearly slipping on the icy pavement.

  “Chocolate Cherry Fixer-Uppers,” I say, leaning into his arms. “Bug’s the one you’ll have to bribe, so if you’re just doing this for free cupcakes, you’re—”

  “Doing what—this?” He brushes his lips against my ear again and my bones wobble.

  “Don’t push your luck, Blackthorn,” I whisper.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it, Avery.” Josh’s smile disappears. He looks at me again like that first time on the makeshift rink at Fillmore, playful and serious and a little nervous all at once. He pulls me into another kiss, deeper than the first, initial surprise replaced with utter certainty.

  The snow falls on us in soft, white feathers, but I’m not cold. On the other side of the door, the familiar sounds of Hurley’s echo through the kitchen—the sizzle and pop of the grill. Trick’s radio on low, humming those bluesy old tunes. The whir of the mixer as my little brother blends the frosting for his new confections. Somewhere in the distance, the Erie Atlantic whistles again, fairy godmother lamplight glowing on the tracks, the fleeting call of that old night bird echoing through the icy air as it finally exits the station. For as long as I live in this crazy, lake-effect, chicken-wing-capital-of-the-world town, that old train howling up at the moon will always be the sound of someone leaving, the promise of another place.

  But tonight, it’s not talking to me.

  Tonight, out behind Hurley’s under the blue-black winter sky, the Cupcake Queen of Watonka is exactly where she’s supposed to be.

  Acknowledgments

  Without the love and encouragement of my husband, Alex, my books wouldn’t exist. For sitting next to me in the front row on the emocoaster, for dragging me away from the computer to take an occasional hike and/or shower, for inspiring me to turn all of our crazy adventures into stories, and most importantly, for always being my bestie, thank you, Pet Monster.

  When I said
that cupcakes, figure skating, cute hockey boys, and lake-effect snowstorms sounded like a good combination, Jennifer Klonsky was all, hell yeah! Thanks, Jen, for your editorial awesomeness, for your contagious enthusiasm, and for laughing at my inappropriate jokes along the way. It takes a special person, on all counts! Thanks also to Craig Adams, Mara Anastas, Bethany Buck, Jim Conlin, Paul Crichton, Katherine Devendorf, Dayna Evans, Lydia Frost, Jessica Handelman, Victor Iannone, Mary Marotta, Christina Pecorale, Lucille Rettino, Dawn Ryan, Michael Strother, Sara Saidlower, Carolyn Swerdloff, and everyone in the Simon Pulse family who worked so hard to make this book shine.

  Ted Malawer, if they made cupcake-flavored Life Savers, I’d send you a whole case. Until then, we’ll celebrate with the real thing, extra chocolate icing on top. Thanks for everything you do to keep me writing happily!

  Danielle Benedetti, Zoe Strickland, Jordyn Turney, and Sarah Woodard, readers and book bloggers and all-around amazing girls, beneath this bright purple ribbon is a big box of Josh, just for you.

  Since my childhood attempt at figure skating lessons ended with me asking to play hockey with the boys instead, I’m grateful that Amanda Crowley so generously shared her insight into the world of competitive figure skating. Any technical skating mistakes are … well, they’re definitely mine, but let’s not call them mistakes. Let’s … have a cupcake instead! Thanks also to Kate Messner and Mandy Hubbard for early advice on plotting, writing, skating, and everything in between.

  Amy Hains, Rachel Miller, Meredith Sale, and Lisa Kenney, I straight up love you girls. I can always count on you to shine the light in my face when I’ve spent too long in the deep, dark writing cave, and for that, I’m eternally lucky.

  Speaking of the writing cave, it may be crazy dark, but it’s no longer lonely. To my wonderfully talented friends from the 2009 Debutantes, the Contemps, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop, you inspire and amaze me (and prevent me from drinking all this Bombay Sapphire by myself…. Cheers!).