I laugh. “He never really loved me, anyway.”

“Hey, no judgments here, Avery. You still partying it up?”

I peel a renegade maxi pad from my knee and stuff it in the trash with the others. “Oh, it’s a party, all right. I was home by one thirty. Does that make me totally old?”

“Not yet. But if you start eating dinner at four and watching Golden Girls, time to worry. Anyway, you near a computer? PBS is streaming the Addicts.”

“No way!” I sit at the kitchen desk and pull up the site. “Live?”

“It’s a replay of their tenth anniversary tour,” Josh says. “Some little club in Denver. They’re about to do your song—they were talking about it after the last set.”

I turn the speakers on low just in time for the opening chords of “Bittersweet.” It’s kind of a sad song, slow and mellow and haunted, none of that everything’s-gonna-be-all-right fairy dust crap they play on the radio these days, and that’s exactly what I like about it. It tells the truth. Sometimes life rocks so hard your heart wants to explode just because the sun came up and you got to feel it on your face for one more day. Sometimes you get the bitter end instead. Life is as gray and desolate as winter on the lakeshore, and there’s no way around it, no cure, no escape.

It was always my favorite skating song because it reminded me of the competition itself, how nothing comes without a price, and when you make sacrifices to get what you want, sometimes you screw up and pick the wrong thing.

But once in a while, you pick the right thing, the exact best thing. Every day, the moment you open your eyes and pull off your blankets, that’s what you hope for. The sunshine on your face, warm enough to make your heart sing.

Right now, quiet on the phone with Josh and the Addicts while the kitchen clock ticks softly and my brother sleeps on the couch behind his tower of plastic blocks, I know that this is one of those moments.

Those exact best things.

And then my e-mail notifier pings me with a new message, and the song fades out, and the sun disappears.

It’s an update from my father’s blog.

Watch out, Olympics! the subject says. Here she comes!

“Thanks for calling,” I whisper into the phone, not trusting my voice to come out right. “I should go. Happy New Year, Josh.” I hang up without waiting for a reply and, against every screaming warning in my head, click on the link.

Chapter Sixteen

Lights, Camera, Cupcakes!

Chocolate Coca-Cola cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing topped with buttered popcorn, peanuts, Raisinettes, and M&M’s

Two days into the new year, I’m back at Hurley’s for the pre-open cupcake shift, hands speckled with exploded chocolate goo, frosting clumped in my hair, and a killer stomachache.

“Hudson, what happened?” Dani asks. We haven’t spoken since our argument right after Christmas, but now she’s staring at me across the flour-covered prep counter with genuine concern. “Say something.”

I toss a spoon into a bowl of useless, runny batter, my own personal comfort food. I probably have salmonella now. “My father.”

Dani frowns. “Another e-mail?”

“A blog. A special one for New Year’s.” The words flash through my head. You should’ve seen my beauty out there on the ice!

Dani sighs and clears a few crusty bowls from the counter. “Wanna tell me about it?”

I close my eyes. At the other end of the kitchen, the big coffeemaker hisses, and I see the words again. Watch out, Olympics! Here she comes! Skiing, sledding, snowshoeing, snowman making, snowball fighting … of all the s-named winter activities my father could’ve offered his blushing she-Elvis, he picked the one that was supposed to be ours. The very last thing we had together. The thing that no one else could touch—not even my mother. Maybe I turned my back on the rink three years ago, but it wasn’t to go skate with another father.

“He took Shelvis ice-skating,” I say.

A metal bowl hits the sink with a clang. “That jackass! Sorry, but it has to be said.” She slams the faucet on, waits until the water gets hot, then soaks a clean dishrag. “Listen, I know it sucks, but you can’t let him get to you like this. He’s not even here, and he hardly ever talks to you, and—”

“Oh, he talks to me. Always has time to remind me how happy he is without us.”

“Hudson …” Her voice is soft, just a whisper over my shoulder. The light changes; she’s standing right next to me now, so close I can smell her coconut lotion. I close my eyes as her hand squeezes my shoulder, the warmth of it comforting and familiar.

Dani attacks the counter with the rag and I take a deep breath and count silently to ten.

Despite the fact that my baking space is a complete wreck, now that Dani’s here and we’re getting along a little better, the day ahead doesn’t seem so bleak. She’s right—I can’t keep letting him do this to me. I already spent yesterday locked in my bedroom, crying over my father’s stupid blog, wasting my whole day off. Why? He has his own life now, a different life, and just because he tells the world whenever his girlfriend learns a new trick, that doesn’t mean I need to read about it. In fact, as soon as I get home, I’m unsubscribing from his stupid blog.

But then I might never hear anything from him….

“No. You know what? You’re right. Screw him.” I push out from the counter and march over to the coffeepot, ready for a fresh cup. “If anything, it just makes me want to nail that scholarship even more.” I cross back to the counter and sip my coffee, slightly burnt but nice and hot. “Anyway, enough of my lame family drama. How was Canada?”

“But …” Dani reaches for my hands across the counter, but she knows me well enough to realize the Dad conversation is over. “Fine. Canada was … it was okay. We got to dress up, take lots of pictures. Dad’s ensemble brought the house down.”

“Not surprised. Your dad blows. A mean trumpet, that is! Har!”

Dani laughs, and the tension between us melts a little more. “Never heard that one before, thanks.” She dries my big silver bowl and sets it back on the counter. “The city itself is pretty cool, too. They have a really rich history, and lots of culture, and—”

“You applying for citizenship?”

She smiles. “I’d make a kick-ass Canadienne.”

“As long as you don’t show me up in front of Madame Fromme with your new French accent.”

“That’s Quebec, not Toronto. N’est-ce pas?”

“N’est-ce whatever. Ferme ta bouche.”

“Ferme your bouche.” She laughs again. “So … did you get to have your date with Will?”

“Not really.” I wipe off the mixer base and change out the beaters for a fresh pair. “I snuck over to the party for a little while, but I couldn’t stay long.”

Dani sets a stack of napkins and a silverware bin on the counter. “Are you, like, hanging out with him now? Officially?”

“I … guess.” I shrug. “He kissed me at midnight. That’s something, right?” I laugh. “When I left, he totally brushed snow off my truck.”

“All that, just for a kiss? Damn.” She smirks and rolls a fork and spoon into a napkin without even looking, starting another set so fast that her hands blur. “Do you like him? I mean, like, like him?”

“I’m … I think … yeah. I do. Maybe.” I crack two eggs into a bowl and flip on the mixer. Dani narrows her eyes, but she doesn’t press the Will thing.

“Well,” she says over the mixer, “what about Frankie and those guys? Who all was there?”

“Everyone but Josh. All the usual Watonka people, plus, like, ten of Amir’s cousins and a bunch of people from City Honors.”

“Sounds like a good crowd.” She stacks the rolled silverware into a pyramid on her serving tray, not a single napkin corner out of place.