Bittersweet

“Sorry if I freaked you out the other day.” He turns to face me, and my stomach flutters. “Guess my nonstalker plan kinda backfired.”

I smile. “I’m the one who freaked. I wasn’t expecting—”

“You have something on your shirt.” He starts to point at my chest, but quickly redirects to a spot on his own shirt instead. “Right here.”

Hudson Avery’s utter grace and all-around awesomeness? Confirmed. The sweater formerly known as white—and by formerly, I mean this morning, right before I dropped off my presentation cupcakes in the French classroom—now sports a giant orange streak clear across the left nipular region. It takes every ounce of willpower I have—plus a visual of last night’s plumbing disaster—to keep me from aborting the mission and bolting down the hall.

I close my eyes, shift my econ book so it covers the obnoxious stain, and soldier on. “Josh, um … Iwashopingwecouldskatetogetherattherink.”

Josh laughs. “Slow down.”

I open my eyes and look at the floor, black-and-gray speckled tiles that probably haven’t been cleaned since my parents were students here. I take a deep breath. Concentrate. “I thought about it last night, and if the offer still stands …”

“You want to skate with me?”

I nod. “But maybe we could use the rink instead of Fillmore? I’m trying to get back into a training routine, and Fillmore conditions can be unpredictable. Indoor ice would be better for technical stuff.”

“Baylor’s Rink?”

I sigh. “Sorry, you probably can’t, right? It was a stupid idea.”

“No, it’s a great idea. I should’ve thought of it sooner.” Josh scratches the back of his neck, his gaze drifting down the hall. “Let me talk to Will. He knows the rink manager better than I do. He’ll know when we can get ice time.”

I try to keep my smile in check, but my whole body is electrified with possibilities. Of the skating nature, not the hockey boy nature. Not that hockey boy possibilities aren’t equally electrifying, just that they’re—

“Not like anyone else uses the place, anyway,” Josh says. “What’s your number? I’m seeing Will first period, so I’ll … hang on.” He checks the phone suddenly buzzing in his hand. “I need to get this. Talk to you later?”

“Definitely,” I say, but he’s already answering the call, disappearing around the corner along with half the muscles that hold up my legs and the ones that make my lungs work. One slow step at a time, I head to economics on the other side of the school and sink into my desk in the back row.

Overly Analytical Mind, engaged.

Talk to you later … He smiled when he said that, right? Was he asking me, or telling me? Did he mean that he wants to talk to me, or just that he might talk to me, even if he doesn’t particularly want to?

Why did he leave so fast at the end? Who was on the phone? A girl? That’s it. He must have a girlfriend. One from another school. One he was just about to call so he could propose to her, but I interrupted, and then he had to run off to take her call, because weddings don’t just plan themselves, you know.

“Miss Avery?”

The sound of my name pulls me back to the classroom. Ms. Horner, a.k.a. Ms. Fa

“Sorry … I didn’t … could you repeat the question?”

“I’d like you to give us a market scenario depicting how the laws of supply and demand impact pricing.”

Everyone’s looking at me like I’m the chair of the Federal Reserve being interviewed on CNN when all I can think about is Josh’s eyes and his smile and how good he must look in his hockey uniform and a whole bunch of other Josh-related stuff about which I can pretty much guarantee neither Ms. Fa

“Anytime you feel like participating,” she says, “jump right in.”

A few people snicker, and someone hums the first few notes of doom from Beethoven’s Fifth. I flip through my textbook as though the answer might suddenly appear there, just like it did earlier at Josh’s locker. “Um, when there’s a low supply of stuff, but a high demand, that means prices will be, um, they’ll—”

“Your family owns a restaurant, do they not?” The woman asks me this as if she isn’t in there every Wednesday with Madame Fromme for the all-you-can-eat chicken di

“Miss Avery?”

“Yeah.” My voice gets a little stuck inside and I clear my throat. “I mean, yes. My mom owns Hurley’s.”

“And you work for her?”

Someone chants “Cupcake Queen,” and I think of Hester Pry

“Yes,” I say, face burning. “Sometimes.”

“Think in those terms. What if a competing diner opened across town, with better food at lower prices?” She pulls a box of chalk from her—you guessed it—fa

“We’d have to lower them, I guess.”

She nods for, like, ten minutes, tight white curls wriggling on her head like a bunch of geriatric spiders. “Because if you didn’t lower your prices …”

“People would go to the other diner and we’d lose business.” Come on, lady, is this econ, or rocket science?

“Exactly.” Multicolored stick people with dollar signs over their heads appear inside the Joe’s Diner square. “And then what would happen?”

Well, Ms. Fa

“Miss Avery,” she says curtly, “I asked you what would happen if your family’s diner lost business.”

“Um … it would … we’d … um …” My entire body is engulfed in flames thanks to this cruel, spider-haired chalk hoarder masquerading as an educator, and while I personally will never leave the apartment again after this public stoning, she’ll probably win an economics award and get promoted to the president’s financial team. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, Hudson, it wouldn’t be a viable model for your family’s income, so you’d be forced to seek other employment. And then we’d all suffer, because I doubt Joe can do cupcakes like you guys can.” She laughs and, certain we understand the cutthroat world of diner economics, erases all the dollar-headed stick people and reholsters the chalk box against her hip.

It wouldn’t be a viable model … I think about Mom’s face as she discussed the books the other night and I laugh, way down deep inside, where nobody can see how desperately unfu

Dani has warned me a thousand times that walking and reading is never a good combo, but do I listen? No. And now, with my nose buried in the last few Scarlet Letter chapters, I don’t see hockey captain number one, Will Harper, lurking near my French classroom until I’m practically on top of him. He flashes me his trademark smile—the award-wi