Bittersweet

  I look up to meet his eyes,

  serious and determined and the rarest, most intense colors I’ve ever seen. I lean closer, our gaze unbroken, fire crackling and warming the air around us. He swallows and then he’s there, right before me. My heart slams into my ribs and my neck goes hot and I close my eyes just as our lips brush and my breath catches and …

  And he pulls away.

  SARAHOCKLER.COM

  There’s a fine line between bitter and sweet.

  ONCE UPON A TIME, Hudson knew exactly what her future looked like. Then a betrayal changed her life and knocked her dreams to the ground. Now she’s a girl who doesn’t believe in second chances … a girl who stays under the radar by baking cupcakes at her mom’s diner and obsessing over what might have been.

  So when things start looking up and she has another shot at her dreams, Hudson is equal parts hopeful and terrified. Of course, this is also the moment a cute, sweet guy walks into her life … and starts serving up some seriously mixed signals. She’s got a lot on her plate, and for a girl who’s been burned before, risking it all is easier said than done.

  It’s time for Hudson to ask herself what she really wants, and how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get it. Because in a place where opportunities are fleeting, she knows this chance may very well be her last….

  Sarah Ockler is the bestselling author of Fixing Delilah and the critically acclaimed Twenty Boy Summer, a YALSA Teens’ Top Ten nominee and an Indie Next List pick. She is a champion cupcake eater, coffee drinker, night person, and bookworm. When she’s not writing or reading at home in Colorado, Sarah enjoys taking pictures, hugging trees, and road-tripping through the country with her husband, Alex. Visit her website at SARAHOCKLER.COM, and find her on Twitter and Facebook.

  JACKET DESIGNED BY JESSICA HANDELMAN

  JACKET PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT © 2012 BY GETTY IMAGES

  AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY R. ALEX MORABITO

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

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  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition January 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Sarah Ockler

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  Designed by Karina Granda

  The text of this book was set in Adobe Caslon.

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ockler, Sarah.

  Bittersweet / by Sarah Ockler. — 1st Simon Pulse hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Hudson Avery gave up a promising competitive ice-skating career after her parents divorced when she was fourteen years old, and now spends her time baking cupcakes and helping out in her mother’s upstate New York diner, but when she gets a chance at a scholarship and starts coaching the boys’ hockey team, she realizes that she is not through with ice-skating after all.

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3035-8

  [1. Divorce—Fiction. 2. Ice skating—Fiction. 3. Diners (Restaurants)—Fiction.

  4. Cupcakes—Fiction. 5. New York (State)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.O168Lan 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011024193

  ISBN 978-1-4424-3037-2 (eBook)

  For Ted Malawer,

  who always finds a way to let me

  have my cupcakes and eat them, too.

  Contents

  Prologue: ’Twas the Month Before Cupcakes

  Chapter One: Damsels in Distress

  Chapter Two: Cupcakes of Destiny

  Chapter Three: No One Wants to Kiss a Girl Who Smells Like Bacon, So I Might as Well Get Fat Cupcakes

  Chapter Four: When Life Hands You Lemons, Stuff ’Em in Your Bra Cakes

  Chapter Five: Opportunity Knocks You on Your Butt Cakes

  Chapter Six: Kill Me, Kill Me Now Cupcakes

  Chapter Seven: How to Appear Outwardly Cool While Totally Freaking Out on the Inside Cupcakes

  Chapter Eight: The Good, the Bad, and the Cupcakes

  Chapter Nine: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Falling Down Hurts Real Bad, Too, Cupcakes

  Chapter Ten: Red-Hot Double Crush Cakes

  Chapter Eleven: Shoulda-Coulda-Woulda Cakes

  Chapter Twelve: Dirty Little Secrets

  Chapter Thirteen: Bah Humbug and a Merry Who Cares to You, Too, Cupcakes

  Chapter Fourteen: Cupcakes with Benefits

  Chapter Fifteen: Desperate Times Call for Desperate Cupcakes

  Chapter Sixteen: Lights, Camera, Cupcakes!

  Chapter Seventeen: Chocolate Banana Snap Crackle Popcakes

  Chapter Eighteen: Hester’s Scarlet Letters

  Chapter Nineteen: Desolation Angels

  Chapter Twenty: The Perfect Storms

  Chapter Twenty-One: Woolly Mammoth Freeze-Outs

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Bittersweets

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Liar, Liar, Cakes on Fire

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Friend of the Devil Cupcakes

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Hudson Avery’s Last-Chance Triple/Triple Combo Cupcakes

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Not-So-Impossible Orange Dreams

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Have Your Cupcakes and Eat Them, Toos

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  ’Twas the Month Before Cupcakes

  Three years ago …

  It was the biggest competition night of my life, but all I could think about was the cheetah bra.

  I’d found it a few hours earlier, tucked into a pile of folded laundry on the end of my bed. It was just there, two perfect C-cups trimmed in black, nestled between my jeans with the butterfly on the pocket and the faded Buffalo Sabres hoodie I’d swiped from Dad.

  Mom was in her bedroom ironing, decked out in her yellow robe and those hard-bottomed slippers that are supposed to be good for your back. I dangled the bra off my finger, because Mom + cheetah = eww, and dropped it on her dresser.

  “It was mixed in with my stuff,” I said when she looked up. I flopped on her bed, tossing a pillow in the air and catching it. Toss. Catch. Toss. Catch. “Are we leaving soon?” Toss. Catch.

  “It’s not … yours?” She stood in front of the dresser then, looking down at the bra with her fingers spread out on either side of it like she was scanning the day’s headlines.

  “Ma.” I met her eyes in the mirror, motioning toward my barely noticeable A-cups. No way it could’ve been mine; as resident bra-buyer of the family, she ought to know my size. I laughed and grabbed the pillow again, but the look that flashed across her face stopped me cold. It was like the aftermath of an ice storm, black and treacherous, yet eerily calm.

  I swallowed hard.

  After all the late-night arguments, the separate bedrooms, the unspoken glares, things between my parents had just gone from pretty bad to unfixably worse.

  “Mom?” I said quietly, still clutching the pillow. �
�Are you—”

  “Almost ready, Hudson. Go down and tell your …” She almost choked on the word, clearing her throat as she opened the top drawer and swept in the bra like crumbs from the breakfast table. “Your father… ask him to start the car.”

  “But whose—”

  “It’s an hour and a half drive to Rochester and we still need to take Max to the sitter’s.” She bumped the drawer closed with her hip, turning toward me with a pinched grin as the mirror shook behind her. “Big night tonight, baby. Let’s get moving!”

  After we dropped off my little brother, Mom gave me the front seat next to Dad. He quizzed me on my routine, and as I verbally walked through each step, guilt jabbed me in the chest. He’s the one who supported my ice-skating, who told Mom they had to find a way to make it work, even if it meant selling Hurley’s, the old diner she’d owned since before they were married. He’d said if I made it to nationals later that year, we’d probably have to move anyway—find a bigger city with better access to private ice time. Interview special coaches and home tutors. Look for sponsorships. Whatever it took, Dad was ready and willing, my cheerleader, my number one sideline support system. Still, there was something off between us that night—something uncomfortable I’d never felt before I discovered the bra. Mom hadn’t said anything else about it, and from the backseat en route to Rochester’s Luby Arena, she stared silently out her window as the highway exits passed.

  “You okay?” Kara Shipley asked later, squeezing my hand. My best friend and I were practically twins, and together in the prep area at Luby, we looked the part. Two fourteen-year-olds from Watonka, New York. Slick, strawberry blond buns pinned and sprayed into place. Red-and-gray warm-up jackets with our local club logo—a bison, for Buffalo Bisonettes—embroidered like a badge near the top right shoulder. On our skating dresses underneath, we each wore a silver rabbit pin—our personal good luck charms for every event.

  I nodded. “Just … nerves.” I wanted to tell her about what I’d found, what I suspected, but when I thought of my mother, stopping her ironing to inspect the offending item and then whisking it into the dark of the dresser drawer, my insides burned.

  Kara gave me another squeeze. “Don’t worry, Hud. You’ll rock this place tonight. Just ignore the cameras and breathe.” With her free hand she rubbed my back, her palm soft and warm through the nylon dress. I’d almost forgotten about the cameras. Tonight’s Empire Games was just a recreational competition, but the sponsor had invited the media to spotlight me since I was the favorite for next month’s North Atlantic regionals—the gateway to everything I’d ever trained for. Tonight would be my big public debut—I’d show off my signature moves on live TV, turn more than a few heads, and fire a warning shot to my upcoming regional competition.

  Ladies and gentlemen, Hudson Avery! Remember this night, and you’ll be able to tell your kids that you knew her when!

  “Hudson?” Kara frowned in the mirror, her hand still warm on my back. I took a deep breath as instructed and flashed her a tight smile—the same kind Mom had given me in her bedroom earlier. The same one she’d given my dad as she shuffled me to the front seat and arranged herself in the back. The same one she was probably giving him then, all the way up in the stands.

  As the announcer called our names, we glided onto the ice like a long red-and-gray snake. I found my parents in their seats and waved. Mom had the video camera trained on the rink, but she was turned away, looking at the side doors where the event officials had gathered. There were directors from all the regional rinks, and most of the girls had private coaches, too; mine was there with the others, chatting up the CEO of Empire Icehouse, Western New York’s largest pro shop. He was an honorary judge.

  I looked back at the stands as Dad gave me a small wave. His leg was bouncing up and down like he’d had too much coffee. My parents were sitting right next to each other, shoulders almost touching, but for all the miles between them, they might as well have been in different arenas.

  After the parade of skaters, we settled into our reserved seats. Alternating with girls from eight other local clubs, we slid out one at a time to perform our programs—first round. Just as my club predicted, I owned it.

  Hours later, seven of us remained in the final round to compete for the big prize: five thousand dollars cash, plus new equipment and upgrades for the entire club—an invaluable sponsorship courtesy of Empire Icehouse.

  I was the only one left from the Buffalo club. The last shot. The sure thing.

  As the opening chords of my music floated onto the ice, I felt the cameras zoom in on my face, and I forced a smile. My skating friends and coaches were counting on me. I was counting on me. The whole city was counting on me, its lone Bisonette, twirling like a ballerina in the spotlight.

  By this time next year, I’d be famous, and everyone would know where I’d come from.

  I skated over the smooth, white rink and sped up for the first jump. Nailed it. Slid into a long, leaning glide, sailing across the ice on one skate and picking up speed for my double axel. Nailed that one, too. After months of intense workouts with my coach and choreographer, I’d learned my program impossibly well—memorized it until it was absolutely error-proof. Maybe that’s why, as my feet glided across the ice like poured water, my thoughts had the space to stretch and wander. With four minutes to spare, my mind walked home, straight into the muffled arguments that had splintered our family like cracks in the ice—We can’t afford this. She needs to stay in school. I’m not selling the diner. What about Max? We can’t just move. It found Dad in the family room on the couch. It took notice of his late nights at the office and Mom’s at Hurley’s. It cataloged all the uncorrelated evidence, all the way up to tonight. Mom knew that bra wasn’t mine the second she found it in the laundry, but she’d folded it and put it in my room anyway, as if burying it between my girlishly straight jeans and baggy sweatshirt would change the inevitable truth.

  I leaned in for my next combination, and suddenly I could see into our future—it was all there, right before me. Dad would leave. Mom would get stuck with me and Max, who was only five and wouldn’t understand. We’d probably have to move anyway—downsize, sacrifice, change. All because of … what? Who? My father, who’d given me my first pair of ice skates when I was just four years old? My father, who’d worked hard to pay for the lessons, the equipment, the private coach, the entry fees? My father, who’d never missed a practice or competition, always cheering from the sidelines, encouraging but never overbearing, loving but never smothering?

  Something kicked me then, right in the chest. I fought to breathe, to keep the sting from my eyes, the shake from my limbs. I looked at my parents sitting in the stands, my father like he’d rather be anywhere but next to the woman he married. I looked at him not looking at me, not looking at her, and for the first time in the history of my competitions, I didn’t want to win. I didn’t want the money or the Icehouse gear for the club or the TV interviews they’d lined up for me. I didn’t want to go to regionals in Lake Placid or sectionals after that. I didn’t want any more lessons or competitions or all the big, impossible dreams that came with them. If the ice beneath my feet was the reason for the cracks in my parents’ marriage, I didn’t want any of it.

  I watched them, wanting against the odds the simple gestures that meant things were okay—Dad’s arm around my mother, her hand comfortably on his knee. Instead, Dad was still, alone. Mom had suddenly moved several rows in front of him, the camera glued to her face.

  Instead of my impressive triple flip/triple toe loop combo, I did a single axel. Then I skipped my camel spin and just kept skating, curving into figure eights as if it were a beginner’s lesson. I sensed the confusion from my home team and the coaches who’d seen me nail this stuff a hundred times in training, but I ignored it, pushed it down my legs, out through my skates, deep beneath the ice. When it was time for my grand finale, I did a halfhearted lutz, barely making a full rotation above the rink. On the other end of my jump,
I crossed my skates and landed in a score-killing wobble.

  The arena was silent.

  As the next girl skated out to start her program, I slipped into the girls’ bathroom, waiting for my mother to rush in after me.

  She didn’t come.

  “Hudson Avery.” At the end of the event, I sat numb in the kiss-and-cry room and listened for my abysmal scores, thinking about all the things that would end that night. The Empire Games. My parents’ marriage. The skating career I no longer wanted. And the only shot my fellow Bisonettes had at those much-needed rink and equipment upgrades. I beat them all out in the first round only to choke when it really counted. Mostly, they were too shocked and disappointed to ask, too confused to assume my on-ice meltdown was anything other than an unforgivably bad case of nerves. I left without speaking to my coach or saying good-bye to the girls. I ignored the pinch in my stomach when I saw Kara’s face, her eyes glassy and red, her mouth opened in an unspoken question: What happened out there?

  In the car on the way home, Dad gave my knee a light squeeze and told me things would work out. That I just needed to look forward, to focus on the upcoming regionals—the stuff that really counted. Tonight was just a little setback, he said; I’d nail it next time for sure.