The break room is super basic, with a row of lockers for employees and two circular tables with four plastic pink chairs at each. I spin my combination lock, swing the door open, and reach into my GO AWAY I’M READING tote bag for my phone.
There are so many notifications. It’s mostly everyone still fuming about the revelation that Alanna LaForest, author of the book of my heart … hates teenagers. It’s horrifying. If Grams were here, she’d be in total damage control mode. Grams was always a staunch believer in publishing books that speak to teenagers, in finding authors who did that better than anyone. It feels almost like an attack against her just as much as us teens.
I don’t know how to process this information. So I leave the group chat messages unread and reply to Nash’s instead, time-stamped an hour ago.
Nash Stevens
Question.
4:01 PM
I only have fifteen—well, twelve—minutes until kitchen duty, but I’m too curious to not immediately respond.
answer
5:04 PM
When do you throw in the towel? Re: like, trying to be friends with someone.
5:04 PM
My face gets hot reading Nash’s words. He means me, Halle. I know he does. This keeps happening. Every time we text lately, she—I—somehow comes up. It’s weird. I don’t know how to answer his question honestly, so I revert to Kels’s defense mechanism. Snark.
when you start speaking in clichés
5:06 PM
… Wow. I’m being serious right now.
5:06 PM
by someone you mean halle?
5:07 PM
Talking about myself with Nash? It’s the worst part of this whole situation.
Yeah.
5:07 PM
you don’t have to be friends with everyone
5:08 PM
You don’t get it. I’ve never been iced like this before. But then I’ll make a stupid joke at lunch and she’ll laugh. I don’t understand anything.
5:10 PM
I do laugh at his stupid jokes.
pity laughs, prob.
5:10 PM
… Can you at least TRY to be serious?
5:11 PM
OK FINE
5:11 PM
maybe you’re coming on too strong?
5:12 PM
He’s not.
She got a job at Sawyer’s bakery. Sawyer says she’s cool at work. But when I try to talk Shakespeare with her in AP lit, she’s total ice. And she’s supposed to like books! But she’s clearly able to talk to my friends. Why not me?
5:13 PM
Because if we become friends, Nash, I’ll have to tell you the truth. Everything will change, and I’m still too attached to this version of us.
… i can’t answer that
5:14 PM
question
5:14 PM
Answer.
5:14 PM
why do you care so much?
5:15 PM
The typing text bubble appears, and I can see Nash on the other side of the screen, typing and deleting and typing and deleting. The bubbles disappear and I’m dying to know what Nash is trying to say—but before he can send anything my fifteen is up and kitchen duty awaits me.
I toss my phone back into my tote and make my way toward the kitchen, toward the cupcakes, but my head is still with the three bubbles, locked up tight.
* * *
The worst part about baking cupcakes is without a doubt cleaning up the mess.
Sawyer fiddles with the hot and cold handles on the faucet until he achieves the perfect dish-washing temperature. The sink is large enough that we can work together to finish ASAP.
“So how was your first Saturday rush?” Sawyer asks.
“Pretty good,” I say.
“You’re like a different person here,” he says. “It’s cool.”
I almost ask what he means by that, but I don’t need to. At Maple Street Sweets, I’m not worried about giving myself away. I’m comfortable around cupcakes. Also, it’s just easier for me to talk to the members of Le Crew one at a time. In groups, my brain goes into overdrive and it feels like I never know how to naturally contribute to a conversation. One-on-one is better. My anxious brain shuts off and I can even joke around. It’s new. Almost like I’m writing a killer line for OTP. My words flow instead of sputter.
I make a face, then deflect. “Must be the sugar. You love cupcakes too.”
“I do,” he says. “I’d be here more, if I could.”
“You can’t?”
“Baseball,” Sawyer says.
“Right,” I say.
“It’s my ticket out of Middleton,” Sawyer says. “My parents are so serious about my future, you know? I tell them I’d be happy to stay, to someday take over the bakery. I don’t know what I want to study, I don’t even know if I want to go to college. I do know I want to keep the bakery in the family. They won’t hear it, though.”
I nod. Conversations with Sawyer don’t usually get this real, and for the first time all