Getting Over Garrett Delaney(50)
Author: Abby McDonald

No!

I skip upstairs, buoyed by my success. Sure, Garrett is just as charming as he always was. And, yes, maybe my stomach has been skipping with exhilaration all evening, but why shouldn’t it? This was an important night — the testing of my resolve. And I was victorious! Not filled with pangs of desperate longing, not left feeling rejected and miserable. No, for the first time, it felt like we were . . . equals. Two friends, hanging out — not one guy with a girl trying to mask her slavish devotion.

I don’t need him anymore.

The list of anti-crush commandments is still pinned up above my desk: a record of my summer, right there in black and white. I take it down, remembering each painful event. The Slushie incident, my Totally Wired meltdown . . .

I rip the list in two, feeling a surge of achievement.

I’m freed from the shackles of longing, set loose from the bonds of my despair. Sadie Elisabeth Allen — a prisoner of unrequited love, no more!

22

“Are you feeling OK?” Josh finds me sitting outside the café at 6:45 the next morning, basking in the early sun. “Sick? Delirious maybe?”

“No, why?” I blink, baffled.

“Because you’re never early!” Josh begins unlocking the half dozen bolts on the door. “Hmmm, maybe you’ve been taken over by aliens. No, wait — you’re really an evil Sadie-shaped cyborg!”

“That’s not fair!” I protest, following him inside. “I’m never late. Well, hardly ever,” I add.

“Sure.” He grins and flips on the lights. “But on time isn’t early.”

“So, maybe I’m feeling good today.” I pirouette to stash my bag in the lockers. I could hardly sleep last night, I was so happy my first big test with Garrett had passed without faltering. Now freedom is sparking through my veins, filling me with the sweet energy of independence. Which reminds me . . . “Didn’t someone promise me two fresh cinnamon rolls?”

“Now I get it.” Josh pulls upended chairs down from the tables with a clatter. He’s wearing a faded blue sweatshirt over jeans; his hair is still hanging in wet strands. “They only ever love me for my baked goods.”

“We start with the baked goods,” I console him. “But then we come around to you, too.”

“Wow, way to build a guy’s ego.”

“Who needs building?” I laugh. “You’re doing just fine all on your own.”

We slip into our morning setup, now a well-practiced routine, until the counters are gleaming and full sugar shakers adorn every table. “See? This is why I’m never early.” I slump against the register, surveying the calm, empty café. “There’s nothing left to do now until opening.”

“Nothing except watch me work my magic.” Josh beckons me through the hatch.

I gasp. “But I thought your recipe was top secret!”

“I figure I can trust you.” He shrugs. “And if you tell, well, I know half a dozen places to hide your body.”

I scoot around to the kitchen. “Just a word of advice: you might not want to mention that to girls. On dates, or, you know, even just in casual conversation.”

“Wow, that explains it.” Josh hits his forehead with his palm. “I’ve been wondering why they back away, looking scared. I figured I just had crazy BO or something.”

I whiff the air nearby. “No, you’re good.”

Ever since the hockey-game-slash-bookstore outing, Josh and I have fallen into an easy friendship, more comfortable around each other than before. I guess nearly vomiting on a guy’s sneakers will do that for you.

He points me to a corner, between boxes of coffee beans and a perilous stack of spare plates. “Over there. And don’t touch anything.”

“I won’t — I promise.” I hop up on the countertop, eager to watch the baking master at work.

“You should count yourself lucky.” Josh pulls on his baseball cap and his apron — a black full-length thing covered with band graffiti and random doodles in Wite-Out. “Many have tried to glimpse this magical process, yet none have succeeded.”

“Until now.” I swing my legs against the cabinet doors in time with the indie rock song he has playing on the tiny kitchen boom box. “Are you excited about the new job?”

“Sure.” He shrugs, assembling flour and butter and all kinds of sugary goodness. “I guess.”

“Right, I forgot — you’re too cool to get worked up over anything.”

“No insulting the chef!” He flicks some flour at me. I laugh.

“Still, we’re going to miss you around here.”

Josh gives me a shy smile. “I’ll miss you, too. All you guys,” he adds. “Well, except Dominique.”

“Aww, she’s not so bad,” I protest.

He blinks. “Since when?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s grown on me,” I say. “Or maybe I’m just immune to her icy glares by now. Anyway, I think there’s more going on with her than we know. She just doesn’t show it — that’s all.”

“That’s true about everyone,” he argues, sifting and mixing with sure, expert movements. “But I don’t walk around making small children cry.”

I laugh. “Not until you talk about hiding bodies, at least.”

“OK, you’re up.” Josh gestures me over. Somehow, he’s folded the dozen ingredients into a sticky dough with barely a glance.

“Really?” I clap my hands in glee and hop down. “I better warn you, though, I even burn toast.”

“It’s foolproof — I promise.” He waits while I wash my hands, then shows me how to roll the dough into a sheet and sprinkle pecans, cinnamon, and butter on top. “Then you fold it up like this, and smush it into whirls in the pan.”

“Smush. Is that a culinary term?” I tease, studding the dough with plenty of sugar until there’s no bare surface left to be seen. I roll carefully. “Doesn’t it need the sticky sauce on top?”

“That’s from the butter and sugar,” Josh explains. “It melts in the oven.”

“Butter.” I sigh happily. “Oh, how I love it so.” I finish and present my handiwork. Josh high-fives me.

“Now, you bake.”

“I’m actually baking something,” I marvel, watching as he slides the pans into the oven. “And that was so easy, too. I thought you toiled in here for hours to make those things!”