Any Way You Slice It by Kristine Carlson Asselin

straight to the heart of the matter.
    I think about Jake walking next to me on our walk home last week. How it feels when he calls my name. And how my whole arm tingled for ten minutes after he touched me the other day.
    â€œI’m not sure,” I say under my breath, but it doesn’t matter because I’m talking to the door. I turn and stare at a dozen golf balls littering the alley. I shake my head. What an idiot I am.
    Two minutes later, Jorge returns with six plastic soda cups. Silently, he lines them up in a straight line between me and the wall. He looks at me for a second and pretends to zip his lips. Without saying a word, he strolls back inside.
    I look at my watch. The dinner rush—what there will be of it—won’t be in for another hour.
    What the hell, I might as well give it a shot.
    Ten minutes later, I’m getting a feel for moving the balls through the obstacle course of cups. Shifting the stick from side to side, keeping the ball on my stick and keeping my feet moving toward the wall. I try to envision being on ice. Opponents speed toward me, and Jake passes me the puck. I flick the stick and shoot the imaginary puck.
    â€œShe scores!”
    I close my eyes and picture Jake carrying me around the rink to the sounds of a cheering crowd. Before my vision ends, the crowd disappears and we’re slow dancing on the ice. He’s leaning toward me …
    â€œPenelope,” Jorge calls from the open door, snapping me out of my daydream. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy, and I realize I’m leaning against the wall, staring into space. “You need to come in and work the counter. It’s getting busy.”
    As I follow Jorge into the building, I’m glad he doesn’t ask me the question again, because I don’t know the answer.
    The game or the guy?

Chapter Twelve
    I pick a seat in the back of math class and hope Mr. Ford won’t call on me. Before class starts, I put my head down and replay yesterday in my head. Between practice and work and homework, there hasn’t been much time for sleep.
    Jake’s flying down the ice. A spotlight shines on him the whole way, and there’s no one else even close to him. The way he leans over the stick when he skates. The way he cheers when anyone on the team does something good. The way his eyes light up when I hit the net. All of those things make me want to be at the rink.
    All. The. Time.
    I want to be the one to make him light up like that again. And again.
    Caroline Chapman shifts in her seat in front of me and jostles my desk; I sit up with a jolt. The motion jogs my memory and that horrible moment in the sixth grade kicks me in the shins. The look on Jake’s face when I turned around and saw my ponytail swinging in his fist. He just grinned when he’d held up my hair for everyone in the class to see. The whole class laughed. And it feels like I’m right back there again.
    He’s changed though, right? He’s not the same immature boy.
    Something has gotten under my skin like a virus. I think about what Jorge said and I’m still not sure if it’s hockey or Jake.
    I doodle his name in the margins of my notebook. Warren strolls by and as he passes my desk, he looks down at my paper.
    â€œJake Gomes?” He points at my doodling. “What the hell, Spaulding. You’ve got a crush on the delinquent?” He covers his mouth with his hand in mock surprise at the expression on my face. “You didn’t know he did time in juvie back in the eighth grade?”
    People near us stare, and I feel the blood rush to my head as I clench my fist around my pencil. “You’re a liar.”
    As he slides into the seat behind me, he leans forward and whispers so the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. “I bet your parents would be interested to know you’re playing hockey with a criminal.”
    Dad knows Jake isn’t a delinquent or he wouldn’t