The Secret Recipe for Moving On Karen Bischer (read my book .txt) 📖

course, like anything TV-station-related, he’d probably think it was dumb.

This seesaw of emotions I have for him is never-ending.

“Maybe you could interview Montague next,” Luke says. He’s standing across from me, digging out oven mitts from our drawer. “You seem pretty good at charming people, so a psychotic dog should be nothing.”

I narrow my eyes at him, thinking he’s being sarcastic, but he smiles. “Nice work, Agresti,” he says, and pats me on the shoulder with an oven mitt as he makes his way over to the oven.

I accidentally make eye contact with Hunter then. He quickly turns his attention back to washing dishes, but not before I can note the slightly wounded expression on his face and his slouching shoulders. I think he, dare I say it, might be a bit regretful.

I suddenly want to give Montague a big pat on the head.

CHAPTER 11

Over the next few days, the sight of Hunter and Brynn doesn’t send me into a tailspin. In fact, aside from one teary moment at Cityscape Shoes when a friend of my mom’s came in and asked if I was still seeing “that boy with the hair who sings,” I’ve been holding it together. Funneling all my feelings of sadness and anger into beating them in class—we’re currently trailing his group by five points, and it’s super irritating—seems to have been the cure-all.

I still go out of my way to avoid their haunts, though. And that’s how I run into Chris, when I’m taking the long “actively avoiding the cafeteria” route to my homeroom.

“Ellie!” I hear him call. I peer over my shoulder and see Chris waving at me from the open doorway of the TV studio. “Hey! How would you like to do another story for us? Alisha’s got a doctor’s appointment this week and we need help.”

“What kind of story?” I’m worried he’ll make me investigate the teachers’ union or something that would require me to be sneaky.

He takes a long sip from his iced coffee before finally saying, “We’d like to do a piece on Luke Burke.”

Of all twelve hundred Ringvale Heights students he could’ve named, that is the last person I expected to hear him say. He takes my furrowed brow for confusion, because he goes on to explain, “He’s, like, this huge competitive stunt biker. He just won a local competition last weekend. And there’s talk he could make it into the X Games in a few years.”

I must be wearing an expression of complete shock, but Chris is all, “So do you know him?”

“I do. I had no idea.”

Chris’ brow furrows. “You guys aren’t close, are you?”

Weirdly, I feel my face flush. “No! He’s just in my home ec group.”

“Okay, I just don’t want this to be a conflict of interest or anything. Anyway, you and Willow could go down to where he trains and interview him, ask him a few questions about his training, you know, stuff like that.”

I mean, it’s too weird for me to be interviewing Luke, right? What if I screw up and make him look bad in front of the whole school? And then we have to spend the rest of the year together in the same “family”? But I can’t tell Chris about my paranoia.

“Um, okay,” I say.

“Good,” Chris says, walking away. “We’ll need it for Tuesday’s broadcast, so if you can get it in by Friday, that would be awesome.”

“I’ll ask him today,” I say, and he gives me a peace sign over his shoulder as he heads for the cafeteria.

This should be easier considering I already know Luke.

So why is there a giant knot forming in my stomach right now?

The prospect of asking Luke for an interview looms over the rest of my day and the knot in my stomach just gets bigger and tighter. I mean, we’ve talked in class, but I realize we’ve never had an actual conversation, hence why I didn’t know about his successful biking career. It’s going to be completely strange for me to be all in reporter mode and to talk to him as if I know anything about him or something.

My hands literally sweat as I wait for the last bell to ring—I figure I can ask him after class, aka when there’s less of a chance of anyone seeing him laugh in my face and turn me down.

You’re not asking him out, I think as I watch the classroom clock. This is to publicize himself.

When the final bell rings and Luke exits the room, my heart starts to hammer.

Calm down, I yell at myself. You wore his sweatshirt for crying out loud.

I jog to catch up to him as he hits the main hallway.

“Hey, Luke,” I say, taking a deep breath to try and slow my pulse. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Luke stops and narrows his eyes, almost like he’s afraid of what I’m about to say. “Uh, sure.”

I just blurt it out. “RHHS TV wants me to profile you.”

Relief floods his face and he stands up a little straighter. “Me? Really?”

“Chris Phan told me you won some kind of biking competition last weekend?”

Luke shrugs. “It was just a local thing.”

“Still. How come you didn’t say anything?”

“I don’t know,” he says, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “It’s not like we share everything with the group, you know.”

He has a point. “Well, maybe now more people will be aware of it.”

Luke rubs his chin and seems to think it over for a long time. Finally, he says, “If you promise not to make me look like a douche, I’ll do it.”

“Huh? You’re like an anti-douche.”

Luke laughs. “That’s probably the best compliment I’ve ever got.”

I feel the tips of my ears burning, making it obvious I’m delighted this exchange has turned out better than I thought.

“Do you train somewhere near here? Maybe I can interview you there?”

“Sure,” he says. “How about tomorrow? The skate park is over on Hampton Avenue, about five minutes from here.”

“It’s a date,”