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

I say, instantly feeling ridiculous. I feel the red creep from my ears to my entire face.

If Luke notices, he doesn’t say anything. Instead he’s all, “Cool, see you tomorrow.”

I’m about to head to my locker, when I hear, “Hey, Agresti!”

I turn back around and Luke is smiling. “If you win a Pulitzer someday, I hope you remember this interview as the start of your success.”

“You better be on in that interview, then,” I say.

“Oh, I’ll be so on, you won’t know what hit you,” he says, pointing at me, then winking.

I roll my eyes, but when I walk away, I feel myself smiling.

“So what’s Luke’s deal?” Willow asks as she drives us toward the skate park the next afternoon.

“He’s apparently really good at bike tricks and stunts,” I say. “He won a local competition last weekend.”

“Well, that explains him being with Greta. She’s really good at snowboarding, so I guess the extreme sports connection makes sense.”

“A real power couple,” I say, forcing a laugh. Even the thought of Greta makes me nervous. Her larger-than-life personality must extend past the school’s walls.

“Yeah,” Willow says. “But my ex-girlfriend was in her math class, and she said Greta’s supposed to go up to Canada for Olympic trials training sooner or later. I can’t imagine Luke’s going that way for college.”

I don’t have a response for that. Despite our friendly exchanges of late, I’m not exactly one to be weighing in on Luke’s relationship. Still, I’m not sure how long-distance relationships work, especially when someone’s in another country.

“This must be it,” Willow says, turning the car into the parking lot of the Ringvale Heights Indoor Skate Park and Biking Facility.

Willow lugs her camera toward the building and I carry her footstool for her. There are two scrawny-looking kids, wearing pants and shirts that are way too big for them, standing on the ramp leading up to the building. They’re both holding skateboards, and when they see us coming, they eye us up and down.

“Hey,” the kid wearing an orange hat drawls.

“Hello, ladies, you coming to film me?” his green-hatted counterpart asks, cocking his head at us. “I’m the best thing you’ve ever seen.”

“What are you, twelve?” Willow asks, looking more amused than annoyed.

“Age ain’t anything but a number,” he says, winking.

Willow rolls her eyes. “Glad to see they’ve added charm classes to the middle school schedule.”

“I’ll be your Prince Charming if you’d like,” orange-hat guy says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Agresti! Willow! You beat me here!”

The four of us turn around, and I see Luke riding toward us on his bike. The boys’ faces both fall.

“Hey, Luke,” I say, waving and trying not to laugh.

Both boys stand up straight. “Hi, Luke.”

Luke looks from the boys, back to Willow and me.

“These guys giving you a hard time?” he asks. “They’re in my beginner BMX class and I’m not above making anyone run suicides as a warm-up.”

“No, Luke,” the green-hatted kid says. “We were just—”

“—hitting on us,” Willow says matter-of-factly.

Luke’s eyes widen. “Wow, you guys are a lot ballsier these days, huh? When I was your age, I wouldn’t even dream of looking at such enchanting women, let alone hitting on them.”

Enchanting? I have to choke back a laugh.

“We’re sorry,” the orange-hatted kid says. “We saw the camera and got excited.”

“That’s understandable,” Willow says. “Everyone likes the idea of being on camera. Except for Ellie, of course, even though she’s pretty good at it.” She gives me a hip bump.

The boys skate off and we make our way up the ramp leading into the building. Luke holds the door open for us. “Shall we?”

I’m so close when I scoot past him that I can smell the woodsy fabric softener again, coming off his fitted, bright-blue T-shirt, which he wasn’t wearing in class before. “Enchanting?” I say, choking back a giggle.

“What? You’re light years out of a seventh grader’s league,” Luke says with a smile. “Plus, they could use a good vocabulary lesson. The only word they know to describe girls is ‘hot.’”

I start to laugh when a voice booms out, “Hey, man! Junior Vert Champion Luke Burke is in the house!”

We both turn to see a grinning, skinny guy with a crew cut walking toward us.

“Hey,” Luke says. “This is Willow and Ellie. They’re filming me for my school TV station.”

“Sweet,” the guy says, then bows. “I’m Vince, if you should ever want to cover BMXers who aren’t half as good as this guy right here.”

Luke shakes his head. “Too bad you go to St. Mark’s.”

I take a minute to scan the giant room. It’s like a gym, except there’s a variety of ramps set up at different angles all over the place. There are even stairs and handrails in the middle of the room, where this gangly blond kid is practicing jumps on his skateboard. At the far end of the ramp-riddled expanse is what looks like two giant ramps facing each other.

Luke must be following my gaze because he’s like, “That’s a half-pipe. I’ll show you my moves on that today. Have you ever watched a BMX vert contest before?”

Willow and I shake our heads.

Luke smiles. “That’s okay, most people outside the extreme sports world don’t know it exists.”

“Well, all of RHHS is going to know it after this!” Willow says.

“He’s gonna blow your mind,” Vince says.

Luke frowns. “Don’t set them up for disappointment, man.”

Vince chuckles. “Are you kidding me, dude?” He shakes his head at Willow and me. “This guy right here is a machine.”

Luke looks at the ground, but he’s fighting a smile, and I can tell he’s enjoying the praise. “So, how should we do this?” he asks, rubbing his hands together.

Willow lifts her camera up. “Why don’t you show us some of your moves, then Ellie can interview you after.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Luke says, shoving a helmet on and squeezing some elbow guards over his arms. “See you on the other side.”

“We can sit down there,” Vince says, pointing to the edge of the half-pipe. “He’ll only need the