Free The A-Word by Joy Preble Page A

full.
    “You played well last night,” I told him. “Real well.”
    “Wasn’t out there that much. But God, that Sneed. Did you see that miracle play at the end? That was too much, right?”
    I choked a little on my last bit of cupcake. He patted me on the back until I stopped coughing. Then there I was, going from nervous to tingly because he looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m glad you were there.”
    I am not a girl who is easily dazzled. But here was what danced in my brain:
I have a boy in my room! I have Ryan Sloboda in my room! He brought me birthday cupcakes and wrote me a note with an Avengers quote! He has PLANS and a dog
. I could stand here like this, with him, forever.
    Of course Mom chose that moment to pay attention to my life and call up the stairs that we would be leaving for the sushi restaurant in a bit and did Ryan want to join us? Which he did but couldn’t, so he said. This was fine with me. After the whole afternoon with Bo, I was not sure I had the fortitude for a night with Ryan.
    Still, I took another risk. I told Ryan I would meet him downstairs, and could he take the rest of the cupcakes to the kitchen, but if he didn’t mind, I was sweaty and needed to change for dinner first so that we could take our time talking some more before he left.
    Then I raced into the bathroom and threw on my new signature jeans and white button-down that Amber had given me, and slipped the silver mustang #76 charm from Maggie into my pocket—and after I swiped more purple eye shadowfrom the Sephora kit on my lids, I studied myself in the mirror. Not bad.
    I sashayed downstairs, all casual-like.
    Ryan’s eyes popped nicely at the outfit. Good to go.
    I did not ask what Ryan and Mom had talked about while I was gone, but both the
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cupcakes were missing, so I figured there’d been more eating than talking. I did not ask where Casey had disappeared to. Nor did I particularly care. I’d had enough of my brother’s angel shenanigans for one day.
    Ryan said he needed to pedal back home.
    And then it was the best part of my day. Actually it was the best part of any day I’ve had EVER.
    IT’S FUNNY THAT I remember the conversation so clearly, considering how dumb it was. We stood at the curb, backlit by the Gilroys’ Halloween lights.
    “Thank you for my cupcakes,” I told him.
    “Sorry they were squashed,” he said.
    “They were awesome,” I said. “You’re like those cupcake bakers on that show.”
    He shrugged, and then we stood eyeballing each other awkwardly until I blurted, “Why the Avengers?” maybe because I was the teensiest bit concerned about the comic book thing and mostly because I LOVED that he had taken the time to quote something that he had picked JUST FOR ME.
    Ryan blushed again, just a little, and my stomach clenched, also just a little. Was it too personal a question? I was new to the whole potential boyfriend thing.
    “It’s funny—the movie with all of them, I mean. The dialogue—like with Hulk and Loki. It cracks me up, and … they’re superheroes. See, that’s the thing I like about Tony Stark. He isn’t supernatural. He’s just a guy in a suit who’stotally smart. But he’s committed to saving the world. He hangs on no matter what. You don’t get to have that in the real world, you know. You don’t just wake up the next day and have powers. I mean the closest I ever come to feeling like that is in football.”
    This is what came rushing out of Ryan like a river of words. It could have flummoxed me because I could certainly tell him stories about someone who had woken up with powers, but instead it made me feel happier than I had in a very long time.
    “Or this one time when I was little,” he went on. “My Grandpa Dale in Fort Worth entered me in Mutton Busting at the rodeo. I hung on to that damn sheep for my life. I didn’t let go even after the buzzer rang. And they were picking me up and parading me around, and I know it’s just a stupid kid’s