Read Confectionately Yours #1: Save the Cupcake! for Free Online Page A

the other two acted like my sister was making it up. But I know Chloe — she has an impressive imagination, but she’s not a liar.
    The worst part of it is that those three girls used to be Chloe’s best friends. But one of them turned on her, and then the other two did, too. And it was awful. Chloe was too sad and too shy to try to make friends with anyone else. Those mean girls teased her for her clothes, her freckles — even the fact that our parents were getting divorced. Chloe started to shrivel up under their words, like a plant that isn’t getting any water or light. It didn’t matter what I said, or what my mom said. It didn’t matter that we loved her. She tried to ignore them, but how could she? She was lonely.
    So she spent more and more time with Horatio.
    I guess that’s why Mom and I are kind of freaking out that she’s got a new friend, maybe. A real friend.
    It’s just been so long.
    Oh, please. Please let this be a nice, normal friend.

M y dad pulls the Lexus to the curb and honks the horn, as usual. The first couple of times Dad picked us up, he came inside and we all suffered through an awkwardly polite conversation between him and Mom. But since we’ve moved in with Gran, he just honks the horn. I guess the thought of interacting with his ex-mother-in-law just put him over the edge.
    “Here he is,” I announce from my perch beside the upstairs bay window. Chloe comes dashing out of our room and through the apartment door.
    “Aren’t you going to give me a hug?” Mom calls after her. I hear a loud squeak as Chloe’s sneakers skid to a halt, followed by thundering footsteps. Chloe zips back into the living room, gives Mom a quick squeeze, and hurries out again.
    “Tell your father that I want you home by seven,” Mom tells me.
    “Okay.” I sigh. Mom holds out her arms — one hand carefully holding a coffee mug — and I give her a hug. Then it’s out the door and down the stairs after Chloe. She’s giving Dad a bear hug on the sidewalk. I just wave awkwardly.
    “Hello, Hayley,” Dad says. We’re kind of formal with each other lately.
    “Hi.” I reach for the car door, and my dad’s face contorts, like I’m about to touch a hot stove, but I’ve already yanked it open. A young woman with jet-black hair and light brown eyes looks up at me, surprised. “Oh, sorry,” I say, and slam the door.
    Dad and I stare at each other for a long, weird moment. Then I look back at the car. “Oh,” I say again. “Wait — this is our car.”
    My brain isn’t working right. I’m confused. What’s this person doing in our car?
    “Who’s that?” Chloe asks.
    Dad hurries over to the door and pulls it open. The young woman is still there, smiling now. She’s glamorous in a short tweed skirt and high heels, and her eyes twinkle under sparkly brown shadow.
    “Girls, this is Annie Montri,” Dad says. “Annie, this is Hayley.”
    Annie sticks out her hand, which is at an awkward angle, because she’s strapped in by her seat belt. I shake her hand, and Chloe waves enthusiastically. “Hi, I’m Chloe!” she says, then climbs into the backseat like everything’s normal.
    I look over at Dad, but he doesn’t meet my eyes. He just goes around the back of the car to the driver’s seat, leaving me to climb in with Chloe. Which I do, like a good daughter.
    But in my head, I’m pitching a crazy screamfit, like, “Oh, so I can’t bring someone, but you can? What happened to ‘ This is our time together, Hayley ’? You are so full of it! Is this your girlfriend , Dad?”
    I’m seething there in the backseat while Chloe is looking out the window, humming along with the radio. The silence in the car is dense, like a thick fog, clouding everything.
    Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “So, how do you two know each other?”
    “Annie’s a paralegal at the firm.”
    I guess Annie doesn’t want me to get the wrong idea, because she smiles over at Dad and pats him on the knee.
    I want to