The Ex Games (23 page)

Now I found I was shouting, even though the noise of the cable had died away. Even more deafening was Nick’s silence. He didn’t look down at me, didn’t say a word as we passed four more poles and boarded off the lift. I could see a muscle working under his skin in his strong superhero jaw, but his mouth stayed closed.

We slid to the top of a narrow slope that curved into the forest and waited for a grommet to happen by. “Hey,” Nick called out. “We’re racing. Say go, would you?”

The kid turned to us, and his eyes widened. “Oh my God, you’re Nick Krieger and Hayden O’Malley, aren’t you? Is this the comp everybody’s been talking about? Are you guys hooking up?”

“Just say go!” Nick and I both yelled.

“Go!” the kid shouted.

I pointed myself downhill and boarded as fast as I could. But it was no use. A field of rumble strips slowed me down like speed bumps for a car. Nick was so much bigger than me that he blazed straight across them like they weren’t there. Soon the slope took a turn into the forest and he disappeared behind the trees. He was gone, baby.

I was boarding by myself. I kept going as fast as I could, crouching down into the frigid wind and squinting through the water on my goggles, just so the spectators at the bottom didn’t tire of waiting for me, give up, and go home, thinking I’d forfeited. No way.

The trees fell away on either side of me, and the slope opened up wide. At the bottom of the course where it merged with Main Street, I picked out Nick, one of the tallest boys, already standing in the crowd with his arms crossed, watching for me as if he’d been waiting all day. Then the three judges with their heads together. Then a gaggle of girls with Liz and Chloe in front, gloves over their mouths, watching for me.

So I did what the most stylish boardercross
riders do when they’re not winning but they know they’ve got the silver in the bag. I hit the last roller and cranked it into a front flip, a little steeze for the fangirls. The second I landed, the girls hit me with an ear-splitting squeal laced with frantic bell-ringing. I couldn’t help breaking into the widest smile. I skidded to a stop in front of them.

Daisy leaned over to bump fists with me. “Girl has attitude.
Way
to
lose
!”

I laughed nervously and said, “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment.

Liz guided Chloe over so Chloe didn’t lose her balance and hurt anyone. They both gave me big hugs, and Chloe shook me by the shoulders. “We’re down but we’re not out. Go back up there and give him hell.”

“Thanks, coach!” I slid away from the crowd and over to the lift again, following Nick. I didn’t want to linger with Chloe and Liz, because I knew the crowd was waiting expectantly. But if I’d had more time, I would have asked for coaching on the sitch with Nick.

We moved through the line in the shadowy shed and launched into the sunshine in the chair again. I prepared for another cold,
silent ride. His goggles were up this time, but I didn’t look over at him and try to read the expression in his eyes. I was afraid it would break my heart.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said.

At first I thought it was wishful thinking on my part, and I’d misheard him. But then he slid his glove onto my thigh. Even through the
BOY TOY
jeans, I felt those familiar tingles shooting up my leg.

“You
are
?” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say something before? I was all worried!”

“I didn’t want you to think I was apologizing because of the comp. You know, we want this to be fair and square so we don’t have to go through it again.”

“Then why are you copping to it now?”

“Because I don’t want you to think I hate you. I don’t hate you. I definitely don’t.” He squeezed my thigh.

“But you still think I’m not a competitor,” I muttered. I was trying to be bigger than this, but there was no getting around it. If Nick and I were going to ease toward being together again, I wanted him to respect me.

“No, I do.” He turned to me for the first time, and his dark eyes searched my eyes.
“Did you know local TV shows your 900 in an endless loop? It’s a bunch of video want ads for snowmobiles, then some kind of school crap with Everett Walsh that nobody wants to see over and over, and then you. I stayed up watching you until three o’clock this morning.” He gave me that brilliant smile. “You’re a competitor all right. I just wasn’t sure you realized it yourself. And I never would have said something like that to you if I didn’t consider you a true friend.”

I put my mitten over his glove and squeezed. I wasn’t sure whether he was hinting at a relationship or not. I hoped, if we were this big as people, we could be even bigger, and could take another shot at getting together. But I was thankful just to count him as a friend.

We slid off the lift and boarded down to the top of the half-pipe. The bell-ringing crowd had moved to the sides and bottom of the course. It seemed to have grown.

Nick pulled his goggles down over his eyes and nosed his board to the edge of the slope.

“Good luck,” I called. “And be careful.”

“Are you kidding? I do yoga to stay limber, so I won’t get hurt. I did thirty minutes
of Sun Salutations this morning.”

He balanced on the deck, then sped down into the bowl and up the opposite side, momentum flinging him high into the blue sky. Six times, he executed simple but perfect tricks with incredible height. He might just beat me. If I fell in my
BOY TOY
jeans, I was toast. Very soggy toast.

But whether I won or not, I looked forward to my run. A half-pipe course was the best part of my day, an unbelievably decadent treat, like white cake with white icing that said
CONGRATULATIONS HAYDEN!
Sliding forward for my turn was like taking that first bit of sugar rush.

Following Nick’s path, I raced down one wall and up the other. The slopes were crowded enough today, and enough kids had already gone through the pipe that morning, that the fresh powder had been worked into perfection for a smooth, fast run. I threw a few respectable tricks, then pulled out my specialties: back-to-back sevens, a McTwist, and my beloved nine. I hated for it to end. I would have loved to lay down just one more 720, but I ran out of pipe.

I slid straight across the flat toward the
crowd and pulled up in front of them, strategically sending a wave of powder over the boys. The girls were already cheering for me and ringing their bells wildly (so cute!), but when I sent that powder flying, their cheers hurt my ears.

“You’re neck and neck,” Daisy called from where she stood with the other judges. “Hayden destroyed this one.”

The huge pack of boys moaned. “What about Nick’s massive air?” Gavin called.

“Hayden landed a 900,” Chloe retorted. “That’s bananas!”

I was happy I’d tied Nick, at least so far. I certainly wasn’t going to hang around and gloat about it—not when I was about to get shown up in the big air comp. I was following Nick around the edge of the crowd to take the ski lift again when Daisy boarded over to me.

She put her head down and talked quietly, so only I could hear her above the excited crowd. “You’ve got this nice, quiet, compact style that competition judges are going to
love
, and then you add a nine? That’s sick. The only thing we’re going to work on in your lessons is height, because judges want to see that too. If you can land
a nine going as low as you do, imagine what you’ll put down when you’re going huge like Kelly Clark. You’re on your way, girlfriend. And you’re mine!”

“Hooray!” I exclaimed. Never mind that I’d developed my compact style precisely because I didn’t want to go too huge and lose my balance. Daisy and I locked forearms and jumped up and down together excitedly, or as well as we could manage with boards on. Then I high-fived Chloe and Liz as I passed them in the crowd, and I followed Nick.

When I boarded even with him, I asked, “Did you get all that with me and Daisy?”

He laughed. “I got enough.”

“No pressure.” We both cracked up.

But through our laughter, I thought I heard someone calling Nick. I touched his arm and nodded to the deck of the ski lodge. “It’s your dad.”

“Oh God,” Nick said under his breath. “Not just my dad but his corporate partners. Beer before lunch is never a good thing. Come with me and save my ass.”

I definitely did not want to talk with Nick’s dad and two other men in the most expensive skiwear, drinking beer around a
snow-covered table. But Nick needed me. We stopped at the wooden railing.

“Nick!” they called in big, strong, Manly Corporate Partner voices.

Nick nodded, wearing his own Big Man On Campus grin. “Dad, you remember Hayden. Mr. Jeter, Mr. Black, this is my girlfriend, Hayden.”

I smiled sweetly at them and shook hands with them when they stood and extended their arms over the rail. This took my mind off the fact that my face was as red as my hair (Nick seemed to have that effect on me a
lot
) and the fact that NICK KRIEGER HAD JUST CALLED ME HIS GIRLFRIEND!

“You let a girl beat you?” one of them asked Nick with a twinkle in his eye. I think he meant this to be charming. “Must be true love.”

If my face had turned red before, now it was probably turning purple. I was glad I couldn’t see it. At least my freckles were obscured for once.

“Oh, no sir,” Nick said. “I didn’t let her beat me. Hayden’s so much better than I am, she’s in a different league. She’s going pro soon.”

“Then why’d you challenge her?” Mr. Krieger asked. His words went along with the jovial banter of the moment. But behind the words, I heard his tone, the same bitter tone he’d used to talk about Nick when Doofus and I had crashed into his living room. He wanted Nick to win, no matter what, and Nick would hear about this again when he got home.

“Oh, he didn’t challenge me,” I piped up. “I challenged him, and Nick is always so supportive. He wants me to be the best I can be.” This was all the corporate lingo I knew.

“But Mr. Jeter,” Nick said, “about it being true love, you’re absolutely right.” He turned to me.

He kissed me on the forehead.

In front of his father and two corporate partners.

“Nice to see you, gentlemen,” Nick said formally. Then he slid away. Rather than standing there dazed, I scrambled to follow him.

As soon as we were out of their earshot, he bent toward me. “Hayden! Good schmoozing!” he crowed.

I think he was referring to my handling
of his partners. However, I was still thinking about his soft lips on my forehead. I said, “I’ll say.”

“I hope I set a good example for my dad,” Nick said. “He’s flying down to Phoenix tonight for a Valentine’s date with my mother.”

“Nick, that’s so great!” I squealed. Wait a minute. It was great that Nick’s parents were making an effort to get back together. But did Nick mean that’s the only reason he’d kissed me? That was not great at all!

The crowd had paused when we stopped to talk to Nick’s dad, but now they moved with us toward the jump. I noticed a couple of film crews had arrived, probably from the resort and the local TV station. No pressure.

An out-of-control Chloe barreled out of the crowd, dragging Liz by the hand. They threatened to run me down. Nick caught Chloe by the hand as she slid past, and Liz was able to swing them both around in front of me.

“We’ll go up the lift with you for moral support, Hayden,” Chloe said. “We’ll coach you off the jump.”

“Great. Thank you!” I said, shaking imaginary snow out of my hair. I couldn’t
give Liz a meaningful look through my goggles, but I hoped she would get the message. I did not want Chloe’s “help.” Not today.

“Let’s wait for her at the bottom, Chloe,” Liz suggested. “That way we won’t distract her, and we can hug her when she wins. Come on!” They followed the rest of the crowd sliding toward the bottom of the jump, leaving Nick and me to go up the lift alone.

As soon as the chair left the ground, he said quietly, “I’m going to give you the speech the football coach gives us.”

I sniffed a long noseful of cold air. “Okay.”

“Everything up until now has been practice,” he said. “Regardless of how good or how bad you’ve looked in practice, you’re starting over now. The game is what matters. And a single game has never meant more than this one means to you.”

“True.” Going off this jump might make the difference between my career as a professional snowboarder and my life in a convent. Or behind a desk, a place I had never been in my life (I did my homework on a beanbag chair).

So I should be focusing on the trick I was about to do,
not
on the warmth of Nick beside me, soaking through my
BOY TOY
jeans and long underwear and into my thigh. I wondered whether kissing my forehead and calling me his girlfriend and talking about true love were really all just examples for his father, or whether Nick had meant them.

“Speaking of starting over,” he said quietly. “Hayden, can you and I start over?”

I looked up at him in astonishment.

He grinned, and I wished I could see his eyes behind his goggles. “I would rather walk across hot coals than go through seventh grade again, I have to tell you. I mean, can we say that everything up until now between you and me has been practice?”

Staring up at his superhero jaw, I enjoyed the tingles spreading across my chest and savored the moment. These were the words I’d waited for him to say since he’d sat next to me in the hall eight days before. I scooted toward him as well as I could with my board hanging heavily from my feet. “Absolutely. I’m ready to play this game with you.”

He kissed me, his warm mouth on my mouth. This didn’t work very well with
his goggles hitting mine, so he pulled up mine and I pulled up his, and we kissed more deeply. It wasn’t the most private kiss we’d ever shared, or the longest, or the most romantic. But it mattered the most. Our connection mattered. When we reached the station and boarded off the lift, my heart was racing like I’d just finished the slalom.

We couldn’t stop grinning at each other as we returned downhill to the jump. We pulled up and gazed down the long slope at the white ramp jutting into the clear blue sky. Beyond that, way down the hill, the crowd was even bigger than it had been at the half-pipe. They were very far away, but I thought I recognized my parents’ ski clothes, which they didn’t pull out of storage very often. They must have gotten back from Boulder and come out to support my comp—what great parents! And ever so faintly, I could hear Josh rapping to his posse’s beat. I couldn’t make out most of what he was saying, but I thought I caught the word
prepubescent
.