The Ex Games (24 page)

“Do you want to go first?” Nick asked me.

“No, I want you to go first.” I wanted to see what trick he landed. Might as well pile
as much pressure on myself as possible.

And, truth be told, I wanted to know that I could do this jump all by myself, without him up here coaching me.

“Okay, pep talk before I go.” He put his gloves on my shoulders and squeezed. “Don’t look at the crowd down there. Don’t think about the jump at all. Concentrate on the sick trick you’ll do when you go off.” He pressed his goggles to my goggles. “Feel the 900.”

“900!” I scoffed. “I’m feeling the 1080.”

He let me go and stood back, eyeing me. I could tell he didn’t want to say anything to destroy my confidence, but he was afraid he’d created a monster.

“Don’t worry. I’m ready to play the game.” I nodded solemnly.

“One more thing,” he said. “If you do fall—”

I cringed. Some pep talk!

“—if something terrible happens, you still won’t lose everything. Now you have good friends, and nothing will ever change that. You’re
not
that girl.”

“Oh, Nick.” I threw myself at him, literally. He wrapped me in his arms and brushed my hair aside to kiss my forehead
again.

I squeezed him hard, then drew away and punched him on his padded arm. “Go ahead, and
don’t
break a leg.”

Without fanfare, he steered onto the slope and sped off the jump. A nice 540, or possibly even a 720! I couldn’t see his rotations when he disappeared over the edge. Anyway, all that really mattered to me was that he landed safely. I boarded a few feet to one side and leaned over until I saw him downhill, sliding to a stop, upright. The crowd all waved their arms, and faintly I heard their bells and voices.

My turn. I could do this. I inhaled through my nose and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.

I exhaled through my mouth and felt gravity pull the energy from my heart down through my legs, through my boots and snowboard, through the snow, to the rocks below. I was one with the mountain.

I touched my remaining lucky earring.

Then I pressed all my weight forward for speed and raced toward the jump, the white edge, the blue sky beyond, the town below, the mountains in the distance. I went
off.

Dancing at the Poseur concert had been fun at first, but then Josh and his posse pulled Nick and me into the mosh pit. We needed a break. While Nick snagged us a lawn chair on the ski lodge deck above the concert, I bought us a couple of hot chocolates—and passed Gavin and Chloe at the teller machine. She rubbed her gloves together gleefully, then held them out while Gavin counted the cash into her hands.

“Hayden!” she exclaimed as I walked up, but her eyes didn’t leave the money. Clearly, she didn’t trust Gavin. “I went ahead and bought us tickets to be safe in case the concert was sold out, and now Gavin is paying—me—back—ha!” She tapped his cheek playfully with the stack of bills. He closed one eye against the attack.

“
Not
that you thought I would lose or anything,” I said suspiciously.

She innocently fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Of course not!”

“We shouldn’t have doubted you,” Gavin said. “I have never seen anybody short of a pro ride the pipe like that.”

I glared at him. Because the words were
coming from his mouth, I expected them to be sarcastic. But his face was friendly and open. For once, he seemed genuine.

“And a 1080 off the jump?” he went on. “That was savage.”

Chloe widened her eyes at him. “Why are you being nice? Has your body been taken over by aliens?”

“You’ll find out tonight, baby.”

I stopped the tickle fest I felt coming on between them by handing them each a hot chocolate. “Hold this. My phone’s beeping.” I took it out of my pocket and peered at the text message.

Nick: Do u want 2 b n people?

“
People
,” I murmured as if he could hear me. “As in the magazine?” I peered up onto the deck and saw him standing next to our lounge chair, talking with a group of adults with cameras. “Oh my God, paparazzi? No way!”

“Way,” Gavin said. “I saw them talking to Daisy Delaney earlier. They must have followed Poseur here, then realized there were more celebrities they could milk.”

“Nick isn’t that kind of celebrity,” I
said.

“I’ll bet they want him for a special theme issue,” Chloe suggested. “How the richest bachelors in America spent Valentine’s Day.”

I glanced dubiously toward the mosh pit. Then I looked toward Nick again and strained to hear what he was saying over the Poseur tune.

“Are you here alone?” one of the men asked him. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Yes, I’m seeing someone,” Nick said, standing beside them but hardly acknowledging them. He was watching for my answer on his phone.

“For how long?” a woman asked.

About an hour
, I thought. Or did we officially start seeing each other on the ski lift this morning?
Ten hours
. I smiled, remembering the sunny afternoon we’d spent boarding with Daisy Delaney and her boyfriend. Or … what did “seeing each other” mean, anyway? If nearly making out in the sauna counted, we’d been seeing each other for five days.

“Four years,” I heard him say.

“Aww!” I squealed. Then I turned to Chloe. “Do I want to be in
People
?”

“No,” she said firmly. “Nick is hot.”

Gavin frowned and poked her in the side. “Hey.”

She ducked away from his finger. “Facts are facts. Nick is hot, and when girls read
People
and see he’s dating you, they will call you a skank ho. You and I have mooned over Prince William. We know the deal.”

“True.” When Nick glanced slyly down at me, I shook my head no.

For a few more minutes, I talked with Chloe and Gavin, and we all watched Liz and Davis swaying romantically to a rare slow song from Poseur. What a happy Valentine’s Day. Then, when the paparazzi had cleared out, I climbed the steps to the deck and handed a cup of hot chocolate to Nick. He sat down in the lawn chair and unzipped his parka. I settled back against his warm shirt.

“I bought you a Valentine’s Day present,” he said in my ear, sending shivers through me despite all my layers. He rocked to one side in the chair and pulled something from his back pocket.

I took it in my gloved hands and peered at it in the dusky light from the stage and the stars. It was a sew-on patch with a black diamond in the center, the symbol for a
dangerous ski slope. “Nick, that’s so cool! I love it!”

“That’s not all.” He rocked to his other side and pulled out another patch. This one had a four-leaf clover. “To replace the luck you’re missing.”

“Nick.” I stared at the patches in my mittens, trying not to tear up. “This is sweet of you.”

“I really like you in those ‘
BOY TOY
’ jeans,” he said, “but this needs to go on top of ‘
BOY
.’” He took the black diamond from me and shook it. “And the clover goes on top of ‘
TOY
.’”

“Deal.” I slipped the patches into my coat pocket. Then I sipped my hot chocolate and sighed, enjoying his warmth behind me. “We’ve been dating for four years, huh? I don’t think Fiona will like that answer.”

“You’ve always had my heart.” He kissed my earlobe—the one without a bandage. The one that was still lucky. “You know, you’re going to be in
People
anyway when you make the Olympic snowboarding team. ESPN will ask you, ‘Hayden O’Malley, you came from nowhere at age seventeen. Where have you been?’ And you’ll answer, ‘Oh, I had a few acrophobic issues to work
through.’”

Laughing, I poked him for his embarrassingly accurate imitation of my southern drawl.

He continued in my voice, “‘Then one night my boyfriend was being an ass and I challenged him to a comp. I had to do a front 1080 off a jump just to show him up, and the rest is history.’”

“I hope so.”

“I know so.” He kissed my cheek.

I reached back to run my fingers through his long hair. “Right now I want to lie low, have a normal life, and hang out with my boyfriend. I’ll meet you in
People
in a few years.”

He chuckled, making my insides sparkle with anticipation. “It’s a date.”

Jennifer Echols is the author of the romantic comedies
The Boys Next Door
and
Major Crush
and the teen drama
Going Too Far
. She lives in Alabama with her family, no snow, and a vivid imagination. Please visit her on the Web at
www.jennifer-echols.com
!

A new Romantic Comedy from Simon Pulse

“Heads up!” was my only warning before it was launched over the aisle toward me. Even though I was on one knee, stocking shelves with acrylic paint tubes, my reflexes were on their feet. My long forearms met the ball of rubber bands with a force that sent it hurling back toward where it came from.

“Ouch!” Pam, my coworker-slash-best-friend, yelped.

Snickering to myself, I rushed over to her aisle to apologize. She gave me the dramatic, injured look, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy.

“C’mon, it was just a few
soft
rubber bands,” I offered sweetly.

“Yeah—and
not
a volleyball.” She pouted, rubbing her forehead. “I swear, London, from now on, going to one of your volleyball matches is gonna feel like watching a scary movie.”

“Seeing as how you overact worse than a
Hollyweird D-lister,” I teased, “that would be a step up for you.”

Pam forgot about her wounded act and coughed up a boisterous laugh that I’m sure all of northern New Jersey heard. She’s not usually the loud type, but the girl
is
known to turn up the volume on just about every aspect of her personality.

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, huh?” Pam placed her hand—the one not holding a stack of colored pencils—over her heart and squinted as if the sun was in her eyes. “I did it for you. The ref had to understand how foul his call was.”

Her theatrics aside, I appreciate that she comes to almost every one of my home games to show her support.

“Mmm-hmm,” I teased. “Next time you get the urge to run screaming across the court during game time, don’t do me any favors.”

“Owww,” Pam whimpered. Going for the right distraction to change the subject, she started stroking her forehead again. I grinned and wrapped my long arms around Pam’s shoulders, giving her a quick, apologetic squeeze. My five-foot-ten frame extended half a head taller than her.

“Sorry.” I picked up the rubber orb and carefully pulled off the red band on top. “Anyway, I only asked you for
one
.”

“Next time I won’t be so generous.” Pam got in the last word before she carried on placing colored pencils into separate slots on a fixture.

I smiled to myself and headed back to my acrylic paint duties. Without intending it to be, working the same shift at Art Attack was becoming the perfect chance for Pam and me to hang together. Even though we’re both sophomores at Teawood High, my volleyball season being in full swing and Pam’s double passions for fashion
and
her boyfriend, Jake, have kept us preoccupied. Before this job, we’d mostly been keeping in touch via text.

Unexpected bonus BFF time aside, Pam got me a job here for another reason altogether. Once she heard I was passed up for the volleyball summer camp scholarship and had to raise the fifteen-hundred-dollar fee on my own, she put in a good word with her boss. Now here I am, two weeks later, proudly rocking the faux-paint-splattered red employee vest.

Art Attack was one of a few artsy stores
to pop up on Main Avenue in recent months. The eleven-block strip, known to locals as “the Ave,” always had potential. Just a few miles from New York City, Teawood, New Jersey, is a large suburb with a metropolitan vibe. Cozy coaches—or as we like to call them, adult school buses—make their way down the Ave, shuttling Teawood residents to and from their NYC jobs every workday, morning and evening. On Saturdays kids either head across the bridge to shop in Manhattan or parade down the Ave in celebs-on-a-coffee-run attire. For them it’s all about comfy boots with oversize handbags and shades.

In the heart of the strip, the brick sidewalks are spacious and lined with benches and old-world lampposts. Luxury car dealer-ships, designer shoe stores, and fancy evening gown showrooms stand alongside busy restaurants, open-late ice cream shops, and trendy clothing stores. Lots of famous folks who live in nearby, more upscale towns—including a few rappers who publicly claim to still be living in New York City—can be spotted shopping or lunching here. (Reverend Run’s kids are known to pass through, reality-show cameras in tow.)
Shiny cars cruise up and down, looking for both attention and parking.

No celebrity sightings in Art Attack to report yet. That’s probably because my part-time working hours are spent avoiding customers and their art-related questions. Pam, in her arstyliciousness, is a much better fit for this job. Honestly, if I’d known that a prerequisite for working at an art supply store was creativity, I would’ve found another way to earn money.