The Ex Games(28)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Chloe nodded her affirmation. “So do Gavin and Davis. Seventh grade to eleventh grade—that’s a long time to go out of your way to be mean to somebody you can’t stand.”

I didn’t say it, but surely Liz and Chloe felt what I felt: a vibration shaking the bathroom and speeding up my heart rate at the thought that Nick really liked me. I could not fall for this and get hurt again, but Nick was so tempting. I wished it were true.

Feeling dizzy, I backed against the wall beside Liz for support. “This is why I wanted to talk to you chicks in here. I’m sure that, against my instructions, you told Davis and Gavin to tell Nick that I didn’t know his parents were separated, right?”

They eyed each other and nodded.

“But has he apologized for calling me a bitch? No. He came to my mother’s yoga class just now, and we argued about that. Then we argued about the fire-crotch business. Now he’s sitting across from me at a booth in Mile-High Pie, waxing poetic about the seventh grade. He’s basically followed me around all day and poked at me, without an apology in sight.” I whacked the back of my head on the pictures of snowboarders in mid-fall.

Liz gazed at me, wide-eyed and awestruck. “Wow. He’s definitely smitten. He wants to apologize, but he doesn’t know how to approach you because you’re mad, which makes him madder and madder.”

“You know what I think?” Chloe asked, as if she wasn’t going to tell me whether I wanted to know or not. “I think you’ve both built up enormous amounts of sexual tension since your session in the sauna was cut short last night, and you won’t get along until you let it out. You need to make out with him. Take control.”

Before I could pursue this astonishing idea with her, three senior girls pushed through the bathroom doorway and squealed when they saw me. “Hayden O’Malley!” one of them said. “I had a huge fight with my boyfriend about you, and we both joined the bet over Poseur tickets. I think every couple in the school has made that bet with each other. You’d better show that boy up.”

“I heard you and Nick are actually hooking up,” another girl said. “Is that true?”

Chloe nodded at me encouragingly. Liz motioned with her head toward the door.

“I’m not sure. Let me get back to you.” I swung open the bathroom door and walked into the restaurant again. This was my evening out: bopping back and forth, away from whichever convo made me the most uncomfortable.

I walked back to the booth and stood next to Nick. He was leaning forward, listening to what Davis and Gavin were saying. I waited for them to finish. I stood naked beside him—wearing BOY TOY jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a short-sleeved powderroom.net T-shirt over that, but feeling naked nevertheless—for several long seconds.

When he finally noticed me, he looked up quickly like he’d been waiting on edge for my return. He set down his pizza, crumpled his napkin in his hands, and even slid his half-filled plate toward the center of the table like I was the main course now and he was making room for me. “So, Hoyden.”

I noticed the Christmas lights glinting in his dark hair again, reflecting in his dark eyes. It took me a moment to remember I had something to tell him. Nick had that effect on me.

I bent down and cupped my hand around his ear—such an intimate gesture on its own. The coarse strands of his hair brushed my fingers as I whispered, “Chloe and Liz think we need to make out.”

I jumped away at his sudden movement. He leaped up from the table and grabbed my hand. “I’ll get my coat.”

“What’s your hurry?” Gavin called after us, but Nick didn’t stop pulling me through the room. Booth after booth of loving couples flashed by, along with the wooden columns that divided the booths, each covered in years of graffiti: ALEX LOVES TAYLOR. CATHY + DAN. SYDNEY S BRANDON. We flew at light speed through the restaurant, going back in time to that magical seventh grade night, and I couldn’t help giggling.

I did have some misgivings as we approached the door. But Fiona had left the Galaga machine. I never should have felt jealous about her. If Nick went out with her again, that would have been four dates, which was unheard-of for him. And Josh and his posse had left their table. They must have gone down to the movie theater, where they could humiliate middle school girls with the whoopee cushion. I made a mental note to explain to Josh that this would not bring him any closer to a date with Gavin’s sister, either.

I snagged my coat from the rack while Nick looked for his. Shrugging it on without stopping, I swung open the front door of the restaurant. The frigid night wind blew snow into my eyes.

“Hayden,” Nick called to me.

“Close the door,” hollered the couples in the booths nearest us.

I let go of the door handle, then turned to Nick in the warm room. When he just stood there, staring down at me, I walked back to him.

“On second thought,” he said, “I don’t know about this.”

I was not going to get dissed again. I said brightly, “Oh, don’t be scared. It’s easy!” I jerked his puffy parka down from the rack and held it open for him. “Try one arm at a time.”

Glaring at me, he took the coat and shrugged it on. “Close the door!” shouted the couples around us as we walked outside.

Now that my eyes were used to the lights indoors, the night was black, except for the streetlights glowing yellow, and the dark blue mountain looming over the downtown buildings. Blinking the snowflakes out of my eyes, I took Nick’s warm bare hand in mine and dragged him along the narrow path down a sidewalk that had been cleared of snow. I turned in at the alley between Mile-High Pie and an antiques store next door, closed for the night. The snow was deep here, and the alley was empty and dark.

“Hayden,” he said softly. He slumped a bit against the brick wall and—oooh—did the pinkie-flick to his hair. But it wasn’t to get me hot. In fact, he’d cooled quite a bit since I’d first whispered in his ear.

“Let’s talk.” I reached up to touch his shoulder, showing him I had no hard feelings that he’d lost the mood. “Gavin and Davis told you I didn’t know about your parents when I made those comments last night, right?”

He nodded shortly. His hair fell back into his eyes. “Right.”

“But you still haven’t apologized for calling me a bitch and dissing my contest win.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

Chloe had been right! If I let Nick control our conversation, we followed each other around, throwing insults all night. Yet the second I took control, I finally got the apology I’d needed to forgive him.