The Ex Games(30)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He frowned down at me. “Of course we’re not calling off the bet. You owe me a Poseur ticket. Did you only come out here to get me to call off the bet?”

I sighed and looked up at the stars in exasperation. But I stopped short of walking away from him, just in case he came to his senses and decided to kiss me again. I found one of his hands and held it, gently stroking his palm with my thumb, toying with his signet ring. Feeling a little like Fiona or some other girl from my school whose voice seemed to pitch an octave higher whenever she wanted something from a boy, I asked, “Why do you want to be with me if you think so little of me?”

“I’m not sure I do want to be with you.” He slid his hand out of mine. Devastating as that was, he floored me with what he did next. He faced me again and gave me the brilliant smile with the movie-star expression he always wore around school. As if none of this had happened at all. He walked by me, away from the wall, through the deep snow to the sidewalk, and disappeared around the corner of the building.

I stared into the space where he’d been, an alley entrance filled with tiny snowflakes. My tummy still swirled with tingles like the snowflakes in the air. How could Nick and I be over as suddenly as we’d started? Sure, I’d wanted him to call off the bet now that we were together. I’d expected him to. But that’s not why I’d come out here with him. Truly wheedling something out of a boy, Fiona-style, required planning and organizational skills that I did not possess.

“Hoyden,” Nick called from around the corner.

I shuffled after him through the snow. He had one hand on the door of Mile-High Pie, prepared to open it for me.

“I’m going home,” I told him. No way was I sitting at a booth in Mile-High Pie again tonight. When I got home I would call Chloe and then Liz. They would ask if Nick and I had gotten together. I would say that for a second there, I thought we were going to, but … then I asked him to forfeit a challenge. I could explain all this to them on the phone, but I did not want to rehash it at the table, or in the bathroom. Mile-High Pie was a dangerous place.

“Got a ride?” he asked in exactly the polite but distant tone he would use on some ninth grader he hardly knew.

“Bus.” I gestured toward the familiar squeaks as the bus lumbered around the corner several blocks down.

“Okay, then. See you around, Hoyden.” He pulled the door open.

“Close the door!” called the couples as he stepped inside.

I watched him through the glass door as he hung up his puffy parka, then wove between the tables and slipped into the booth where we’d been sitting. He nodded at something Gavin said to him. But Nick’s shoulders were hunched, and he looked so defeated that I wanted to hug him again. I wished I didn’t feel so strongly that he shouldn’t have challenged me to this comp. I wished he would run back out to me, tell me it was all a joke, and make out with me against the wall like he was supposed to.

Watching Nick’s defeated pose, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. Nick might have enjoyed making out with me. He might even want to be with me. But more than anything, Nick wanted to win. And winning me over wasn’t enough.

“Hayden! Yoo-hoo, Hayden O’Malley! Are you and Nick Krieger finally hooking up?”

“How are these people recognizing me?” I muttered to Liz beside me. We’d just slid away from the top of a ski lift, one I could stand to ride because it never rose too far from the ground, when we were overtaken by sophomores. It was snowing—not a pleasant light shower with the sun occasionally breaking through the clouds, either, but a heavy, constant dump from overcast skies that made visibility almost nil. Without admitting it, I’d had an eye out for Nick all day, and I figured Liz had been looking for Davis, but we’d never recognized them in the thick white air. Yet these sophomores were the fifth group of boarders from our school to pick me out that afternoon. My hair must glow in the dark.

“Dish, Hayden,” exclaimed a gossip-seeking girl who skied directly into my path. “It would be sooooo cute if you and Nick got together after he sealed your backpack inside that plaster of Paris volcano last year.”

Liz giggled and elbowed me. “I’d forgotten all about that one!”

“But my friends say no way,” the girl went on. “Nick hates you. Which is it?”

I shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to ask Nick.” And if she found out, I hoped she’d pass that info along to me.

“Practice hard,” said another girl shooting past on her board. She called backward to me, “I’ve got a Poseur ticket riding on you.”

“Me, too!” said another girl accelerating down the white slopes. “Me, too! Me, too!” more of them called, until the air was as thick with pressure as it was with snowflakes.

Liz knew what I was thinking. “Let it go,” she advised me. “We’re taking the afternoon off, remember?”

We’d worked hard all morning at getting me to go off the jump, with no success, despite the “help” of Josh and his posse. On the bright side, if I never became a professional snowboarder and never opened that door for Josh, he already had a whole album’s worth of raps about me, my boarding, and my gastrointestinal issues. Maybe he could sign a record contract.

But Liz and I had made a pact that no matter what happened this morning, we would let loose this afternoon and have fun on the mountain. Much as I loved Chloe, she was a pain to board with, because I was forever slowing down so she could keep up, or helping her right herself and innocent bystanders after she crashed into the ski-lift line. To be honest, I was relieved she’d said she couldn’t board with us today because she had “a pressing matter to attend to,” even though her tone of voice made me suspicious she was meddling in my business again. Liz was a different story completely. On her skis, Liz kept up with me.

“Why don’t we go down Main Street?” She gestured to the enormous slope in front of us with the ski lodge a tiny dot at the bottom. “And then we’ll have time to take the lift up for one last run before it gets dark.”

“Race ya,” I said, getting a five-second head start on her before she could put her goggles down.

We crisscrossed the expanse of snow. She leaped over moguls and crash-landed on the other side, her falls cushioned by six inches of fresh powder. I used the moguls to launch me into lazy 360s. We giggled and shouted and nearly ran into each other a dozen times on our way down. Despite the slow powder conditions and the snow plastering my goggles so I had to stop and wipe them every few minutes, this was what snowboarding was really about for me. Speeding downhill in a race was fun, and I loved pushing my body to land new stunts with steeze. But the real joy came in messing around with friends, exploring, trying new things without worrying about how they’d look, and knowing I could come back and do it all again tomorrow.