The Ex Games(47)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“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.

“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.