by Mari Mancusi
Logan caught me looking at the picture. He groaned. “She insists on keeping all those up,” he told me. “It’s so embarrassing.”
“Aw. I think it’s cute,” I teased. He shook his head and kicked off his shoes. I followed his lead and accompanied him through the living room.
“Hey, Mom, I’m home!”
I turned the corner into the kitchen just in time to see Mrs. Conrad, wearing an apron adorned with frolicking kittens, reach down to pull a puffy loaf of bread from the oven. She glanced over at her son.
“You’re late,” she scolded playfully. Then her gaze fell to me. “Though now I see why.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Mom, you’ve met Lexi, right? From Mountain Academy?”
“Of course!” Mrs. Conrad set the bread down on the stovetop and pulled off her oven mitts. She walked over and pulled me into a huge, pillowy hug. She was soft and warm and smelled like French bread. “It’s so good to see you, sweetie. My son has talked of nothing but you since he got home last night.”
“Mom!” Logan hissed. I noticed his ears had gone bright red again. I felt my own face flush as well, while a pleased tickle spun down my spine. Logan had talked about me? He had talked about me to his mother? That had to be a good sign, right? Like a “maybe he likes me” sign?
“You two sit down and relax,” his mother instructed, waddling back over to the stove. “I’ll bring over the bread and soup in just a minute.”
I joined Logan at the small kitchen table as his mother bustled around, preparing our dinner. He gave me an embarrassed smile, and I grinned back at him to let him know it was all okay. The last thing I wanted was for him to think he’d made a mistake bringing me home.
“Here you go!” Mrs. Conrad ladled a huge helping of her famous chicken noodle soup into my bowl, then Logan’s, then set a basket of the freshly made bread on the table. I grabbed a slice, buttering it heavily before biting into the crusty goodness. It was probably the best bread I’d ever tasted in my life. And the soup was just as good as the kind she made at school. Maybe even better.
Logan’s mom pulled a folding chair up to the table, setting a small green salad at her place. After taking a second slice, I offered her the bread basket, but she shook her head.
“None for me,” she said reluctantly. “Doctor says I’ve got to lose weight.”
“And get your blood sugar in check,” Logan added, giving the mini Snickers bar she’d half hidden under her napkin a critical look. He turned to me. “My mom seems to think random chocolate bars are cool for people with severe diabetes.”
His mom waved him off. “I have one tiny little piece a day,” she protested. “What harm could there be in that? A candy a day keeps the doctor away!” She reached for her Snickers. But Logan grabbed it first, ripping it open and popping the whole thing in his mouth.
“For your own good,” he told her, his mouth full of chocolate.
His mother sighed, staring dismally down at her plain salad. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “It must be nice to be so young and healthy. To be able to eat anything you want and never gain an ounce.” She looked up at me. “I bet you can eat five thousand calories a day with your training schedule.”
I blushed. “Something like that.” At least when I actually had a training schedule. I set down the half-eaten slice of bread a little guiltily.
“Speaking of snowboarding, have you seen my Logan ride yet?” Mrs. Conrad asked, thankfully changing the subject. “He’s the best on the mountain. Better than some of the Mountain Academy kids even.” She paused, then added, “No offense.”
“Mom,” Logan groaned. “Please don’t start.”
“What? It’s true!” Mrs. Conrad rose from her seat, salad apparently forgotten. She grabbed my arm. “Come,” she instructed. “I want to show you something.”
“Let her eat her soup, Mom.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him, giggling as I allowed his eager mother to drag me through the living room and into a small office at the other end of the apartment. Like the rest of the place it was humbly furnished but meticulously clean. Unlike the rest of the place, the walls were covered with trophies, photos, plaques, and ribbons.
“Wow.” I whistled, impressed. “Are these all Logan’s?”
Mrs. Conrad nodded, a fiery pride in her watery blue eyes. “He’d have a lot more, too, if we could afford to get him into the competitions. He’s such a natural talent. And totally self-taught, too.”
I sobered, considering her words. Since our tuition paid for all our entries to the various races, I had never really thought about the fact that the hefty fees could end up deterring some of the potential competition. How many naturally talented snowboarders and skiers like Logan were left out of the running solely because of their parents’ bank accounts? While other countries scouted out talented athletes early on, putting them in government-funded programs to train them for the Olympics, in the US you basically needed to have gold to go for the gold.
“That’s awesome,” I said, picking up a trophy and reading the inscription. First place in the half-pipe in some competition from five years before.
Before she could answer, Logan burst into the room. “Come on, Mom,” he groaned. “I promised the poor girl dinner. Not a full-service tour of your Logan Conrad metropolitan museum.”
“Okay, okay!” Mrs. Conrad threw up her hands, her face a mask of innocence. “So sorry that I have the nerve to be proud of my youngest son!”
Logan groaned, and I followed him back into the kitchen, trying not to laugh. I knew I liked her for a reason.
As we sat down in our chairs, Logan shook his head in the direction of the office and mouthed the word “sorry.” I grinned.
“She’s proud of you,” I scolded him playfully. “And it looks like for good reason, too. That’s a lot of trophies in there.”
He snorted. “Yeah, well, half of them are from when I was a kid. Back then everyone went home with a trophy.” He paused, then added, “Besides, I’m sure you have a room three times that size with all your winnings.”
Now it was my turn to blush. My dad had actually turned my old bedroom in his staff cottage into a Lexi shrine of sorts, and yes, it was kind of overflowing at this point. I’d always been proud of the awards—my dad and I would spend hours going through and dusting and polishing each and every one while we reminisced about which race they’d come from. I sighed. Were those days over forever?
I felt Logan staring at me, and I looked up. His mouth quirked in a shy smile. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered conspiratorially.
“I’m glad to be here,” I whispered back, a hot flush crossing my cheeks. And I was glad, I realized. In fact, at that moment, there was no place else in the world I would rather have been.
“Logan? Can you come here for a second?”
Logan sighed and scrambled to his feet.
“Coming, Mom,” he muttered. Then he mouthed, “Be right back!” to me before heading into the next room.
I stared down at my soup, no longer hungry as butterflies decided to throw an impromptu rave in my stomach. I couldn’t believe I was actually here. Having dinner with a boy. A boy who maybe liked me. Like, liked me, liked me. Suddenly I was really, really glad I hadn’t stayed in Florida this winter.
“Sorry about that!” Logan interrupted my fantasy as he walked back into the room a moment later. His eyes were shining. “But good news!”
“Oh?” I cocked my head in question.
He held up two pieces of paper, a big grin spreading across his face. “I may be banned from Green Mountain,” he announced proudly. “But I think Snow Peak would be happy to take my mom’s tickets.”
I stared up at him, not understanding. “What do you mean?’
“Turns out, Mom’s been holding out on me,” he explained, pressing the papers into my hands. I looked down, realizing they were two vouchers, good for lift tickets at neighboring Snow Peak, a small ski resort about twenty minutes north of here. “She had
these two tickets stashed in a drawer for the last six months,” he explained. “Told me she was saving them for a special occasion. I told her this was it.” He snatched them back, looking down at the vouchers as if they were made of gold. “Isn’t this great?”
The butterflies stopped short. “You’re . . . going riding at Snow Peak?”
“We are!” he corrected. “Tomorrow, if you’re free.”
I stared up at him, a million emotions swirling through me all at once, warring for dominance. He wanted me to go snowboarding tomorrow? With him? What was I going to say?
Logan seemed to sense my hesitation. His smile faltered a bit. “I guess it’s not a big deal for you,” he amended. “I mean you get to ride at Green Mountain every day. . . .”
The hurt in his voice startled me, and I realized, suddenly, just how valuable those two vouchers were to him and his family. Lift tickets were expensive, he’d told me last night. And yet he wanted to give one to me. Giving up an extra day on the mountain, just so the two of us could spend time together, doing something he assumed we both loved.
“I know Snow Peak isn’t that great,” he rambled on, his once-smiling face taking on a sheen of anxiety. “But the pipe’s not so bad. And there’s this amazing secret trail on the back side of the mountain—with the best natural cliff hop I’ve ever seen. Oh and there’s this little abandoned snowmaking hut I found halfway down. Perfect for a picnic lunch . . .”
His words tumbled over one another as he mapped out our day. All the places he wanted to take me. His favorite places—the ones that meant something to him. Watching his anxious eyes as he babbled on, trying to convince me this was a good idea, I realized that even though I should say no—that I should tell him the truth about my accident—I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him down.
So, instead, I found myself nodding yes. Telling him I couldn’t wait. That I’d meet him bright and early outside of Mountain Academy’s front gate so his mom could drive us over.
As I kept talking, as my mouth kept assuring him I was completely down with the plan, I tried my best to shove the rising doubts and fears to the back of my brain, telling myself I’d deal with them later. Right now reality could wait.
Right now it was enough to see Logan smile.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Logan’s mother said she didn’t like the idea of me taking the bus back to Mountain Academy by myself, so she offered to take me in her car instead. And so after dinner the three of us piled into her 1980s wood-paneled station wagon and began to chug up the steep mountain road. I was half-afraid the old boat wasn’t going to make it to the top of the hill, but Mrs. Conrad insisted it was the little engine that could, and sure enough, we eventually pulled up to the old guard shack. Logan’s mom flashed her employee ID, and a few minutes later she pulled over and idled at Mountain Academy’s front gates.
Logan had insisted I ride shotgun, and, as his mother put the car in park, he leaped from the back, gallantly opening the door for me and offering me a hand to help me out of the car. My eyes darted nervously as I stepped out, praying no one was around. If someone saw me getting out of a stranger’s car, they might ask questions. They might even tell my dad. After last night, the last thing I needed was to be caught with Logan again.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow?” Logan asked, looking as nervous as I felt. I wanted to tell him to get back in the car before he got caught again. But at the same time I didn’t want him to leave.
“Can’t wait,” I said with a smile. “I had fun today.”
He grinned back at me. “Me too.”
And then, to my surprise, he leaned forward, pressing his lips against my cheek. Before I could even register the movement, he darted past me, jumped in the car, and slammed the door shut behind him.
I placed a hand to my cheek. He’d kissed me. Logan had kissed me. Okay, it was on the cheek, but still! Seriously, if it wasn’t for the fear of breaking my neck on the ice, I’d probably launch into a full round-off back handspring of joy right about now.
Forcing myself to regain some semblance of composure, I skipped back toward my dorm, feeling lighter and happier than I’d felt in weeks. Maybe even the entire year. I was out of breath by the time I reached my dorm, my excitement burning like a fever. I slid the key into the lock, then pushed open the door, bursting into the room.
“Caitlin, you will not believe what I—”
I stopped mid-sentence as I realized my roommate was not alone. My father was sitting on my bed, picking at a sticker I’d stuck on the bedpost the year before. He looked up.
“There you are!” he exclaimed, rising from his seat. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over campus for you this afternoon.”
His tone was light, cheery. But I could sense an underlying suspicion. Had Olivia mentioned seeing me with Logan that morning? Had someone noticed me getting on the bus? My mind raced—what could I tell him? Obviously not that I’d been hanging out in Littleton with the boy he’d told me not to see. But at the same time, he wasn’t necessarily going to buy the normal hangouts—the library, the ski shop—for all I knew he’d already been looking for me there.
No, there was only one possible answer to this question.
“I just got back from taking a few runs,” I lied, feeling guilt swim in my stomach even as I said the words. The last thing I wanted was to give him false hope about my recovery. But at the same time, it was the easiest thing to say.
Sure enough, his eyes lit up. “That’s great, honey!” he exclaimed. He crossed the room in two seconds and threw his arms around me, squeezing me into a huge hug. “I’m so proud of you. Getting right back on that horse—not letting yesterday’s little fall get you down. Now that’s the Lexi I know and love!”
I hugged him back, ignoring the feeling of Caitlin’s questioning eyes burning into my back. There would be time to explain to her later.
“I’m sorry about last night, Dad,” I added. “I shouldn’t have taken off like that. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Dad pulled away from the hug, looking down at me with proud, shining eyes. “I know you didn’t,” he assured me. “You’d had a rough day. You needed to blow off some steam. I totally get it. We had some ragers of our own back in the day, let me tell you. The stories I could tell . . .” He shook his head. “Now come on. We’re going to dinner. I’ve made reservations at Jacques’s. We can celebrate you getting back on the mountain today!”
“Jacques’s?” I raised an eyebrow. Jacques’s was this big, fancy steakhouse over at the Green Mountain Resort Hotel. It was the kind of restaurant you actually had to get dressed up for or they wouldn’t let you in. The kind of restaurant my dad had always made fun of, calling it an overpriced tourist trap. So why did he suddenly have reservations for us to go? Something had to be up.
“What, can’t a father take his only daughter out somewhere nice?” he protested.
“I guess so,” I said with a shrug, pushing the doubts to the back of my mind. “I’ll need a few minutes to shower and change though. Can’t wear jeans to Jacques’s.”
“No rush,” he told me. “The reservation is at eight. Just meet me outside the restaurant ten minutes before.”
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed. At least that would give me some time to work up an appetite for a second dinner.
“Nice chatting with you, Caitlin,” my father added to my roommate. “I hope you do well on that history test Monday.” A moment later he was out the door.
I turned to my roommate. “Okay, then. That was weird.”
“Um, not half as weird as you telling him you went snowboarding today,” Caitlin replied, giving me a skeptical once-over.
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Well, for one, you don’t have helmet head. You also seem to be wearing full makeup. Not to mention a wool coat, instead of your Burton ski jacket. And—”
“Okay, okay, Nancy Drew,” I cried, holding up my hands in mock innocence. I plopped myself down onto
her bed and grabbed her hands, squeezing them tight. “Do you want to hear what I was really out doing then?” I asked, unable to keep the girlie-girl trill of excitement from my voice.
“Uh, duh.”
I paused dramatically. Then, “I met a guy.”
“Really?” she exclaimed, her eyes widening into saucers. “Who? Is it that new kid—what’s his name? He’s pretty cute. Or was it—?”
“He doesn’t go to Mountain Academy,” I interrupted. “His name is Logan. He’s Mrs. Conrad’s son. You know, from the cafeteria?” I leaned back, swooning a little as I thought of Logan all over again. “You don’t even know, Caitlin. He’s so nice. And so cute. I met him last night out at the half-pipe and he took me to this awesome party. . . .” I quickly relayed the short version of the story, ending with my dad and the ski patrol busting us mountainside.
“Dude!” Caitlin cried once I was finished. “You’re lucky your dad didn’t ground you until Easter.”
“I know, right?” I shook my head. “I felt really bad about it. I mean, not about me getting caught—I can deal with Dad. But I hate the fact that Logan got banned from the mountain because of me. Evidently he missed out on this big race because of it too. Anyway, I decided to meet up with him this morning to tell him I was sorry. And we ended up going down to Littleton to hang out.”
“You went off campus?” Caitlin gasped.
I shrugged. “It wasn’t a huge deal. We went to this coffee house that had an arcade and then to his house.” Caitlin’s eyes widened again. I laughed. “No, nothing like that. His mom was there,” I assured her. “It was no big deal. We just had dinner and I got to see all his snowboarding trophies. Oh and before that I got to sing with this band.” I reached into my pocket and held up the thumb drive. “They recorded it too. I’ll have to play it for you sometime.”
Caitlin let out a low whistle. “Wow,” she said. “And to think I’ve been just sitting here, studying for my history test.” She grinned at me. “So are you going to see him again?”
I flopped back onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s the problem,” I admitted. “I sort of promised him I’d go snowboarding with him tomorrow. Over at Snow Peak.”