The Ex Games

by Jennifer Echols

  Uh-oh. I definitely did not want my parents butting into my business, especially not about this. “You had better not,” I shouted after him. “Do you hear me, O’Malley? I will tell Gavin’s sister you slept with a stuffed bunny rabbit until you were in middle school, so help me God!”

  Josh dropped his board, slid down to me, and clamped his hand over my mouth. “Shhhh! Mr. Big Ears was very special.”

  It took me a full ten seconds to push Josh off me. I hoped no more buses passed by, because the tourists inside would probably grip the poles in the middle of the bus and edge a bit farther from the crazy locals. Last winter I would have beat Josh away with no problem. He was growing fast. I wouldn’t be able to overpower him much longer, so we needed to solve this issue before then.

  Avoidance was so much easier. I’d had enough of him and Liz both dragging me down in the midst of my happy afternoon. “Don’t tell them,” I said again between gasps. I bent his fingers backward to make him let me go.

  “Ow!” he barked, rubbing his fingers, face bright red underneath his freckles. I shouldn’t have bent his fingers back. This was another thing Josh and I had in common: a bad temper. We might seem good-natured to the point of ditsy, but push us too far and we’d snap. I was using yoga to work on this. Judging from our current convo, Josh was not.

  He bent to snag his board and jogged up the slippery slope. He wanted to beat me home. What would he tell Mom when he got there?

  “Josh!” I shouted, jogging after him as best I could. I tripped over my board and lost my grip. It zipped back down the sidewalk, past two houses, and crashed into a mailbox. At least I knew I’d done a good job of waxing it last night. I trotted after it and called pitifully to Josh as I picked it up. “Little bro, I love you so much!”

  Way up the hill, he disappeared inside our house.

  1440

  1440

  (fôr tn fôr t) n. 1. a quadruple spin, nearly impossible to pull off 2. Hayden’s fear of heights, nearly impossible to hide

  When I finally made it into the mud room, panting with exertion and hot under five layers of clothing, Josh had only pulled off his boots. He sat on the bench and playfully grabbed at Doofus’s snout. He hadn’t spilled anything to mom yet. Whew.

  I extracted myself from my parka. “You are, seriously, my favorite brother.”

  Josh scratched Doofus’s ears and seemed to be telling the dog rather than me, “I’m your only brother. And you bent my fingers back and hurt them.” He poked out his bottom lip.

  “I will kiss your fingers and make them better, kissy kissy,” I threatened him. That got him up pretty quickly. He kicked off the rest of his snow clothes and skidded into the kitchen in his long johns and socks. I stripped down to my long johns, too—tripped over Doofus—and scrambled after Josh, angry already about what he might tell Mom, depending on how mischievous he felt.

  Mom was giving him a big hug, wearing her yoga leotard from work, holding the large kitchen knife she’d just been chopping dinner with. If they weren’t my family I might have been frightened. “Well, how’d you do?” she asked, pulling back to look him in the face.

  “I won third place in the junior boys’ division!” Josh exclaimed with wide, innocent eyes like an adorable woodland creature in a Disney cartoon. I wondered what he was up to. I wanted to slap him. But then I would be forced to explain to my mom why I’d slapped the adorable woodland creature.

  “That’s great, honey!” She wrapped him in another hug. He was facing me now. He gave me a wink and a thumbs-up. Ugh!

  Mom eased out of the hug with him but kept her hands on his shoulders. “Why are you acting like a parody of yourself?” she asked him.

  Josh blinked at her. “That’s just a function of being a teenager. I feel so empty inside. What’s for dinner?” He slipped out from under her hands and wandered to the refrigerator.

  Mom turned to me, and the big grin she’d worn for Josh sagged a little. She didn’t expect much from my first snowboard competition. “And how’d you do, honey?”

  “I did okay.”

  “I’ll give you five seconds,” Josh called from behind the refrigerator door.

  Mom looked at Josh, then back at me. “What? What is it?”

  I looked into her eyes, dark like Josh’s and mine. I took in her long red hair tamed into a braid down her back, her freckles that made her look younger than forty-six. At least, I thought so, and I hoped so, because clearly I was going to look just like her. Maybe she’d take my side, whatever Josh was about to tell her. She knew how hard my injury had been on me.

  “Actually …,” I said slowly.

  With each of my syllables, her right eyebrow arched higher.

  “I won,” I finished.

  “Oh my God, that’s great, you won!” With her braid bouncing as she jumped up and down, she looked and sounded a lot like Liz—except for, you know, the knife. “That means you’re a lot better at snowboarding than I thought! You’ve finally gotten over your fear of heights! And—wait a minute—why didn’t you want to tell me?” Abruptly she stopped jumping. “What’s the prize?”

  Josh walked over with a stalk of celery sticking out of his mouth. He removed the knife from Mom’s hand and set it on the counter. Then he said around the celery, “Lessons with Daisy Delaney.”

  “Daisy Delaney!” Mom gasped. “Hayden! I am old and out of it, as you’re so fond of telling me, but even I know who Daisy Delaney is. That’s some prize!”

  “But guess what?” Josh went on, removing the celery from his mouth so he could rub this in as thoroughly as possible. “Hayden’s been avoiding comps all this time because they have jumps in them. Her fear of heights is so bad that Daisy Delaney’s going to think she’s a beginner.”

  Mom turned back to me, and her other eyebrow went up. “Really?”

  “She won’t set foot on the gondola,” Josh blathered on. “She won’t even get on the regular ski lifts that go too high off the ground. She sticks to the low, short lifts, which means she’s been boarding for four years and she’s never even seen half the mountain.”

  “That half of the mountain is nothing but jumps and cliffs. I don’t want to see it,” I insisted.

  “This is bullshit,” Josh shouted over me. “Mom, she’s supposed to take me with her. Like Elijah and Hannah Teter. Like Molly and Mason Aguirre.”

  “Who?” Mom shouted back.

  “One sibling goes pro and helps the other along.” Josh gestured dramatically with the celery. “You could have two pro snowboarders in the family. We would buy you a new minivan. You want a new minivan, don’t you?”

  “Tempting,” Mom told him drily. She turned and gave me a long look. “Well, Hayden? You’ve said you want to become a professional snowboarder, but your father and I assumed you wouldn’t be able to do that because of your fear of heights. We thought eventually you’d give up, go to college, and major in …” Her voice trailed off.

  And no wonder. Currently I had a C in chemistry, a C in history, and a D in algebra. Ms. Abernathy wasn’t the only teacher sending me out in the hall for talking.

  “But if you’re good enough to win a contest in Snowfall,” Mom went on, “and you have a foot in the door with Daisy Delaney, you have as good a chance of going pro as anybody. Do you want help getting over your fear of heights? We could take you to the doctor—”

  “Yeah, that’s just what I need, to miss my days snowboarding so I can sit in some doctor’s office and go through more rehab.” My voice rose and thinned until it petered out at the end, and rehab was a whisper. My fear of doctors might actually have been worse than my fear of heights, judging from my shallow breaths.

  Mom must have noticed, because she put her hand on my shoulder. “Or a counselor of some kind?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Don’t let her get away with this.” Josh pointed at my mother with the celery. “She is a foolish, foolish young girl.”

  Mom rolled her eyes at Josh. “Lay off her, would you? If
she doesn’t want help with her phobia, she’ll work through it on her own, or she won’t go pro. It’s not something we can decide for her. Get your own lessons with Daisy Delaney. I’m going to call your father and tell him the good news. Where’s my phone?” She padded out of the kitchen in her bare feet, braid swinging gently against her back. Then there was a screech and a dog yelp. She must have tripped over Doofus lying on the floor in the living room. “I’m okay,” she called.

  I was holding my breath. When I realized this and forced myself to breathe again, I smelled smoke. Mom had left dinner burning. I dashed to the stove to stir the tofu.

  I didn’t look at Josh, but out of the corner of my eye I could see him standing at the counter, stuffing his face with handfuls of organic rice crisps out of the bag. Finally I said, “You owe me.”

  “I don’t owe you anything.” He sidled over and tried to stick a rice crisp in my ear. “You’re supposed to take me with you. That’s what siblings do.”

  I batted his hand away and shook the tofu-y spatula at him. “If I ever do go pro, I have no obligation to take you with me. Younger siblings have to earn that kind of favor. You told on me for winning a contest, you ass! You owe me. And you know what I want in return.”

  He scowled at me. “Not the pants.”

  I nodded gravely. “Give me your pants.”

  These were no magical traveling pants. They were only my little brother’s broken-in jeans that fit me perfectly and that he almost never let me wear. I’d even tried on the identical size and style at the store, but they weren’t the same.

  He knew how I loved them, too, so he sabotaged them just to irk me. Once he tore a hole in the butt so my panties would show. This might have been an accident, but I was pretty sure the edges of the hole were cut, not frayed. I got revenge on him by patching up the hole with a little red heart. Infuriatingly he wore them like that out in public, as if I didn’t have enough social problems without a little brother with hearts sewn onto his behind.

  This time, as I stood in my bedroom and looked the jeans over just in case before pulling them on, I saw that he’d written BOY TOY in big block letters across the butt in permanent marker, right next to the heart patch. Never mind that he would have to wear them to school like that. It was worth it to him if he embarrassed me. Gah, he might have made it to the eighth grade, but he was still such a little brother! When we were fifty he’d still be stuffing my snow boots with wet macaroni.

  But I had to wear the jeans tonight while I had the chance, and the marker would probably take years to wash out. That was okay. I enjoyed feeling like I looked good, but I wouldn’t be trying to impress anyone with my outfit tonight. For winning the competition, Chloe and Liz were throwing me a “party” at Chloe’s parents’ hotel. What this really meant was that Chloe would suck face with Gavin, Liz would suck face with Davis, and I would keep the onion dip company. No one would notice my BOY TOY butt. It was sweet of Chloe and Liz to intend to celebrate my win and show me a good time, even if I knew it wouldn’t work out that way.

  So after dinner I rode the bus back into town, waved to the doorman at the front entrance of the hotel, and made my way downstairs into the kitchen adjoining the banquet room. A beautiful cake frosted with CONGRATULATIONS HAYDEN! waited on the counter, and a chick wailed lonely emo lyrics from the stereo. But the room was empty.

  “Hello?” I called, my voice echoing above the music.

  There was a scream, and then a door opened. Chloe stepped out of the pantry, smoothing her hands through her mussed blond hair. “Hey girl! Oh my God, you look so awesome in those jeans!”

  “Thanks. Josh let me borrow them. You’ll never see them again unless I find something else to coerce him with, but it’ll be two years before he’s old enough to drive down to Denver and buy crack.”

  “I’m serious.” She looked me up and down. “You could be a model.”

  “Selling what? Hamburgers, like the Wendy’s girl? I have red hair and freckles.”

  “Think about Lindsay Lohan.”

  “I’d rather not,” I muttered as Chloe turned me around backward and lifted up my coat to admire my ass.

  Then she gasped. “Oh my God, ‘BOY TOY’?”

  “That’s me, fast and loose.” This came out sounding more wistful than I’d intended, and I hoped she didn’t guess I was thinking about Nick. “Speaking of which, I take it you and Gavin are rearranging the soup cans?” I nodded toward the pantry.

  “Ah … yeah.” Her cheeks tinged pink. “We’re almost through with our inventory.”

  “You are?” I exclaimed.

  “I mean, that didn’t come out right.” She blushed more deeply. It was hilarious to see Chloe flustered, which happened only once a year or so. She must really like Gavin, which I still found bizarre.

  “We’ll be out in a sec,” she said. “Liz and Davis are in the hot tub.”

  They certainly were. The back of the kitchen was a wall of windows overlooking the hotel’s heated pool and hot tub. Steam rose from the water and wisped into the night.

  Over Chloe’s shoulder I could see Liz and Davis deep in the hot tub, seeking refuge from the frigid winter air, kissing slowly. I didn’t have the heart to interrupt. Knowing them, it had taken them half an hour to work up the courage to touch each other at all.

  “No hurry.” I winked to show Chloe my support for taking inventory with Gavin. It was very important that a winter resort hotel never run out of soup. She backed into the pantry and closed the door.

  I examined my cake on the counter again. CONGRATULATIONS HAYDEN! The only thing worse than being abandoned at my own victory party was letting my friends know I cared about this, and making them feel bad about it so they stayed with me instead of stealing the alone-time they really wanted with their boyfriends. You know what it was like? It was exactly like being grateful to my friends in Tennessee for continuing to hang out with me when I was in a wheelchair, but knowing all along that they’d rather ditch me.

  I missed Everett Walsh for the first time since we’d broken up last week.

  Suddenly I realized I was staring at Liz and Davis again, his dark hand stroking her porcelain complexion. Okay, I would not stare at my friends making out like I was love-starved. From the hot tub my gaze traveled up, over the faux-rustic shops of downtown Snowfall, and the white lights strung in the bare trees. The dark mountain looming over the town was visible in the night only because starlight reflected on the snowy slopes. I’d always regarded that mountain as my friend. It had given me years of highs induced by sun and speed. It had helped me regain so much of the confidence I’d lost when I’d broken my leg. Tonight, for the first time ever, the mountain looked cold and menacing. I shivered.

  I knew one way to warm up, besides the hot tub and the pool. I hurried to the locker room to change into the bikini and flip-flops I’d brought to enjoy the hotel amenities. Then I dashed back through the cold banquet room. The door into the hallway squealed, letting anyone in the sauna know I was coming.

  A few times over the years, Chloe and I had surprised hotel guests in compromising situations in the sauna. Tonight I might walk in on a beer-fueled boys’ night out for a group of middle-aged men, in which case I would make an excuse and back out of the sauna. But now that the hallway door had developed this squeak, at least I knew I wouldn’t interrupt folks in the middle of something they shouldn’t be doing in a public place.

  As I pushed open the sauna door and stepped into the eucalyptus-scented steam, I saw I wouldn’t be alone. The other occupant had heard me coming and was wrapping his towel more modestly around his bathing suit. I could still back out of the small, dark space. I hesitated to slide onto the bench across from him until I got a good look at him.

  I squinted through the mist and finally realized it was—“Nick! I mean, Ex!”

  “Hayden! I mean, Hoyden!” He sounded as surprised to see me as I was to see him. His eyes slid to my bare tummy. “You have a body like a rock.”

  Rig
ht back at ya, I could have said. I’d known Nick was built. His family had a membership at my parents’ health club, and he sometimes came in to lift weights. His favorites were the arm curl machine and the abdominal machine, where he would lift hard for long minutes and then fight for a few last painful crunches. Not that I made a habit of standing there and staring at him as he worked out. That would be creepy. I watched him on the surveillance cameras behind the reception desk.

  Even though he never worked out with his shirt off, I could have predicted that what I saw now had been hiding under his tee: six-pack abs with beads of sweat sliding down them like the disembodied torsos in workout machine infomercials. But I was surprised at how thin he was. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. I watched the muscles of his upper arms move underneath his skin as he leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. I had the strange sensation I was seeing a different person, a real person, rather than the model-handsome perfection who had sashayed his way through my school and my fantasies for the last four years. Suddenly he was less a superhero and more a boy my age, caught off guard in the sauna.

  I liked this Nick even better.

  And he approved of my body, too.

  Or did he? Did a girl want to be a rock? Was this a compliment? I draped my towel across the bench opposite him and sat down. “What kind of rock?” I asked casually. “Granite is rough. Mica is shiny and flaky.” Whoops. I was feeding him jokes. I might as well have sat there and insulted myself. Nick didn’t even need to participate.

  Both of those sound right, he would have said if we were trading insults across the chemistry classroom. Instead he said, “Come over here and give me a closer look.”

  Nick was hot, and his voice was honey. We were alone in a cloud of steam. I wanted so badly to close the five feet of space between us by hopping down from my bench and jumping onto his.

  But there was no way. That’s what I’d do if I were still the new girl at school who wasn’t wise to him yet. I said, “You’re the one who wants the look. You come over here.”