The Ex Games
Page 18
“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.
My turn. I could do this. I inhaled through my nose and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.
I exhaled through my mouth and felt gravity pull the energy from my heart down through my legs, through my boots and snowboard, through the snow, to the rocks below. I was one with the mountain.
I touched my remaining lucky earring.
Then I pressed all my weight forward for speed and raced toward the jump, the white edge, the blue sky beyond, the town below, the mountains in the distance. I went off.
Dancing at the Poseur concert had been fun at first, but then Josh and his posse pulled Nick and me into the mosh pit. We needed a break. While Nick snagged us a lawn chair on the ski lodge deck above the concert, I bought us a couple of hot chocolates—and passed Gavin and Chloe at the teller machine. She rubbed her gloves together gleefully, then held them out while Gavin counted the cash into her hands.
“Hayden!” she exclaimed as I walked up, but her eyes didn’t leave the money. Clearly, she didn’t trust Gavin. “I went ahead and bought us tickets to be safe in case the concert was sold out, and now Gavin is paying—me—back—ha!” She tapped his cheek playfully with the stack of bills. He closed one eye against the attack.
“Not that you thought I would lose or anything,” I said suspiciously.
She innocently fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Of course not!”
“We shouldn’t have doubted you,” Gavin said. “I have never seen anybody short of a pro ride the pipe like that.”
I glared at him. Because the words were coming from his mouth, I expected them to be sarcastic. But his face was friendly and open. For once, he seemed genuine.
“And a 1080 off the jump?” he went on. “That was savage.”
Chloe widened her eyes at him. “Why are you being nice? Has your body been taken over by aliens?”
“You’ll find out tonight, baby.”
I stopped the tickle fest I felt coming on between them by handing them each a hot chocolate. “Hold this. My phone’s beeping.” I took it out of my pocket and peered at the text message.
Nick: Do u want 2 b n people?
“People,” I murmured as if he could hear me. “As in the magazine?” I peered up onto the deck and saw him standing next to our lounge chair, talking with a group of adults with cameras. “Oh my God, paparazzi? No way!”
“Way,” Gavin said. “I saw them talking to Daisy Delaney earlier. They must have followed Poseur here, then realized there were more celebrities they could milk.”
“Nick isn’t that kind of celebrity,” I said.
“I’ll bet they want him for a special theme issue,” Chloe suggested. “How the richest bachelors in America spent Valentine’s Day.”
I glanced dubiously toward the mosh pit. Then I looked toward Nick again and strained to hear what he was saying over the Poseur tune.
“Are you here alone?” one of the men asked him. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Yes, I’m seeing someone,” Nick said, standing beside them but hardly acknowledging them. He was watching for my answer on his phone.
“For how long?” a woman asked.
About an hour, I thought. Or did we officially start seeing each other on the ski lift this morning? Ten hours. I smiled, remembering the sunny afternoon we’d spent boarding with Daisy Delaney and her boyfriend. Or … what did “seeing each other” mean, anyway? If nearly making out in the sauna counted, we’d been seeing each other for five days.
“Four years,” I heard him say.
“Aww!” I squealed. Then I turned to Chloe. “Do I want to be in People?”
“No,” she said firmly. “Nick is hot.”
Gavin frowned and poked her in the side. “Hey.”
She ducked away from his finger. “Facts are facts. Nick is hot, and when girls read People and see he’s dating you, they will call you a skank ho. You and I have mooned over Prince William. We know the deal.”
“True.” When Nick glanced slyly down at me, I shook my head no.
For a few more minutes, I talked with Chloe and Gavin, and we all watched Liz and Davis swaying romantically to a rare slow song from Poseur. What a happy Valentine’s Day. Then, when the paparazzi had cleared out, I climbed the steps to the deck and handed a cup of hot chocolate to Nick. He sat down in the lawn chair and unzipped his parka. I settled back against his warm shirt.
“I bought you a Valentine’s Day present,” he said in my ear, sending shivers through me despite all my layers. He rocked to one side in the chair and pulled something from his back pocket.
I took it in my gloved hands and peered at it in the dusky light from the stage and the stars. It was a sew-on patch with a black diamond in the center, the symbol for a dangerous ski slope. “Nick, that’s so cool! I love it!”
“That’s not all.” He rocked to his other side and pulled out another patch. This one had a four-leaf clover. “To replace the luck you’re missing.”
“Nick.” I stared at the patches in my mittens, trying not to tear up. “This is sweet of you.”
“I really like you in those ‘BOY TOY’ jeans,” he said, “but this needs to go on top of ‘BOY.’” He took the black diamond from me and shook it. “And the clover goes on top of ‘TOY.’”
“Deal.” I slipped the patches into my coat pocket. Then I sipped my hot chocolate and sighed, enjoying his warmth behind me. “We’ve been dating for four years, huh? I don’t think Fiona will like that answer.”
“You’ve always had my heart.” He kissed my earlobe—the one without a bandage. The one that was still lucky. “You know, you’re going to be in People anyway when you make the Olympic snowboarding team. ESPN will ask you, ‘Hayden O’Malley, you came from nowhere at age seventeen. Where have you been?’ And you’ll answer, ‘Oh, I had a few acrophobic issues to work through.’”
Laughing, I poked him for his embarrassingly accurate imitation of my southern drawl.
He continued in my voice, “‘Then one night my boyfriend was being an ass and I challenged him to a comp. I had to do a front 1080 off a jump just to show him up, and the rest is history.’”
“I hope so.”
“I know so.” He kissed
my cheek.
I reached back to run my fingers through his long hair. “Right now I want to lie low, have a normal life, and hang out with my boyfriend. I’ll meet you in People in a few years.”
He chuckled, making my insides sparkle with anticipation. “It’s a date.”
About the Author
Jennifer Echols is the author of the romantic comedies The Boys Next Door and Major Crush and the teen drama Going Too Far. She lives in Alabama with her family, no snow, and a vivid imagination. Please visit her on the Web at www.jennifer-echols.com!
LOL at this sneak peek of
Perfect Shot By Debbie Rigaud
A new Romantic Comedy from Simon Pulse
“Heads up!” was my only warning before it was launched over the aisle toward me. Even though I was on one knee, stocking shelves with acrylic paint tubes, my reflexes were on their feet. My long forearms met the ball of rubber bands with a force that sent it hurling back toward where it came from.
“Ouch!” Pam, my coworker-slash-best-friend, yelped.
Snickering to myself, I rushed over to her aisle to apologize. She gave me the dramatic, injured look, so I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
“C’mon, it was just a few soft rubber bands,” I offered sweetly.
“Yeah—and not a volleyball.” She pouted, rubbing her forehead. “I swear, London, from now on, going to one of your volleyball matches is gonna feel like watching a scary movie.”
“Seeing as how you overact worse than a Hollyweird D-lister,” I teased, “that would be a step up for you.”
Pam forgot about her wounded act and coughed up a boisterous laugh that I’m sure all of northern New Jersey heard. She’s not usually the loud type, but the girl is known to turn up the volume on just about every aspect of her personality.
“You’re never gonna let me live that down, huh?” Pam placed her hand—the one not holding a stack of colored pencils—over her heart and squinted as if the sun was in her eyes. “I did it for you. The ref had to understand how foul his call was.”
Her theatrics aside, I appreciate that she comes to almost every one of my home games to show her support.
“Mmm-hmm,” I teased. “Next time you get the urge to run screaming across the court during game time, don’t do me any favors.”
“Owww,” Pam whimpered. Going for the right distraction to change the subject, she started stroking her forehead again. I grinned and wrapped my long arms around Pam’s shoulders, giving her a quick, apologetic squeeze. My five-foot-ten frame extended half a head taller than her.
“Sorry.” I picked up the rubber orb and carefully pulled off the red band on top. “Anyway, I only asked you for one.”
“Next time I won’t be so generous.” Pam got in the last word before she carried on placing colored pencils into separate slots on a fixture.
I smiled to myself and headed back to my acrylic paint duties. Without intending it to be, working the same shift at Art Attack was becoming the perfect chance for Pam and me to hang together. Even though we’re both sophomores at Teawood High, my volleyball season being in full swing and Pam’s double passions for fashion and her boyfriend, Jake, have kept us preoccupied. Before this job, we’d mostly been keeping in touch via text.
Unexpected bonus BFF time aside, Pam got me a job here for another reason altogether. Once she heard I was passed up for the volleyball summer camp scholarship and had to raise the fifteen-hundred-dollar fee on my own, she put in a good word with her boss. Now here I am, two weeks later, proudly rocking the faux-paint-splattered red employee vest.
Art Attack was one of a few artsy stores to pop up on Main Avenue in recent months. The eleven-block strip, known to locals as “the Ave,” always had potential. Just a few miles from New York City, Teawood, New Jersey, is a large suburb with a metropolitan vibe. Cozy coaches—or as we like to call them, adult school buses—make their way down the Ave, shuttling Teawood residents to and from their NYC jobs every workday, morning and evening. On Saturdays kids either head across the bridge to shop in Manhattan or parade down the Ave in celebs-on-a-coffee-run attire. For them it’s all about comfy boots with oversize handbags and shades.
In the heart of the strip, the brick sidewalks are spacious and lined with benches and old-world lampposts. Luxury car dealer-ships, designer shoe stores, and fancy evening gown showrooms stand alongside busy restaurants, open-late ice cream shops, and trendy clothing stores. Lots of famous folks who live in nearby, more upscale towns—including a few rappers who publicly claim to still be living in New York City—can be spotted shopping or lunching here. (Reverend Run’s kids are known to pass through, reality-show cameras in tow.) Shiny cars cruise up and down, looking for both attention and parking.
No celebrity sightings in Art Attack to report yet. That’s probably because my part-time working hours are spent avoiding customers and their art-related questions. Pam, in her arstyliciousness, is a much better fit for this job. Honestly, if I’d known that a prerequisite for working at an art supply store was creativity, I would’ve found another way to earn money.
But it’s all worth it. The Peak Performance Volleyball Camp in upstate New York trains top high school players from the tri-state area and gives them a shot at making the national team. I’ve wanted to go to Peak Performance ever since my gym teacher told me about it in the eighth grade. It has the best reputation. Plus it lands athletes on the radar of prominent college scouts—which is right where I want to be.
Trust, I would walk around stuffed to the gills in grills like rapper Plies if you told me gold teeth had transmitters that blip on the radar of college scouts.
Crazy ambition aside, what’s fun about Peak Performance is that after weeks of intensive training in the art of spiking, blocking, serving, and winning, the camp squad flies to Miami to play against teams from other regions across the country.
Even though scholarships were awarded to only two star athletes from my school—seniors who have already been handpicked to play volleyball in college—I was selected to join the camp. My parents said they’d gladly pay the hefty fee … but only if I enroll the summer after my junior year. Trouble is, who even knows what chance I’d have for getting picked next year! Considering there’s no guaranteed placement, I just can’t pass up this summer’s opportunity.
So for now I’m all about improving my game, which, as it turns out, has been the therapy I needed to get over my ex-boyfriend Rick Stapleton. Correction: I didn’t need to get over him so much as the humiliation of being dumped publicly. Of course, all of that intensified volleyball focus has reflected on my wardrobe (I pair a v-ball jersey with jeans, like, every day) and the number of v-ball clips on my Facebook page.
I’m finally shaking off the heartbreak, but I still feel stupid when I think of how, right before it went down, I was beaming like SpongeBob because I was genuinely happy for my then boyfriend. Picture gullible me, all chipper in the bleachers, watching Rick get honored as Peak Performance’s Top Athlete in his age group. I jumped up and cheered so loudly when his name was announced that I gave myself laryngitis and a migraine. That was mere minutes before I found out that Rick had also worked on his playa-playa game during his summer away.
Yup, in August, Rick returned from camp with a new girlfriend—the hot v-ball star from a rival school. After practically skipping off the bleachers, intending to congratulate Rick and welcome him back with a kiss, I caught the sight of him hugging up on a Keke Palmer lookalike. He didn’t even unglue himself from her when he saw me staring, frozen in shock. It didn’t matter, because by then my voice was too hoarse (and my head too achy) to confront Rick.
We haven’t spoken since.
But despite the prime-time shaft—witnessed by the entire athletic student body, by the way—I’m turning things around. It’s October, and I’ve established myself as a new, strong player on Teawood High’s varsity squad. Not even the sight of unslick Rick watching from the stands (with her) can throw off my game.
“Lon
don Abrams, you’re on register.” My manager’s squawky voice yanked me back from my daydream.
I noticed that I’d been squeezing a helpless tube of paint, leaving it misshapen and crinkled. As best I could, I flattened it to its near-original figure before placing it at the back of the shelf behind the undamaged tubes.
My boss didn’t notice—he’s in his own world. While other managers and employees of Art Attack are funky, creative types, this one is offbeat in a chop-off-an-ear Van Gogh way. The poor guy seems tormented by a million unfinished personal art projects. He wears that torment in his hair. It looks more mad scientist than everyone else’s bed-head vogue.
“Great, my favorite place to be,” I said sarcastically, sidestepping his attempt at authority. With a million different possible payment transactions—cash, credit card, Art Attack bonuses, promotional codes, coupons, employee discounts, buy two get one half off deals—I still wasn’t completely comfortable manning the checkout counter.
“Would you rather advise customers on how to put their art projects together?” he asked.
I suck at art advice. So, after stocking the shelves, I went to relieve the lanky goth guy signing off of register 1.
Fortunately for me, it was smooth sailing for the first two hours—just simple cash and credit card customers. But about a half hour before my lunch break, things started getting busy. The checkout lane signs—wide lamp shades displaying red numbers—blocked the shorter cashiers from view. On the flip side, my head towered above my lane’s sign. Because they could see me, customers assumed I was the only employee on duty. So a long line formed at my register, while my coworkers at registers 2 and 3 seemed to be hiding behind their signs on purpose.