The Ex Games Read online

I stopped at the bottom of the half-pipe with twenty or thirty other skiers and boarders who were watching the show. Then I turned to catch Chloe as she came down the hill. Over the years, on the rare occasions when she came boarding with me, catching her had proven a more effective method of stopping her than teaching her to stop herself, which she could not seem to get the hang of.

  In front of us, the guy who’d come in second place in the older boys’ division yesterday sped through the pipe, which was basically the bottom half of a tube buried in the snow—an enormous tube with eighteen-foot sides. He boarded up one wall, launched into the air, and rotated his body in a backside 720. Then he landed easily and slid like butter down the wall, accelerating across the flat to launch himself up the opposite wall, back and forth until he ran out of pipe. He boarded out toward us. Seeing me on the edge of the crowd, he called, “Hayden O’Malley! My girlfriend and I have a bet for Poseur tickets on you and Krieger. Be sure you lose that comp for me!”

  Now that I looked around, there were a lot of people from school hanging out here, and all of them seemed to have heard about Nick and me. They murmured behind their hands or called out, “Dis!” and “Drama!” I even heard some girls close by discussing whether Nick and I were hooking up, as if I were deaf.

  “You might as well fork over your seventy-two dollars right now!” Chloe yelled after the offending guy, but he was already halfway to the lift back up to the top of the pipe. To me she murmured, “You go almost as high as he does in the half-pipe. I don’t want to scare you or anything. But you’re sliding up the wall and going way up in the air, upside down half the time, and you’re not the least bit scared of that. What’s so different about the jump?”

  I knew exactly what was so different, because I’d discussed this at length with Josh years ago when we first discovered I Did Not Do Jumps. “In the half-pipe I’m starting out in the flat, going up the wall and into the air, and then coming back down,” I explained. “To me that’s a lot different from the jump, which is basically a controlled fall off a very high wall. It sounds a little too much like equipment failure when you’re rappelling.”

  “But you’re not rappelling,” Chloe pointed out, “and you don’t have any equipment to fail you. Well, you have your snowboard, maybe, but no ropes or pulleys or whatever’s supposed to hold you up. I have studied this in great detail today. While you were not going off the jump, everybody in Snowfall did go off it. My dentist. My mailman. An entire second grade class.”

  “What’s your encouraging and helpful point, coach?” I prompted her.

  “The jump’s just mind over matter. It’s not like you’re falling off a cliff. When you go off the jump, you’ve got so much momentum that you fall gently, and the ground keeps sloping gently away from you as you go, so you have a longer ride.” She demonstrated with her pink-gloved hands. One of them was the jump and the gentle slope. The other one was me, going off the jump and then falling to my death.

  As if I needed instruction on this. As if I didn’t live here in Snowfall and stare in awe at the jump every day of my life. “Thanks for the tip, professor. Okay, watch this.” I turned around so I could see the jump behind us through the trees, and I put out my hands to spin Chloe around on her board. We watched a little kid go off the jump. “See how he loses his balance and moves his arms in wild circles like he’s rolling down the windows on an old car? That means he’s lost most of his balance and all of his control. I’m not going off anything where I might lose control. Ever. Again.”

  Chloe pushed her goggles off her face. Then she put both hands on the sides of my head and lifted my goggles so her blue eyes stared straight into my eyes. “Then you know exactly what you have to do. You have to take back control.”

  Midafternoon, I left the mountain. No loss there, since I didn’t need any more practice at not going off the jump. I was scheduled to help my mom with yoga class. I didn’t have the certification yet to teach yoga by myself. But we had a lot of elderly and disabled members at the health club, and my mom liked me to hang in the back of the class in case anyone needed special assistance. One time last year, she had to stop instruction when somebody got totally stuck in the Downward-Facing Dog.

  On the hour, I walked into the main classroom and knelt in front of the stereo. I adjusted the music from the heinous Sweatin’-to-the-Oldies aerobics beat for the class before ours to the calming ohm-like chords for yoga, complete with running water and chirping birds in the background. Out of the corner of my eye, I recognized all the regulars for this class and waved to them as they came in: new moms trying to lose the baby weight, a couple of men in rehab after skiing accidents, and old folks maneuvering slowly through the door, some with canes or walkers. Then came a few folks I didn’t know, probably tourists who’d bought a temporary membership for their week or two in town. And then Nick.

  Okay, it probably wasn’t him. I was so angry with him that I had him on the brain and I was seeing him everywhere, just like I thought I saw him watching me from his deck during the competition yesterday. Oh, wait, that really had been him.

  Anyway, I forgot all about phantom Nick when my mom bustled in. She liked to stay at the front desk, greeting guests, until the very last second, which was another reason she needed me there—to socialize before class and to set up the equipment for her. As I handed her the headset mic that would project her voice around the mirrored studio, she looked me up and down. “Well? Did you go off the jump?”

  “Did she ever!” called an elderly lady at the back of the class. “Congratulations, Hayden! We saw your picture in the newspaper.” Several people broke into applause.

  My mother raised one eyebrow at me. “I haven’t seen the paper today. Were you in the paper?”

  “Uhhhhh.” Without answering, I turned and hurried toward the back of the room, weaving around bodies on yoga mats in the center of the polished wood floor, thinking unkind thoughts about well-meaning old people who wanted to push me into being successful.

  My mom got settled on the raised platform at the front of the class. She made her voice soothing as she coaxed everyone into Child’s Pose. They curled into balls with their foreheads down on their mats and their arms out in front of them. I skirted one last mat to curl up on mine. Listening to my mom, I relaxed heavily into the pose. There was a reason I was so into yoga. I was high-strung (news flash!). Yoga helped me focus and keep a handle on what was important, so I didn’t wig out over the small stuff. Only the big stuff.

  Speaking of which, I followed my mom’s instructions and slowly rose into Mountain Pose (that’s standing up, if you want to get technical) and opened into Warrior One with one foot ahead. At the same time the man beside me, obviously a novice, got confused and held Warrior One with his other foot ahead. Mom moved us into Warrior Two, so our arms opened toward each other and I was able to glance at him out of curiosity without being obvious.

  It really was Nick.

  goofy

  goofy

  (gü f) adj. 1. riding the snowboard with your right foot forward, unlike most people 2. Hayden, trying to act sophisticated

  As I’ve said, Nick was no stranger to the health club. I’d whiled away many a shift behind the front desk, watching his love/hate relationship with the abdominal machine unfold on the surveillance cameras.

  But he’d never, ever come to my mom’s yoga class. When he’d showed up at the jump a few hours ago, I’d felt befuddled. Not angry, though. Not about that. He had as much right to the mountain as the rest of us, and he’d only happened upon us by accident. Now I was angry.

  I supposed he had as much right as I did to use the health club, too, since his family was paying for a membership. I’d even told him this afternoon that I helped my mom with yoga. But after a fight like the one we’d had last night, he did not have a right to follow me to my family’s business, to my job, insulting me.

  He grinned at me and shook his dark hair out of his eyes. He was still holding Warrior Two and he didn’t have a pink
ie free to flick it. “You offered to show me some stretches,” he murmured.

  Not quietly enough. As my mom brought us up and around into Reverse Warrior with our arms pointed toward the ceiling, her calming yoga voice rose a notch.

  I should have ignored Nick—though this had never worked for me in the past. Instead, I said in a stage whisper, “You shouldn’t have poked fun at my offer before, if it sounds like a good idea now.”

  “Return to Warrior Two,” my mom intoned. “Breeeeeathe. You are strong like a warrior, with strong and stable roots down into the floor.”

  “I was being subtle.” He wasn’t facing me now. He directed his words forward, over his fingertips pointing ahead, with his perfect body in the perfect Warrior Two Pose. Except for, you know, the talking.

  I did not speak over my perfectly pointed fingertips. Screw Warrior Two. I turned my head toward Nick, and it was all I could do to keep my arms out rather than putting my hands on my hips as I scolded him. “You don’t care about yoga. You’re here because I told you that you couldn’t do it, and you can’t stand to pass up a challenge.”

  My mom’s soothing voice rose a bit more. “Open your body toward the wall, then sink into Triangle. Feel the stretch. Breeeeeathe. Continue to send strong and stable roots into the ground.” This was her code for me to make sure the elderly people were not about to fall down.

  I folded over into Triangle Pose. With my head hanging down, I looked through my legs straddled wide on the mat. The old folks appeared to me like they had pretty stable roots, or as stable as possible for hundred-year-olds doing yoga.

  I glanced up at Nick, whose head was very close to mine. His face was turning red.

  “The Triangle Pose is not for everyone,” I said drily.

  Nick eyed me uneasily. Or maybe that was just the blood rushing to his head. Then he said, “You invited me here.”

  I shook my head, and my ponytails brushed the wood floor. “You misunderstood me. You were making fun of me for not going off the jump. Suggesting that you do yoga was my subtle way of telling you to go to hell.”

  “From here, move your hand behind your foot for Reverse Triangle. Breeeeeathe.” My mom was practically shouting into her headset now. She might as well change the ohm-like yoga music with chirping birds to a nice, relaxing polka.

  Reverse Triangle put Nick’s head away from me, behind his muscular thigh. But even from several feet away, I heard him exclaim, “Ouch!”

  “You think that hurt?” I asked out of the corner of my mouth. “Wait until Half Moon.”

  “Half Moon does hurt,” someone nearby agreed. It was hard to tell who, with everyone upside-down.

  “And roll up into Mountain Pose, with hands to heart’s center.” My mom stood, closed her eyes, and placed her hands in the prayer position on her chest. “Breeeeeathe and relax as two teenagers take a walk, leaving the haven of the yoga studio in peeeeeace and quiet.” She opened one eye and lifted her eyebrow at me.

  “Come on,” I hissed at Nick. As my mom’s voice droned on, I rolled up my yoga mat and whacked Nick in the back of the head with it. He looked up from his obviously painful Reverse Triangle and glared at me. Finally, he took the hint and rolled up his own mat. We wandered among the adults balancing precariously and dumped our mats into the bin by the door.

  As soon as the door closed behind us, I whirled to face him in the hall. “Thanks, Nick. I’ve never been kicked out of my own yoga class before. My mom will probably dock me forty-five minutes of minimum wage.”

  He tilted his head to look at me from a different angle, and the scowl he’d been wearing since I’d whacked him in the head melted away. His words melted me in turn as he grinned brilliantly at me and said, “I really like your hair that way.”

  Without meaning to, I self-consciously reached for my hair. Around the health club, my mother always wore her red hair in one ponytail or one long braid down her back. I used to, too. But since I’d grown as tall as her, people mistook us for each other. I couldn’t walk through the hall without middle-aged women stopping me to recount their hot flashes last night or to complain that the baby had the croup.

  But I needed to pull my hair up for yoga, so I wore it in two ponytails. At first I worried the style was too little-girlish for me. Then, because of some of the looks I was getting from men at the health club who weren’t regulars, I’d started to wonder whether the hairstyle had the opposite effect, reminding them of Britney Spears’s schoolgirl getup.

  Nick was giving me the same look. And this time, instead of being taken aback or feeling squicky about it, my heart raced and my face grew hot, my body’s response to the call of Nick. The yoga music and my mother’s soothing voice filtered through the door, reminding us we weren’t exactly alone, and occasionally a lady in sequined track pants speed-walked past us in the wide hallway that doubled as an indoor track. But I couldn’t stop glancing at Nick’s soft lips. If a dark corner had been available, I would have kissed him right then, despite everything he’d said to me last night.

  No, I would not let him charm me. I said, “Nick, for real. Why are you here? You didn’t suddenly decide to pop into my mother’s yoga class after four years of health club membership.”

  He still grinned at me with his head tilted, like he found me so amusing and did not take me seriously at all. Then he folded his arms on his chest, so his biceps strained at the sleeves of his T-shirt, courtesy of the arm curl machine. “Why can’t I tell you you’re pretty? You’ve got issues, Hoyden.” He turned and walked into the men’s locker room. The door closed gently behind him.

  I stood in the hallway, listening to the muffled drone of my mother’s voice, the slow yoga chords filtering through the studio walls, and the swish of the speed-walker’s pants somewhere around the corner. I stared at the men’s locker room door like my x-ray vision would switch on any second. Ugh, mistake—lots of our members came to the health club to get back into shape, with good reason. Still I stared at the door, wondering what in the world was up with Nick. If he liked me, why was he mean to me? If he didn’t like me, why did he show up here? Was it possible that Josh was right, and Nick’s dis last night was a sign he actually had a thing for me? Again, this seemed very seventh grade. Maybe he was a case of arrested development.

  Not in his biceps, of course. Or his abs. Arrested development emotionally.

  The door burst open and I tensed like a rabbit, ready to bolt before Nick saw me staring at the door where he’d disappeared.

  It wasn’t even him. He hadn’t had nearly enough time to shower. It was two regulars who walked out laughing and called a hello to me as they passed.

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I skittered into the women’s locker room before Nick really did catch me staring. I’d wasted enough of my winter break worrying about Nick. I had plenty more to enjoy: no homework, meeting Chloe and Liz at Mile-High Pie for supper in a few minutes, lots of slope time, and a renewed push tomorrow to master the jump. Not for Nick’s sake, but for mine.

  As the locker room door thumped shut behind me, I pictured the lid closing on this box of troubles I’d opened with Nick’s name on it. Unfortunately, when I emerged from the locker room again a few minutes later, ready for Mile-High Pie, Nick was standing in the hall in jeans and his puffy parka, talking with my mother.

  Yoga class had let out. My mother was all about chatting up the members, even the teenagers, even the ones she kicked out of her classes (apparently). I ducked around them, into the crowd spilling out of the studio. Better let my mother cool down for a few hours before I faced her about interrupting her Reverse Triangle. I flounced down the staircase. With every step down, I felt myself relaxing a little more, looking forward to a few hours out with my girlfriends, away from Nick.

  And then my mom called, “Have fun on your date, Hayden!”

  Another step down and I thought, Good. Mom is mistaken and has led Nick to believe I’m going on a date.

  One more step down and I thought, Oh no, Mom h
as led Nick to believe I’m going on a date! No matter how I tried to convince myself otherwise, obviously I still held out hope for Nick and me getting together this winter break. I turned around on the stair, wondering what I could say to let Nick know I was still unengaged, without letting him know I wanted him to know.

  Nick ran smack into me.

  “Ooof!” he hollered, grabbing me around the waist to keep me from falling down the rest of the staircase.

  That’s when I realized Mom thought Nick and I were going on a date together.

  Quickly Nick let me go. He looked huge, frowning down at me from the step above. “Why are you stopping in the middle of the stairs?”

  “Why are you tailgating me?”

  He put his hand behind me, at butt level, without touching me. “What is that?” he demanded.

  I bent a little and slapped my butt. “Something the heir to a meat fortune should know all about. USDA grade A prime, baby.” I straightened. “Just kidding. Really, it’s my butt.”

  He put his hands on his hips, and from below I noticed his strong superhero chin again. He grumbled, “Why do you have ‘BOY TOY’ written across your butt?”

  “Oh!” I put my hand behind me over the words, realizing that I probably should have been embarrassed about this sooner. “These are my little brother’s jeans. He wrote it to annoy me. Or to get me a date. Speaking of which, what did you say to my mother to make her think we’re going on a date?”

  He shrugged. “I just told her we’re both going to Mile-High Pie. Aren’t you meeting Chloe and Liz there? I’m meeting Gavin and Davis.”

  More of Chloe and Liz’s matchmaking, no doubt.

  “Did you tell my mother that you called me a bitch last night, too?” I asked him. “Because that’s the best way I know to win parents over.”

  For a split second, he looked uncomfortable. Almost immediately, he recovered and went back on the offensive. “You shouldn’t wear those jeans. People might think something.”