Winter's Kiss (13 page)

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.
Emotionally
arrested development.

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 has 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 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.”

I stamped my foot on the stair. “Like what? I want to show off my fire-crotch? What do you care? God! Stop following me.” My hair was down now, and I felt it smack into his chest as I whirled around and flounced down the rest of the stairs, across the lobby, and into the cold night.

I mean,
really
cold. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since I came off the slopes that afternoon. The formerly slushy snow on the lesser-used sections of the sidewalks had frozen over and now crunched under my boots. I tucked my nose deep into my scarf against a sudden gust of freezing wind. Mile-High Pie was only a few blocks away, but this walk seemed to stretch in front of me forever. Cold and anger were not a good mix.

“Hayden,” Nick called from behind me.

Oh, good! Just what this walk needed: a double-shot of ex to go with that cold and anger. Shaking my head, I crossed the icy street.

“Hayden.” His voice was sharper, angry now, and it echoed against the two-story storefronts closed for the night. I could tell from the direction of his voice that he was crossing the street after me.

“Don’t you mean Hoyden?” I called over my shoulder.

Heavy steps cracked behind me, closer and closer. Nick rounded in front of me and stood in my path, his breath puffing white into the black night. “I never called you that.”

“You call me Hoyden all the time!”

He frowned at me and said, “Fire-crotch.”

“Take a number.” I tried to walk around him.

He caught me by the elbow. “Would you hold up for a minute and listen to me?” His dark eyes focused on me, hardly blinking when the wind gusted in his face. He put on a very convincing act of disbelief and outrage. “I mean, I did
not
call you a fire-crotch. I was afraid you overheard that in the lunchroom last week.
Everett Walsh
called you a fire-crotch as you walked by. I told Everett Walsh that he should watch his mouth. Then Everett said, ‘Oh, you’re one to talk, you say stuff like that about Hayden all the time,’ and I said, ‘I would
never
make a comment about her
crotch
. No.’ We nearly got into it right there in the lunchroom, but you conveniently missed
that
part.”

I certainly had. And I wasn’t buying it. Nick, standing up for me? “Let me get this straight. Your lunchroom speech went a little something like this.” I put my hands out in front of me like I was a Roman orator enunciating for the crowd. “‘I, Nick Krieger, defender of women, would never denounce the crotch. I am
above
the crotch.’”

He gaped at me. Other boys might not look so hot while gaping. Nick looked adorable in the soft light of the streetlamps, against a backdrop of small town and snow.

I put my hands down.

He watched me silently for a few moments more. “You don’t think very well of me,” he finally said.

I shrugged. “I don’t blame you for being confused and thinking, ‘Gosh, I called Hayden a fire-crotch and she’s
mad
? What’s up with
that
?’ There was a time in my life when you could have called me a fire-crotch in front of a bunch of people, and I would have just laughed. I wanted any kind of attention I could get from you. In eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, when you insulted me and other girls said it was just because you liked me, I believed it. But I guess everybody reaches a point when they’re done with that, and they want to be respected. This is definitely unfortunate for the purposes of teen love—I mean, look at Gavin. But there it is.”

“You don’t want to be with me because you think I don’t respect you.”

“I
know
you don’t respect me.”

“Because you don’t believe me that I didn’t call you a fire-crotch?”

“You don’t have a good track record for telling me the truth.” I walked around him and nuzzled my nose into my scarf again, heading into the wind.

His boots crunched behind me.

“And stop following me!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“I’m not following you. Stop walking in front of me.” The crunches sounded louder and louder again until he jogged past me and kept jogging until he was fifty feet ahead of me on the sidewalk. He disappeared around the corner. I was left with nothing but my anger and the cold again.

When I finally reached the restaurant and swung open the door, of course the first thing I saw was Nick hanging his parka on the coatrack, revealing how adorable he looked in his sweater and scarf underneath. And Fiona Lewis was calling to him from the ancient Galaga arcade game. His
other
ex. Drat!

“Haaaaaydeeeeen!” moaned Josh and his peeps from the nearest booth. Double drat! Just what I needed when I was trying to get the upper hand in this ongoing argument with Nick: the undying friendship of four fourteen-year-old boys.

On hearing my name, Nick looked up at me, then nodded toward the posse with a smirk. “Your boyfriends are calling you.” He glanced toward Fiona.

“You act like that’s not possible,” I heard myself say coyly, even though my brain was waving frantically at me, screaming,
Stop, Hayden, don’t go there!

Nick turned back to me, and his eyes flew wide in surprise. “I act like
what’s
not possible?”

“You act like I would never go out with any of them.” Which I wouldn’t. They were like brothers to me. Especially my brother. And they still watched cartoons. It was just that Nick acted so
disdainful
, as if I could never have anyone if it weren’t for him or Everett Walsh throwing me a bone.

“Nick, quick, help, I’m about to die!” Fiona squealed.

Ah, triple drat. A real live ex-girlfriend and damsel in space-distress totally trumped fourteen-year-old boys, no matter how many of them there were. Nick dashed over to her and took over mission command. I hung my own coat on the rack and dragged myself to the boys’ booth.

But you know what? They all grinned at me in welcome, and Josh even scooted over to make room for me on the bench. At least I knew who my true friends were. Feeling grateful and loved, I sat down.

THPPPPTHPPPPTHPPPPT!
I farted. Or so it seemed.

The boys died laughing. I pulled the whoopee cushion out from under me and flung it on the table, which only sent them into another paroxysm.

“Nick—–Krieger—is—behind—you,” Josh gasped between giggles. “He totally heard it over Galaga. Do you still want us to look without looking like we’re looking?” This sent them into yet another laughing fit.

“But don’t worry,” one of his friends said. “We’ll act like we think you’re hot.” They all snorted and dabbed at their eyes faux-girlishly with paper napkins from the holder. Then, as if on cue, they started their rhythmic heavy breathing, and I knew one of Josh’s raps was coming. The people in the booths around us turned to look, if they weren’t already staring at us outright because of the whoopee cushion.

Hayden C. O’Malley was your

Average girl

Thought she’d give the boarding, jibbing,

Riding a whirl

Thought she’d have some trouble kicking

Nick Krieger’s ass

But her secret weapon is she’s

Cooking with gas …

Not every one of Josh’s raps was a success, and this one trailed off to dissolve in a morass of laughter and fart noises. I laughed along with them, because it was funny, and because I was that much of a Loser.

But of course the whole time I was preoccupied, wondering whether Nick had gone home with Fiona yet. On the one hand, I hoped that the two of them got extra points and extra lives in the bonus round, and that they were sticking around for another hundred thousand points. On the other hand, Nick overhearing Josh’s rap would not be my shining moment.

“Do you think y’all could hold it down?” I finally asked the boys. “I appreciate your art, but there’s a difference between rapping about me on the slopes, and rapping about me in a restaurant where other people are trying to eat. The latter is very prepubescent.”

“
Pre
pubescent!” Josh gasped. “
Pre
pubescent!”

“I am totally pubescent,” one of his friends said.

Another said haughtily, “I will have you know that my mom and I are going to Aspen to shop for training bras this weekend.”

I rolled my eyes. “Later.” I slid off the bench and stood.

“Hey, we’re helping you go off the jump again tomorrow, right?” Josh asked, using the word
helping
very loosely.

“Yeah,” another boy said, “eleventh time’s the charm.”

I looked toward the Galaga machine. Fiona was still there, yet Nick was gone. Probably just to order her a drink. Ordinarily, I would have bounced all over the restaurant searching for him so I could flirt him out of Fiona’s pink-nailed grasp. But the whoopee cushion had taken the wind out of my sails.

As I walked through an open doorway decorated with broken skis and snowboards, here he was again, sitting in a booth, handsome face lit softly by the dim overhead lamps and the Christmas lights outlining the ceiling. Colors danced in his dark hair as he laughed with Gavin and Davis and … Chloe and Liz.

Sure enough, Chloe and Liz had invited me here, Gavin and Davis had invited Nick, and they were all playing Cupid again. Even after the fiasco last night! But I knew for sure that either way, the couples were back together, at least for tonight. Chloe and Gavin sat on one side of the booth, and I saw the backs of Liz and Davis on the other side. Nick had squeezed onto the end of the bench next to Gavin, which left only one place for me.