Winter's Kiss (22 page)

I wished I could start over in a new town, with new friends. I would do everything right this time.

No, wait. That’s exactly the chance I’d had four years ago, and now I’d blown it.

Besides, just thinking about leaving Liz and Chloe and Nick behind, I missed them already.

I was exhausted, even after so many hours of fainting and drug-induced sleep. My first instinct was to lie back on the carpet where I sat. But that might alarm Liz’s mom when she woke up to make breakfast. She would trip over me like I was Doofus. The obvious choice was the den sofa, which I could see from my seat on the floor. But Nick’s scent would linger there. Thoughts of him touching me might have lulled me to sleep earlier this evening. They would keep me wide awake now.

In the end I dragged myself down the hall and up the stairs to Liz’s room. Chloe snored softly in one twin bed. Liz was sprawled across the other. Lifting Liz’s covers, I tried to coax her over so I could slide in next to her. With gentle prodding, she wouldn’t budge. It was exactly like the last time I’d had a nightmare about falling and had wandered down to get in bed with my mother. Liz finally groaned and gave me some room. I lay down beside her, relaxed into her warmth, and felt comforted just lying next to her, even if she didn’t know I was there.

She rolled over and spooned against me, fitting her front to my back. She draped her arm across me and hugged. “You okay?” she whispered dreamily.

I nodded. “I thought Nick and I were going to make out.”

“Surprise.”

“And then we had a fight. If you and Chloe could throw us together, I would really appreciate it, because I don’t know how to fix this anymore.”

“Tell us about it in the morning.”

I nodded again, then felt myself sobbing, shaking against Liz. She held me more tightly as I cried myself to sleep.

steeze

(stēz)
n
. 1. style and ease 2. you’ve either got it or you don’t

After a big breakfast at Liz’s house and more bitching with her and Chloe about what pigs boys could be, I rode the bus home to change into clean boarding clothes. I walked into the mudroom—tripped over Doofus—and found Josh stepping into his boarding boots. “Hey!” I greeted him cheerfully. “Thanks for coming to my rescue yesterday, and for calling me fat.”

“You’re going to be sorry you were snide to me when you see what I’ve got for you.” He lifted the folded garment next to him and shook it out.

The
BOY TOY
jeans!

“What do you mean?” I exclaimed. “They’re mine
forever
?”

“Yes. They’re to help you make your own luck. The catch is, if you want them forever, you have to wear them to the comp today.”

“But I’ll get soaked!” I wailed.

“Don’t fall.”

I took the jeans from him and hugged them close. “Thank you, Josh. This means so much to me. I know you’ve joked about me going pro and taking you with me, but are you actually
for
me in this comp? I figured you’d have a bet with Gavin’s sister that I’d lose.”

He shook his head. “I went ahead and bought her and me both a ticket. Might as well. That’s one bet I know I’d lose.”

“Aww, Josh, that’s so awesome of you!” I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him hard.

He didn’t hug me back. He stiffened and said, “Ew, ew, ew.”

I let him go and stepped back to look him in the eye.

“Ew,” he said again. But one corner of his mouth crooked upward in a smile.

It was nice to have at least one boy behind me.

* * *

“Hayden O’Malley!”

I looked up from the sink and peered around the women’s bathroom in the ski lodge. Chicks stood inside and outside stalls, in various states of undress. Waterproof layers were hard to get in and out of, and snowboarders definitely were not peeless goddesses. Finally I saw the girl who had called my name. She stood in the doorway, long blond hair twisted into hippie twirls and braids.

“Daisy Delaney!” I hollered.

“I’d recognize you anywhere!” she yelled over the chatter in the bathroom. “They’re playing your steeziness over and over on local TV! Girl, you’re famous!” She crossed the room and leaned forward to hug me by way of introduction.

We talked for a few minutes about the local competition I’d won and the tricks I’d landed. Then she said, “After your comp is over, my boyfriend and I are shredding the back bowls. Want to hang? We can get a head start on your lessons next week, see where you are. I can give you some pointers.” She chuckled. “Maybe
you
can give
me
some pointers.”

“The back bowls? Sure!” I felt confident that she wouldn’t find out what a chicken I was, because after the comp, if I hadn’t gone off the jump, I would be dead of shame. And if I
had
gone off the jump, I would be just plain dead.

“Your friend Chloe told me this comp is with your ex,” she said. “What’s
that
about? Are you hooking up again or what?”

“Not anymore,” I said wistfully. “Can I ask you something? This whole argument started because he said I couldn’t beat an average boy snowboarder. Does it bother you that your boyfriend has landed a 1260 in competition and you haven’t?”

“So this is a girl-power thing?” Daisy mused.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s how it started.”

She shrugged as best she could in her puffy outerwear. “I might land a 1080. I might not. But I’m sure not going to give up boarding just because the odds are stacked against me to be the best boarder ever. I mean, there are short people who play professional basketball.”

“True.”

“And on a personal level, my boyfriend and I love each other enough, and we have enough respect for each other, that we’re bigger than that.”

I laughed. “Nick and I are not bigger than that. We are very, very small.”

Daisy nodded. “And then, of course, there’s the fact that I’m prettier than my boyfriend. He may fly higher, but I look better doing it.” She turned around backward. “I mean, even in these snow pants, check out my ass.”

We both cackled, and everyone in the bathroom stared at us. I decided right then that Daisy was going to be fun to hang out with, and I could learn a lot from her.

When I’d envisioned the comp with Nick, I’d pictured exactly this strong sunshine and bright blue sky. Beyond that, my predictions were all wrong. I’d thought my friends and Nick’s friends would be waiting for us at the bottom of Main Street. I hadn’t imagined a crowd of several hundred people, as many as had watched the local competition last Tuesday. They rang bells for Nick and me because they couldn’t clap in their mittens, cheering for us as we boarded over to the ski lift.

I also hadn’t realized I’d have to ride up on the lift with Nick, just the two of us. But it was the last Saturday of winter break. The slopes were crowded. Nobody got to ride a lift alone. And he was right behind me in line. Nick and me riding up together right then was like George W. Bush and Barack Obama riding to Obama’s inauguration in the same limo. Relaxed!

We didn’t say a word to each other the whole time we shuffled through the long line in the shed. Finally it was our turn. We slid into position in the path of the chair. It swept us off our feet and up into the air, and Nick pulled the guard bar down across our laps.

After the voices echoing in the shed, the cold air around us was silent, except for the ski-lift cable clanking overhead and the
swish
of skiers dodging moguls below us.

I looked up at Nick beside me. He had his goggles down already. I couldn’t see his eyes behind those damn reflective lenses.

I took in a sharp breath of freezing air. “I’m not saying this because I’m scared, or because I want to get out of anything. But I want you to know that I’m sorry for what happened between us last night. We’ve said a lot of ugly things to each other in the past week, and we didn’t mean most of them.” I raised my voice as we neared a pole supporting the lift, and the cable clanked louder and louder through the pulleys. “At least,
I
didn’t. If we can just get past all this, I think we’re both bigger than that.”

Now I found I was shouting, even though the noise of the cable had died away. Even more deafening was Nick’s silence. He didn’t look down at me, didn’t say a word as we passed four more poles and boarded off the lift. I could see a muscle working under his skin in his strong superhero jaw, but his mouth stayed closed.

We slid to the top of a narrow slope that curved into the forest. “Hey,” Nick called to a kid boarding by. “We’re racing. Say go, would you?”

The kid turned to us, and his eyes widened. “Oh my God, you’re Nick Krieger and Hayden O’Malley, aren’t you? Is this the comp everybody’s been talking about? Are you guys hooking up?”

“Just say go!” Nick and I both yelled.

“Go!” the kid shouted.

I pointed myself downhill and boarded as fast as I could. But it was no use. A field of rumble strips slowed me down like speed bumps for a car. Nick was so much bigger than me that he blazed straight across them like they weren’t there. Soon the slope took a turn into the forest and he disappeared behind the trees. He was gone, baby.

I was boarding by myself. I kept going as fast as I could, crouching down into the frigid wind and squinting through the water on my goggles, just so the spectators at the bottom didn’t tire of waiting for me, give up, and go home, thinking I’d forfeited. No way.

The trees fell away on either side of me, and the slope opened up wide. At the bottom of the course where it merged with Main Street, I picked out Nick, one of the tallest boys, already standing in the crowd with his arms crossed, watching for me as if he’d been waiting all day. Then the three judges with their heads together. Then a gaggle of girls with Liz and Chloe in front, gloves over their mouths, watching for me.

So I did what the most stylish boardercross riders do when they’re not winning but they know they’ve got the silver in the bag. I hit the last roller and cranked it into a front flip, a little steeze for the fangirls. The second I landed, the girls hit me with an ear-splitting squeal laced with frantic bell-ringing. I couldn’t help breaking into the widest smile. I skidded to a stop in front of them.

Daisy leaned over to bump fists with me. “Girl has attitude.
Way
to
lose
!”

I laughed nervously and said, “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment.

Liz guided Chloe over so Chloe didn’t lose her balance and hurt anyone. They both gave me big hugs, and Chloe shook me by the shoulders. “We’re down but we’re not out. Go back up there and give him hell.”

“Thanks, coach!” I slid away from the crowd and over to the lift again, following Nick. I didn’t want to linger with Chloe and Liz, because I knew the crowd was waiting expectantly. But if I’d had more time, I would have asked for coaching on the sitch with Nick.

We moved through the line in the shadowy shed and launched into the sunshine in the chair again. I prepared for another cold, silent ride. His goggles were up this time, but I didn’t look over at him and try to read the expression in his eyes. I was afraid it would break my heart.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said.

At first I thought it was wishful thinking on my part, and I’d misheard him. But then he slid his glove onto my thigh. Even through the
BOY TOY
jeans, I felt those familiar tingles shooting up my leg.

“You
are
?” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say something before? I was all worried!”

“I didn’t want you to think I was apologizing because of the comp. You know, we want this to be fair and square so we don’t have to go through it again.”

“Then why are you copping to it now?”

“Because I don’t want you to think I hate you. I don’t hate you. I definitely don’t.” He squeezed my thigh.

“But you still think I’m not a competitor,” I muttered. I was trying to be bigger than this, but there was no getting around it. If Nick and I were going to ease toward being together again, I wanted him to respect me.

“No, I do.” He turned to me for the first time, and his dark eyes searched my eyes. “Did you know the local TV channel broadcasts your 900 in an endless loop? It’s a bunch of video want ads for snowmobiles, then some kind of school crap with Everett Walsh that nobody wants to see over and over, and then you. I stayed up watching you until three o’clock this morning.” He gave me that brilliant smile. “You’re a competitor all right. I just wasn’t sure you realized it yourself. And I never would have said something like that to you if I didn’t consider you a true friend.”

I put my mitten over his glove and squeezed. I wasn’t sure whether he was hinting at a relationship or not. I hoped, if we were this big as people, we could be even bigger, and could take another shot at getting together. But I was thankful just to count him as a friend.

We slid off the lift and boarded down to the top of the half-pipe. The bell-ringing crowd had moved to the sides and bottom of the course. It seemed to have grown.

Nick pulled his goggles down over his eyes and nosed his board to the edge of the slope.

“Good luck,” I called. “And be careful.”

“Are you kidding? I do yoga to stay limber, so I won’t get hurt. I did thirty minutes of Sun Salutations this morning.”

He balanced on the deck, then sped down into the bowl and up the opposite side, momentum flinging him high into the blue sky. Six times, he executed simple but perfect tricks with incredible height. He might just beat me. If I fell in my
BOY TOY
jeans, I was toast. Very soggy toast.

But whether I won or not, I looked forward to my run. A half-pipe course was the best part of my day, an unbelievably decadent treat, like white cake with white icing that said
CONGRATULATIONS HAYDEN!
Sliding forward for my turn was like taking that first bite of sugar rush.

Following Nick’s path, I raced down one wall and up the other. The slopes were crowded enough today, and enough kids had already gone through the pipe that morning, that the fresh powder had been worked into perfection for a smooth, fast run. I threw a few respectable tricks, then pulled out my specialties: back-to-back sevens, a McTwist, and my beloved nine. I hated for it to end. I would have loved to lay down just one more 720, but I ran out of pipe.