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 local TV shows 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 bit 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.
I slid straight across the flat toward the crowd and pulled up in front of them, strategically sending a wave of powder over the boys. The girls were already cheering for me and ringing their bells wildly (so cute!), but when I sent that powder flying, their cheers hurt my ears.
“You’re neck and neck,” Daisy called from where she stood with the other judges. “Hayden destroyed this one.”
The huge pack of boys moaned. “What about Nick’s massive air?” Gavin called.
“Hayden landed a 900,” Chloe retorted. “That’s bananas!”
I was happy I’d tied Nick, at least so far. I certainly wasn’t going to hang around and gloat about it—not when I was about to get shown up in the big air comp. I was following Nick around the edge of the crowd to take the ski lift again when Daisy boarded over to me.
She put her head down and talked quietly, so only I could hear her above the excited crowd. “You’ve got this nice, quiet, compact style that competition judges are going to love, and then you add a nine? That’s sick. The only thing we’re going to work on in your lessons is height, because judges want to see that too. If you can land a nine going as low as you do, imagine what you’ll put down when you’re going huge like Kelly Clark. You’re on your way, girlfriend. And you’re mine!”
“Hooray!” I exclaimed. Never mind that I’d developed my compact style precisely because I didn’t want to go too huge and lose my balance. Daisy and I locked forearms and jumped up and down together excitedly, or as well as we could manage with boards on. Then I high-fived Chloe and Liz as I passed them in the crowd, and I followed Nick.
When I boarded even with him, I asked, “Did you get all that with me and Daisy?”
He laughed. “I got enough.”
“No pressure.” We both cracked up.
But through our laughter, I thought I heard someone calling Nick. I touched his arm and nodded to the deck of the ski lodge. “It’s your dad.”
“Oh God,” Nick said under his breath. “Not just my dad but his corporate partners. Beer before lunch is never a good thing. Come with me and save my ass.”
I definitely did not want to talk with Nick’s dad and two other men in the most expensive skiwear, drinking beer around a snow-covered table. But Nick needed me. We stopped at the wooden railing.
“Nick!” they called in big, strong, Manly Corporate Partner voices.
Nick nodded, wearing his own Big Man On Campus grin. “Dad, you remember Hayden. Mr. Jeter, Mr. Black, this is my girlfriend, Hayden.”
I smiled sweetly at them and shook hands with them when they stood and extended their arms over the rail. This took my mind off the fact that my face was as red as my hair (Nick seemed to have that effect on me a lot) and the fact that NICK KRIEGER HAD JUST CALLED ME HIS GIRLFRIEND!
“You let a girl beat you?” one of them asked Nick with a twinkle in his eye. I think he meant this to be charming. “Must be true love.”
If my face had turned red before, now it was probably turning purple. I was glad I couldn’t see it. At least my freckles were obscured for once.
“Oh, no sir,” Nick said. “I didn’t let her beat me. Hayden’s so much better than I am, she’s in a different league. She’s going pro soon.”
“Then why’d you challenge her?” Mr. Krieger asked. His words went along with the jovial banter of the moment. But behind the words, I heard his tone, the same bitter tone he’d used to talk about Nick when Doofus and I had crashed into his living room. He wanted Nick to win, no matter what, and Nick would hear about this again when he got home.