The Ex Games Read Online Free PDF Page A

higher than the half-pipe wall, so I had no excuse not to try it. I wouldn’t have been here without them. I winked at them on the sidelines, lowered my goggles, and slid my board forward to the starting line.
    Deep breath. One with the mountain.
    As a final touch, I twisted one of my four-leaf clover earrings. My dad had given them to me the day I got the cast off my leg, as an amulet for better luck in the future.
    And then I was flying down the slalom course, staying tight and tucking in, dodging around the gates as fast as possible. I knew my time would be good because I was in the zone. My body went on automatic, feeling exactly what to do when. I enjoyed the bright sparkling day, the white snow, the spectators in crazy-colored gear lining both sides of the course, the too-blue sky. There was no feeling in the world like this, having a body that worked.
    Then I hit my usual snag. For most people, the hardest part of this course was the moguls. For me, it was the straightaway past Nick’s house. His parents’ mansion had an enormous frontyard and a daunting front gate to scare away paparazzi and beggars.But the backyard bordered the slopes so the Kriegers could sit on their deck and watch the skiers. Every time I boarded past, no matter what trick I tried or who I was with, I glanced over at the deck while attempting to look like I wasn’t looking, just in case Nick was there. He never was.
    Until now. I thought I couldn’t feel any more adrenaline than was already pumping through my body in my first boarding competition ever. Apparently my body kept some adrenaline in reserve, because I flushed with a new rush at the realization that he was watching me. I could
not
let Nick distract me. It probably wasn’t even him but his father. Or was it? I’d seen Mr. Krieger at my parents’ health club. He had blond hair, not dark hair like Nick. And why would Mr. Krieger wear Nick’s puffy parka?
    Okay, Nick probably didn’t recognize me from a distance. Though my red hair and hot-pink snowboard made me hard to miss. Okay, he might recognize me, but he hadn’t
meant
to watch me. He was out on the deck to fetch a few more sticks of wood for the fire inside. The fact that he’d come outside at exactly the moment I took my turn in the competition was just a big coincidence.An almost impossible coincidence, actually.
    Believe it or not, every bit of this flashed through my mind in one second. My questions about Nick (
Is he looking at me? Is he looking at me on purpose? What does it meeeeeeeean???
) were familiar to me after four years. I had become very efficient. I thought them and then pushed them to the back of my mind before they made me fall down. I was one with the mountain. My body worked perfectly. I skimmed around the gates, torn between excitement that I could see the finish line and disappointment that I’d finished so fast. I always hated for a run to end.
    I made a wide circle to slow down and skidded to a stop. Almost before the final curtain of snow I’d kicked up had fallen out of the sky, I was squinting at my time on the scoreboard.
    “Holy shit,” I whispered. I was in the lead! Three chicks waited to take their turns, but I was so far ahead of them after my half-pipe score, they’d have to really hightail it down the mountain to beat my overall score now.
    What if I
won
? I’d dreamed about placing,but I’d never expected to
win
!
    And then, so predictably that I wanted to hold myself down and rub my face with snow as punishment, I glanced way up the slope at Nick’s deck to see if he was still watching me.
    He was gone.
    And
then
I heard the cheers and applause of the spectators for me, with Liz and Chloe’s screams ringing above the noise even though they were near the top of the course, easing their way down through the crowd and the snow. I turned away from Nick’s empty deck, unlatched my boots from my board, and hiked over to the sidelines to meet the girls. I had two friends who I knew