Endless Summer

Playing it cool, I relaxed against the wall and gave his puffy parka a squeeze, which he probably couldn’t feel through the padding. With my other hand, I found his fingers in his lap and touched the engraving on his signet ring, which he’d told me back in seventh grade was the Krieger family crest. It depicted bloodthirsty lions and the antlers of the hapless deer they’d attacked and devoured—which seemed apt for our relationship in seventh grade, but not for our relationship now, in eleventh. I was no deer in the headlights. Not anymore. Coyly I said, “I’ll mention it to my lawyer.” Ha!

He eyed me uneasily, like I was a chemistry lab experiment gone awry and foaming over. But Nick was never truly uneasy. He was just taken aback that I hadn’t fallen at his feet. Then he asked, “What are you doing for winter break?”

Winter break was next week. We lived in a ski resort town. It seemed cruel to lock us up in school the entire winter. ey let us out for a week every February, since the base might or might not start to melt by spring break in April.

Was he just making convo, whiling away our last few minutes of incarceration at school, or did he really want to know what I was doing during our days off? Again I got the distinct and astonishing impression that he wanted to ask me out. Perhaps I should notify Ms. Abernathy of a safety hazard in her chemistry classroom. Obviously I had inhaled hallucinatory gas just before she kicked me out.

“I’m boarding with my brother today,” I said, counting on my fingers. “Tomorrow I’m boarding with Liz. Actually, Liz skis rather than boards, but she keeps up with me pretty well. I’m boarding with some friends coming from Aspen on Sunday, the cheerleading squad on Monday—” Nick laughed. “Basically, anyone who will board with you.”

“I guess I get around,” I agreed. “I’m on the mountain a lot. Most people get tired of boarding after a while, which I do not understand at all. And then on Tuesday, I’ve entered that big snowboarding competition.”

“Really!” He sounded interested and surprised, but his hand underneath my hand let me know he was more interested in throwing me into a hot tizzy than in anything I had to say. He slid his hand, and my hand with it, from his lap and over to my thigh. “You’re going off the jump? Did you get over your fear of heights?” So he’d been listening to me after all.

My friends knew I’d broken my leg rappelling when I was twelve. at actually led, in a roundabout way, to my family’s move from Te

The best place for a privately owned health club specializing in physical rehab was a town with a lot of rich people and broken legs.

ough my own leg had healed by the time we moved, I was still so shell-shocked from my fall that I never would have tried snowboarding if my parents hadn’t made me go with my little brother, Josh, to keep him from killing himself on the mountain. Josh was a big part of the reason I’d gotten pretty good. Any girl would get pretty good trying to keep up with a boy snowboarder three years younger who was half insane.

And that’s how I became the world’s only snowboarder with the ability to land a frontside 900 in the half-pipe and with a crippling fear of heights. Not a good combination if I wanted to compete nationally.

“is competition’s different,” I said. Growing warmer, I watched Nick’s fingers massaging the soft denim of my jeans. “For once, the only events are the slalom and the half-pipe. No big air or slopestyle or anything that would involve a jump. Chloe and Liz swore they’d never forgive me if I didn’t enter this one.”

“You’ve got a chance,” Nick assured me. “I’ve seen you around on the slopes. You’re good compared with most of the regulars on the mountain.” I shrugged—a small, dainty shrug, not a big shrug that would dislodge his hand from my hip and his other hand from my thigh. “anks, but I expect some random chick from Aspen to sweep in and kick my ass.” And when that happened, I sure could use someone to comfort me in the agony of defeat, hint hint. But Nick was only toying with me. Nick was only toying with me. I could repeat this mantra a million times in my head, yet no matter how strong my willpower, his fingers rubbing across my jeans threatened to turn me into a nervous gigglefest. Sometimes I wished I were one of those cheerleaders/prom queens/rich socialite snowbu

“Anyway, those are all my plans so far,” I threw in there despite myself. What I meant was: I am free for the rest of the week, hint hint. I wanted to kick myself.

“Are you going to the Poser concert on Valentine’s Day?” He eased his hand out from under mine and put his on top. His fingers massaged my fingers ever so gently.

Nick was only toying with me. Nick was only toying with me. “at’s everybody’s million-dollar question, isn’t it?” I said. “Or rather, their seventy-two-dollar question.

I don’t want to pass up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Poser, but tickets are so expensive.” I may have spoken a bit too loudly so he could hear me over my heart, which was no longer skipping beats. It was hammering out a beat faster than Poser’s drummer.

Nick nodded. “Especially if you’re buying two because you want to ask someone to go with you.” I gaped at him. I know I did. He watched me with dark, supposedly serious eyes while I gaped at him in shock. Was he laughing at me inside?

We both started as the door burst open. Ms. Abernathy glowered down at us with her fists on her hips. “Miss O’Malley. Mr. Krieger. When I send you into the hall for talking, you do not talk in the hall!”

“Oh,” Nick said in his i

I was deathly afraid I would laugh at this if I opened my mouth. I absolutely could not allow myself to fall in love with Nick all over again. But it was downright impossible to avoid. He bent his head until Ms. Abernathy couldn’t see his face, and he winked at me.

Saved by the bell! We all three jumped as the signal rang close above our heads. On a normal day the class would have flowed politely around Ms. Abernathy standing in the doorway. ey might even have waited until she moved. But this bell let us out of school for winter break. Ms. Abernathy got caught in the current of students pouring out of her classroom and down the hall. If she floated as far as the next wing, maybe a history teacher would throw her a rope and tow her to safety.

Chloe and Liz shoved their way out of the room and glanced around the crowded hall until they saw me against the wall on the floor. Clearly they were dying to know whether I’d survived being sent out in the hall with my ex. Both of them focused on the space between me and Nick. I looked down in confusion, wondering what they were staring at.

Nick was still holding my hand.

I tried to pull my hand away. He squeezed even tighter. I turned to him with my eyes wide. What in the world was he thinking? After the insults Nick and I had thrown at each other in public over the years, we would have been the laughingstock of the school if we really fell for each other.

And now he was holding my hand in public!

He wouldn’t look at me, though I pulled hard to free myself from his grasp. He just squeezed my hand and gri

Which was everyone. Davis sauntered out of the classroom and slid his arm around Liz. Unlike the train wreck that was Chloe and Gavin as a couple, Liz and Davis were the two kindest people I knew. ey deserved each other, in a good way. But even Davis had a comment as he casually glanced down at Nick and me and did a double take at our hands. “That’s something you don’t see every day,” he understated to Liz. “Usually at about this time, Nick is going around the lab, collecting whatever particulate has dropped out of the solution so he can throw it at Hayden.”