The Ex Games

The Ex Games

How NOT to Spend
Your Senior Year
BY CAMERON DOKEY

Royally Jacked
BY NIKI BURNHAM

Ripped at the Seams
BY NANCY KRULIK

Spin Control
BY NIKI BURNHAM

Cupidity
BY CAROLINE GOODE

South Beach Sizzle
BY SUZANNE WEYN AND
DIANA GONZALEZ

She’s Got the Beat
BY NANCY KRULIK

30 Guys in 30 Days
BY MICOL OSTOW

Animal Attraction
BY JAMIE PONTI

A Novel Idea
BY AIMEE FRIEDMAN

Scary Beautiful
BY NIKI BURNHAM

Getting to Third Date
BY KELLY MCCLYMER

Dancing Queen
BY ERIN DOWNING

Major Crush
BY JENNIFER ECHOLS

Do-Over
BY NIKI BURNHAM

Love Undercover
BY JO EDWARDS

Prom Crashers
BY ERIN DOWNING

Gettin’ Lucky
BY MICOL OSTOW

The Boys Next Door
BY JENNIFER ECHOLS

In the Stars
BY STACIA DEUTSCH AND
RHODY COHON

Crush du Jour
BY MICOL OSTOW

The Secret Life
of a Teenage Siren
BY WENDY TOLIVER

Love, Hollywood Style
BY P.J. RUDITIS

Something Borrowed
BY CATHERINE HAPKA

Party Games
BY WHITNEY LYLES

Puppy Love
BY NANCY KRULIK

The Twelve Dates
of Christmas
BY CATHERINE HAPKA

Sea of Love
BY JAMIE PONTI

Miss Match
BY WENDY TOLIVER

Love on Cue
BY CATHERINE HAPKA

Drive Me Crazy
BY ERIN DOWNING

Love Off-Limits
BY WHITNEY LYLES

Available from Simon Pulse

JENNIFER ECHOLS

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Simon Pulse paperback edition October 2009

Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Echols

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Designed by Ann Zeak

The text of this book was set in Garamond 3.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Control Number 2009923186

ISBN: 978-1-4169-7846-6

ISBN: 978-1-4169-8538-9 (eBook)

For Amy

seat belt

(s
t  belt)
n
.
1
. a trick in which a snowboarder reaches across the body and grabs the board while getting air
2
. what Hayden needs to fasten, because Nick is about to take her for a ride

At the groan of a door opening, I looked up from my chemistry notebook. I’d been diagramming molecules so I wouldn’t have any homework to actually take home. But as I’d stared at the white paper, it had dissolved into a snowy slalom course. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms had transformed into gates for me to snowboard between. My red pen had traced my path, curving back and
forth,
swish, swish, swish
, down the page. I could almost feel the icy wind on my cheeks and smell the pine trees. I couldn’t
wait
to get out of school and head for the mountain.

Until I saw it was Nick coming out the door of Ms. Abernathy’s room and into the hall. At six feet tall, he filled the doorway with his model-perfect looks and cocky attitude. He flicked his dark hair out of his eyes with his pinkie, looked down at me, and grinned brilliantly.

My first thought was,
Oh no: fuel for the fire
. About a month ago, one of my best friends had hooked up with one of Nick’s best friends. Then, a few weeks ago, my other best friend and Nick’s other best friend had gotten together. It was fate. Nick and I were next, right?

Wrong. Everybody in our class remembered that Nick and I had been a couple four years ago, in seventh grade. They gleefully recalled our breakup and the resulting brouhaha. They watched us now for our entertainment value, dying to know whether we’d go out again. Unfortunately for them, they needed to stick to DVDs and Wii to fill up their spare time. Nick and I weren’t going to happen.

My second thought was,
Ah, those deep brown eyes
.

Maybe snowboarding could wait a little longer, after all.

“Fancy meeting you here, Hoyden.” He closed the door behind him, too hard. He must have gotten in trouble for talking again, and Ms. Abernathy had sent him out in the hall.

Join the club. From my seat against the cement block wall of our high school’s science wing, I gazed up at him—way,
way
up, because I was on the floor—and tried my best to glare. The first time he’d called me
Hoyden
, years ago, I’d sneaked a peek in the dictionary to look up what it meant: a noisy girl. Not exactly flattering. Not exactly a lie, either. But I couldn’t let him know I felt flattered that he’d taken the time to look up a word in the dictionary to insult me with. Because that would make me insane, desperate, and in unrequited love.

He slapped his forehead. “
Oh
, I’m sorry, I meant
Hayden
. I get confused.” He had a way of saying
oh
so innocently, like he had no idea he’d insulted me. Sometimes new girls bought his act, at least for their first few weeks at our school. They were taken by
the idea of hooking up with Nick Krieger, who occasionally was featured in teen heartthrob magazines as the heir to the Krieger Meats and Meat Products fortune. And Nick obliged these girls—at least for a few dates, until he dumped them.

I knew his pattern all too well. When I’d first moved to Snowfall, Colorado, I had
been
one of those girls. He’d made me feel like a princess for a whole month. No, better—like a cool, hip teenage girl who dated! The fantasy culminated with one deep kiss shared in the back row of the movie theater with half our English class watching us. It didn’t end well, thus the aforementioned brouhaha.

I blinked the stars out of my eyes. “Fancy seeing
you
here, Ex.”

He gave me his smile of sexy confidence, dropped his backpack, and sank to the floor beside me. “What do you think of Davis and Liz?”

My heart had absolutely no reason to skip a beat. He was
not
asking me out. He was asking me my opinion of my friend Liz and his friend Davis as a couple. That did not necessarily mean he was heeding public opinion that he and I were next to get
together. Liz and Davis were a legitimate topic of gossip.

I managed to say breezily, “Oh, they’ll get along great until they discuss where to go on a date. Then he’ll insist they go where she wants to go. She’ll insist they go where
he
wants to go. They’ll end up sitting in her driveway all night, fighting to the death over who can be more thoughtful and polite.”

Nick chuckled, a low rumble in his chest. Because he’d sat down so close to me and our arms were touching, sort of, under layers and layers of clothing, I felt the vibration of his voice. But again, my heart had no reason—repeat,
no
reason—to skip two beats, or possibly three, just because I’d made Nick laugh. He made everybody feel this good about their stupid jokes, from the most popular girl in our class down to the chick with straight hair and bottle glasses who wore long denim skirts with her Nikes.

“And what’s up with Gavin and Chloe?” he asked next.

“Chloe and Gavin are an accident waiting to happen.” I couldn’t understand this mismatch between the class president and the class bad boy, and it was a relief finally
to voice my concerns, even if it
was
to Nick. “They’re both too strong-willed to make it together long. You watch. They’re adorable together now, but before long they’ll have an argument that makes our tween-love Armageddon look like a happy childhood memory.”