Stepbrother JEEZ! (The Stepbrother Romance Series - Book #4) (6 page)

“How you feeling?”
Jaxon asked me, coming up from behind while I looked over the slopes. We were
all going to get a practice run on the different tracks and the half pipe; but
for now the earlier arrivals were shredding away.

“A little nervous, but more excited,” I told him,
smiling slightly. My heart was beating faster in my chest, but I knew I could
get through the day. I had been to competitions before; this was just another,
bigger competition. I looked down at the team jersey I’d put on over my warm
clothes and gear. It felt good to be part of a team.

“You’ll be great. Just watch your landing out of
that power method.” I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah sure.
You make sure to come out of your nuclear in time instead of rolling down the
hill.”

I did my practice run and focused on just getting a
feel for the conditions. The slope was steeper than the mountain near Jaxon’s
dad’s place—but the powder was good, and the half-pipe was really well-done
too. I started to feel jittery, but I knew that it would pass. People started
to really fill the stands, and I stopped drinking coffee, switching to water
and hot tea; I didn’t want to have to pee all morning, but I needed to stay
hydrated.

When Jaxon went up for his first run, I shouted out
a “Good luck up there!” to him, just like a good sister should, and he raised
his hand to wave back to me. I would be on half-pipe first; but I watched him
as he went up to the top of the slope. I cheered when the announcer called out
his name and number, and everyone else with me—the whole team, except for the
people who were in staging, scheduled to go up after Jaxon or at the same time
on another part of the course—cheered as loud as they could. I watched Jaxon
and laughed as I realized
that he wasn’t just not paying
attention to the coach’s advice
; he was throwing it completely out the
window. He did every flashy trick he could going through the course, and there
were a couple of times that I was actually scared for him—really and truly
scared. But he managed to come out unscathed, and managed to stick all his
landings, the only important things.

I went out to the half-pipe to do my first run
there. I felt nervous, but excited at the same time. Right before the starting
buzzer, I took a deep breath. In spite of how excited and nervous I was, I
couldn’t help thinking about Jaxon and how he’d done; he’d been really
impressive. I barely came out of one of my grabs in time—but I managed to
mostly land it. I shook it off and went for another pass, telling myself firmly
to just focus on what I was doing. There was plenty of time to think about
Jaxon later.

The day passed faster than I would have ever
imagined; one of our team was on one of the courses at every single moment.
There was barely enough time for me to grab food for my empty stomach in
between watching the different members of my team competing; I told myself that
I had to cheer just as loudly for the others as I did for Jaxon. After all,
they all cheered for me. A few times I heard Jaxon cheering me on, catching his
voice from the roar of the crowd. I knew he heard me, too—he looked at me every
so often and grinned.

Jaxon’s strategy was obviously to go full-tilt. He
threw himself into aerials and flips that he really probably shouldn’t have,
and how he managed to land some of his tricks I had no idea. I thought I was
good, but either because I was distracted or because I was nervous, I flubbed
the occasional aerial, or didn’t quite catch my board the right way in a grab.
I hated it every single time I messed up, but I didn’t have time to beat myself
up about it. I just had to tell myself I would hit it harder, land it better, and
go through cleaner on the next run.

By the afternoon, we were all finished; the judges
were tallying up the scores from the different events and all the teams milled
around, talking to each other—trash talking, complimenting someone’s tricks,
joking—while we waited to find out. I could feel my heart pounding; for a lot
of us, it was going to be really close. It had gone so fast that I hadn’t even
really kept track of my individual scores, so I had no real idea of how I’d
done. My muscles were aching but I knew that I’d done the best I possibly
could.

They started announcing the different events; Jaxon
took home first in his division for half-pipe,
slopestyle
,
and even the big air, so of course he’d gotten first place overall—and I
cheered as loud and crazy as anyone on our team when he held up the trophy for
division first place. We waited and waited, and finally it came to my division.
My heart was pounding when they started announcing the winners for Half-pipe. I
came in third on half-pipe, fourth place—honorable mention, which sucked the
wind out of my sails—on big air, and second place on
slopestyle
;
I tried not to be too bummed with a third place finish in my division as a
whole. After all, I told myself, hauling my trophy back to the team, I’d been
so distracted, especially in the aerial competition, that I should have by all
rights ended up with a broken leg. I knew the coach would be talking to me
about taking too many risks on the big air.

The rest of the team placed fairly well; one of the
other girls got the third place win on the big air ahead of me, though she
finished fourth overall in the competition, and one of the senior girls placed
second overall. We’d managed to scrape through with enough points to be in
contention for the next big tournament, which was all that really mattered,
though Jaxon was, of course, the hero of the day. “Everyone over to the lodge!”
one of the coaches called out as the audience started to filter out of the
stands.
“Celebration time!”
I was exhausted but giddy
and excited at the same time—there was no way I’d be able to sit on a bus for a
few hours, so I was glad that we’d have some time to unwind first. I looked at
Jaxon, pumping his trophy in the air, and laughed my ass off at him. At least
one of us came out on top.

Chapter
Eight

“Great job, Mia,” Alexis said, grinning at me as she
wandered past me through the clubhouse, hot chocolate in hand.

“Yeah!
They totally cheated you on that aerial competition—you should’ve gotten a
solid second, not a thanks-for-playing third overall.” I shrugged it off. I
knew I hadn’t been performing at my peak—but it was nice to think that at least
someone on the team, even if
they
were biased, thought
that I should have ranked higher. All of us were giddy, all of us were excited.

My manic energy started to deflate all of a sudden
and I sat down near the fire, cradling my hot chocolate in my hands. I was
happy, and I was pleased overall with how I’d placed, considering how far away
my brain was from what I was doing, but I was bone-tired. I stared into my cup,
smiling to myself, ready to go back to the dorms and curl up in my bed—maybe
after a long, hot shower.

“Hey, why are you looking so down?” I looked up,
blinking, to see Jaxon a few feet away. I shrugged, still smiling.

“Just tired, I guess,” I said. Jaxon sat down,
nodding. He was a safe distance away from me, and he glanced around the room
where the whole team was gathered, talking to each other, laughing—a few of the
older kids on the team were having beers instead of hot chocolate, the coaches
had Irish coffees.

“You did really well,” Jaxon told me. I laughed.

“I nearly broke my leg in that big air portion.”
Jaxon shrugged.

“Yeah, but you didn’t! Third isn’t bad at all for
your first real competition.”

“Says the hero!”
I said, rolling my eyes.
“The guy carrying the whole team.
Where would we be without you, fearless one?” I felt the giddy feeling
returning—the tingly, anticipating, excited feeling. Jaxon and I started to
talk about strategy—for the team, for ourselves. Jaxon was clearly in the best
standing; but we agreed that I should try for at least second overall in the
next meet.

“The next one’s going to be a bigger comp, so it’ll
be worth more, even if it’s technically going to count the same in standings,”
Jaxon told me. “More press there, more sponsors, stuff like that. The points
are the same, but if you do better there, you’ll get more notice, and so will
the team.” Jaxon was going to try and make sure to get first again, if he
could; though with a bigger field of competition, it would be tougher. We
talked about tricks that we were going to work on—flashier aerials, things that
would bring in more points.

In spite of the fact that we were talking like
normal friends, I could tell there was something weird between us. I was antsy,
anxious. I wanted Jaxon to come closer, but I also wanted to run away. I
tingled all over, and I couldn’t help noticing that Jaxon looked great in his
new gear—which Bob had gotten him for Christmas. The longer we sat here
talking, the more I felt myself responding to how hot he was. This was bad; I
swallowed down the feeling of panic that came along with being attracted to Jaxon.
I should get away. I should make an excuse and go talk to someone else, maybe
even head back to the bus. Surely we’d be going back to campus soon—it was
getting to be dark outside.

I started to slow down, to try and close down the
conversation without being obvious about it. I didn’t want to even think about
the reason why I needed to get away from him; I might blurt it out in front of
everyone. And then everything would come undone. Finally, desperate to get
away, I shifted off to the side, away from Jaxon. Instead of taking the hint,
he just moved closer to me—closing even the distance that had been between us
before, so he was only inches away from me instead of feet away. My heart was
not just beating faster; it was pounding in my chest. “Mia,” Jaxon murmured.
“God, Mia…” I was frozen in my spot. I knew I should get up and go talk to one
of the other girls or guys on the team, but I couldn’t make myself do it.

“
Jax
…please.”
Jaxon shook his head.

“I want you, Mia,” he told me, his voice still low,
for my ears only. I looked around in a panic; no one was paying attention to
us, but I could feel my whole body warming up and tingling. My cheeks were
burning—I knew I was blushing bright red.

“
Shh
,” I told Jaxon,
looking around again. “You can’t even seriously want to talk about this here in
front of everyone.” Jaxon glanced around the room.

“It’s true, though,” he told me. His voice was still
quiet, but more intense—almost desperate. “I do want you. I’ve never stopped
wanting you.”

“Not now, Jaxon. We can’t do this now.” It would
only be too easy for us to start talking and end up making out, right there in
front of everyone. I could feel my body itching for it already—I had to get
away from him without making a scene. Jaxon pressed his lips together and took
a deep breath.

“Fine,” he said, glancing around the room again.
“Not now. But we have to talk about this.” I sighed. All we’d done—in the last
several weeks, anyway—was talk. We’d talked even while I was burning up for
him, we’d talked when all I wanted to do was rip Jaxon’s clothes off and go
down on him, or throw myself on top of him. But even though things had mostly
gone back to normal on the surface, I knew I couldn’t just tell him no. We’d
have to talk about it again.

“Okay.
Fine.
We’ll talk.
But not here and not now.”
Jaxon held me in his stare for a
long moment before he nodded. I swallowed against the tight feeling in my
throat and stood up quickly. Someone asked where I was going and I said in as
cheerful a voice as I could muster that I’d been sitting too close to the fire
and needed to get some air.

I knew it was a huge mistake. It couldn’t end any
way but badly.
Jaxon and me, alone together in a room
somewhere—probably his room?
I would barely need any encouragement at
all to fall into him again, and completely undo everything we’d tried to
accomplish by just being brother and sister to each other. It wasn’t fair.
Standing outside, I almost hated Jaxon for pulling something like this on me
when I’d just started to really get used to the way things were. But I couldn’t
lie to myself; I hadn’t really and truly gotten over him. Things were still
weird, still tense between us, even while we were pretending everything was
okay. We’d have to have it out again.

Chapter
Nine

I managed to put Jaxon off when we got back to
campus from the tournament; I told him I was exhausted, just too tired to do
anything but take a shower, get some dinner and go to sleep. When I started to
walk away, I could tell pretty easily that he wasn’t willing to wait very long
to have the conversation he wanted to have. I just didn’t know if I could deal
with it. I didn’t know if I could manage to hold my ground and keep him from
coming for me, if I could keep myself from just falling into his arms and
letting him convince me.

I put him off a few days more, mostly by avoiding
him. I knew it was silly; one way or another, Jaxon would end up having the
talk he wanted to have, and I knew I couldn’t avoid it forever. I knew I
couldn’t even avoid him for very long, but I couldn’t think of anything else to
do. I was scared of what it would be like to actually be alone with him again.
I knew that I hadn’t lost one little bit of my attraction to him since we’d
been playing the role of brother and sister—though we hadn’t told anyone, or at
least I hadn’t told anyone, that that’s what we were. In the back of my mind, I
was still all twisted up, still all wrapped up in Jaxon. It was stupid, but it
was the truth.