Stepbrother Wow! (Bad Boy Frat #1) Read Free Page B

so it was a bit early, but training would be important, and having a
team put together before the first snow was a good strategy. Jaxon was saying
something to me but I was barely listening as I took in more of the details.
    I’d been snowboarding ever since I had first managed
to convince my parents to buy me a board, sometime when I was thirteen or
fourteen. I’d started competing by myself around the age of 15; while I wasn’t
near a pro-level, I was getting better every year, and being on a team with
other boarders would be great experience. Getting to go to competitions and
show off my skills would be even better. “Hey, I’ve gotta go to class,” Jaxon was saying. I looked up from the flyer he’d given me and
nodded.
    “Oh, yeah, sorry man,” I said, grinning. “Just really excited about this. I’ll definitely be there.”
Jaxon flashed another smile and then parted ways with me, heading off to his
class. I kept the flyer in my hand and kept re-reading it as I made my way back
to the dorms. It would be awesome to make the team; I wanted the experience as
well as the potential friends. The frat was good, but if I saw right on the
page, there were some girls on the team the last year, too—and girl
snowboarders would at least be better than sorority girls or my roommates in
the dorm.
    The minute I was back in my room, I went into my
closet and started digging out my gear. I’d brought my board with me since I
had hoped that there might be a trip to the slopes at some point before winter
break; it’d come home with me later for winter break, since I could count on my
mom to finagle a trip to the mountains around Christmas or New Year’s. She’d
started dating some rich guy before I’d gone away to college, and whenever I
talked to her she was bragging about the house he lived in—which she called a
mansion with as much pride as if she had bought it herself—and the places he
took her and all the things they did together. I thought it was a guarantee
that we’d make a trip, but it’d be good to have some practice under my belt
before I got home. It’d be even better if I could maybe get in some competition
time before I went home, have something to show for myself other than good
grades.
    It didn’t look like the practice facility was
particularly cold—the practice ramps weren’t snow, they were composites, so I
wouldn’t need any winter-wear, just my gear and my board. I’d been to one or
two practice facilities when I was in high school, but I’d never been on a
team, so I couldn’t afford to go regularly. If I could get on a team, I knew
I’d get better at boarding by leaps and bounds, and I’d get a chance to show
off to boot. The first practice was supposed to be at the end of the week, and
I started making sure everything was in good shape immediately. If I needed a
repair or a replacement for anything—especially pads or my helmet—I wanted to
know about it immediately.

 
    CHAPTER
3
    I spent the next couple of days barely able to pay
attention in class, preoccupied with the chance I was getting to join the team.
In my head I was doing aerials, 360s and 180s, ollies , and ramp work that I knew I was good at.
Between all the sports I’d done in school and the dinky dance classes my mom
had made me take when I was a kid, I had good balance—and one of my instructors
on the board when I’d first gotten it had told me that I had what he called
“keen spatial awareness.” I had only started really learning tricks when I was
15, but after three years I knew I was pretty good at them. Maybe not the best,
but I was making progress.
    I was almost jumping out of my skin by the time
practice day arrived. I grabbed my gear and loaded it up in one of the frat
brothers’ cars; he was at least as excited as I was, telling me about what he’d
heard of the competitions the team had gone to the year before. The parties
after the competitions were always wild, he said as we were driving to