Rory
Save the squad. It was a cool, breezy Monday morning, just twelve hours since she’d seen Stuart in that cast, and she was
a girl with a mission. This morning, she’d eaten some of the vegetable frittata her father had made for the family, then worked
her hair into a tight French braid and donned her favorite fall outfit—a red-and-black plaid skirt paired with a black turtleneck.
With her red-and-gold varsity jacket on over it, she was fortified and ready to fix this. Would it be wrong for her to admit that she got a little thrill every time she caught a glimpse of the CAPT letters sewn onto the sleeve?
Captains do not give up, she chanted to herself as she taped a flyer to the door of the boys’ bathroom in the language arts wing. I refuse to give up.
“You refuse what?” Jacob Reilly appeared at her shoulder as if from nowhere. She whirled around, almost whacking him in the
face with her stack of paper.
“Did I say that out loud?” she asked, mortified.
“Kind of.” He gave her a crooked smile. His hair was still wet from the shower, making it appear darker, which really made
the green of his eyes pop. A tiny piece of toilet paper was stuck under his chin, from where he must have cut himself shaving.
Under his red-and-gold varsity jacket, he wore a dark blue cable-knit sweater that looked soft and well-worn.
She had to hand it to Jacob—or anyway, silently acknowledge it to herself—he did know how to dress. Tucker’s entire wardrobe
consisted of T-shirts and hoodies.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked.
Why are you talking to me? she definitely did not say out loud.
“Did you hear about Stuart?” she said instead.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the bulletin board on the opposite wall, where the winning poems of the freshman
poetry contest were posted on a fall-themed backdrop of red-leaved birch trees. Giving the board a quick scan, she decided
to tack up a flyer so that it hung off the bottom, avoiding covering “Ode to My Pillow” by Kelsey Sawyer.
“No. What happened to Stuart?” Jacob asked, a little crease appearing above his nose.
“He broke his leg in three places.” Rory said this matter-of-factly, even though it made her heart hurt to speak it aloud. “He’s out for the season.”
“Oh my God. That sucks. I broke my arm once, and it was the worst. I can’t imagine breaking my leg.” He paused and knocked
his head three times.
“What was that?” Rory asked.
“I’m knocking on wood.”
“Your skull is made of wood?”
He grinned. “I’m actually Pinocchio. Did Tucker not tell you? I’m hoping to become a real boy before graduation.” Jacob held
up both hands with crossed fingers.
Rory rolled her eyes and turned away to hide her small smile. “I don’t have time for this.”
Jacob snatched a flyer off the top of her stack as she stormed off toward the gym. “Wait, you’re holding tryouts? Two weeks
before regionals? That’s like sending the freshman team goalie in for the championship game shoot-out.”
The hallways were starting to get crowded as the rest of the student body filed in to start the school day. Rory dodged a
gaggle of freshmen girls checking their makeup in their phones and turned the corner toward the locker rooms.
“How do you even know about regionals?” she said, not slowing down.
“I pay attention to stuff,” Jacob said, jogging to catch up with her. “And it doesn’t hurt that my sister Willow is obsessed with the varsity cheer squad. She basically keeps me informed about everything you guys are up to.” He paused and looked down at the flyer. “You’re doing this on Wednesday?”
She stopped short, and he ran into her from behind so hard she almost fell over. Would have fallen over, if he hadn’t caught her by the backpack and stopped her from losing her balance. Slowly, taking a breath
for patience, Rory turned around.
“I have to get someone new on the team yesterday if they’re going to be ready for regionals. Not to mention homecoming,” Rory told him, speaking through gritted teeth. “But
the front office said the auxiliary gym isn’t open until Wednesday after school, so Wednesday it is! And if you’re going to
follow me around like an annoying puppy, the least you can do is help!”
She smacked half the flyers into his chest—damn, that was a solid chest—and gave him the tape.
“I wouldn’t even have to be doing this if it wasn’t for you,” she added without thinking.
The second the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them and wished she could take them back. She half hoped Jacob wouldn’t
notice, but he was eyeing her quizzically.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.” Rory tried to move away, but Jacob grabbed her arm with the hand that wasn’t clutching the flyers
and tape.
“Now you have to tell me.”
Rory heaved a sigh. “We really needed to win the homecoming tickets at the bake sale yesterday because Stuart can’t afford to go. When we didn’t win them, he entered a stupid motorbike race for a cash prize, and that’s how he got hurt.”
Jacob’s face fell. “Oh. Oh, crap. That’s . . . I didn’t know. I’ll give him the tickets!”
“Well, he can’t exactly use them now,” Rory said, throwing her free hand up in exasperation.
“Jeez, I’m really sorry, Rory. If I’d had any idea—”
“It’s not actually your fault, obviously.” Rory was getting antsy and uncomfortable with this conversation. “Forget I said
anything. Just . . . put up some flyers.”
Jacob turned around and taped a flyer onto the wall next to the weight room. Then he taped another one onto the door. The
second he did, it swung open and Tucker walked out, sweaty from his pre-school upper-body session.
“What are you doing, Reilly?” Tucker asked, taking one of the flyers and flipping it so he could read it. Then he glanced
over at Rory. “You’re holding tryouts?”
“I need to replace Stuart,” Rory told him, pinning a flyer to the board outside the main gym. “We talked about this last night.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you were serious. No guy in their right mind is going to try out for cheerleading.”
Rory stared at him, her cheeks growing hot with rage.
But her heart was already pumping overtime with frustration and adrenaline, so she could be slightly overreacting.
Clenching her free hand into a fist to ground herself, she said calmly, “Well, the guys who are already on the team tried out, so.”
Tucker laughed. “I mean, yeah, but weren’t they also the only guys who tried out?”
Rory stilled. Jacob was looking back and forth between them like he was spectating at a tennis match.
“First of all, no,” Rory said, fighting to keep her voice even. “Six guys tried out last year. And I think people stay away
because they know we only have two slots for guys and the two guys we have are excellent.” She took another deep breath. “It’s
not my fault the guys at this school are afraid of a little competition. Also, Carlos and Stuart keep coming back because
it’s fun.”
“And I bet it looks awesome on college apps,” Jacob said pragmatically.
Rory and Tucker both turned to look at him. “Thank you, Jacob,” Rory said, touched that he was trying to help. “It does look amazing on college apps. Have you ever seen how many guys there are on the Texas cheer squad?” she asked Tucker. He was
applying to UT Austin early action, and wore their burnt orange and white whenever he wasn’t wearing his Woodmont High gear.
“Yeah, I mean, guys doing girlie activities is all the rage,” Jacob added. “There’s a men-who-knit account on TikTok that
has, like, five million followers.”
And there he went, being annoying again.
“Cheer is not a girlie activity!” Rory protested, her cheeks burning anew. “It’s—”
“Whatever,” Tucker said, cutting her off. “I’m just saying you shouldn’t be surprised if no one shows up. It’s almost October.
Everyone’s already in their fall sports.”
“That’s why you’re going to help me spread the word,” Rory said, handing Tucker a stack of flyers. She stepped closer to him
and put her hand on his chest, tipping her head back to look directly into his eyes. Rory was not above flirting to get her
way. Especially not in a situation as dire as this one. “People listen to you. And if I don’t have a full squad for regionals,
if I can’t even compete in regionals, then I am going to be very difficult to live with.” She smiled coyly and batted her eyelashes for good measure.
“Whoa,” Jacob said. “She’s got you there.”
“Okay, okay!” Tucker took the flyers with a laugh. “I’ll help. You know I can’t say no to you in that skirt.” He kissed her
on the lips and slung his arm around her. “Let’s go to the sophomore wing. Maybe we can intimidate some of those losers into
showing up.”
Biting her tongue—because he was trying to help, even if she didn’t appreciate his vocabulary—Rory leaned into Tucker’s side as they walked.
When she noticed Jacob wasn’t with them, she glanced back over her shoulder and saw him handing a bunch of flyers to his brother Ford, who looked like he’d just come out of the weight room, too.
Ford was the captain of the football team, which meant he had a lot of power at Woodmont High, so if he handed out a few flyers, that would really help.
Ford rolled his eyes but took them and started off in the opposite direction from Jacob. He really was trying to help.
Sometimes, she really could not figure that guy out.