Rory
him otherwise. But with the chants happening in the stands and the sound of feet stomping up the bleachers, a yell sounded
like a whisper.
with Coach Fitz before the pep rally started. She should have just told him in the breezeway, but she’d gotten too distracted
by his . . . closeness.
She glanced at the wall clock hanging just above the door of the gym. Any second now, Jason Beretti, the president of the
school, was going to take the mic and kick off the pep rally. Once he did, the cheerleaders were on. Jacob knew this. Why
was he so late?
She was watching the door when Tucker stepped through, leading the soccer team.
Fashionably late as always. Tucker was of the opinion that no school function began until he arrived.
She was just about to look away so he wouldn’t think she was watching him, when Jacob stepped inside.
Her heart leaped. But then she saw what he was wearing.
“What the—”
She wasn’t sure who said it. It might have even been her. But they were all thinking it.
Jacob had changed out of his cheer uniform. He was now wearing a pair of black sweatpants and his soccer jersey. And instead
of coming over to join the squad, he walked right over to the bottom bleacher and took a seat between Kai and Dutton Sharpe,
another striker on the team.
Rory stared at him, willing him to look over at her. To meet her eyes and explain what the hell was going on. But Jacob refused
to look at the squad. He kept his hands laced together, his forearms resting across his knees, and stared at the floor. Tucker,
however, had no problem staring Rory down. He had an irritatingly smug look on his face.
“What is he doing?” Layla asked.
He’s making his choice, Rory thought, her heart breaking down the middle.
She turned to the squad. “Huddle up.”
Everyone gathered into a circle. Her head was pounding, and tears were threatening to well up behind her eyes. She had no idea what was going on, but it was clear Jacob was not going to be joining the squad for their routine. Or maybe ever again.
But she was the leader of this team, and she had to make a decision, fast.
“We’re going to sub in the flying triangle for the double wall, okay? Everyone got that?” The squad nodded. “Carlos and Gwen,
you’re the center point.”
“Okay, but what’s going on?” Gwen asked. “Is Jacob out?”
“No. I don’t know,” Rory said. “I’ll talk to him after. But right now, we’ve gotta pull this off. Can I count on you?”
They all agreed, assuring her they had her back. Rory put her hand in the middle of the circle. “Lumberjacks on three. One,
two, three—LUMBERJACKS!”
The crowd responded with a roar, and Rory told herself that everything was fine this way. Better, even. Never mind that she
was on the verge of bursting into confused, betrayed tears. This was the new plan. Jason grabbed the mic, and the crowd roared
again, and there was no going back. For the next forty-five minutes, she was the embodiment of school spirit.
She hit every beat of their revised routine and didn’t look at Jacob Reilly once.
Rory had barely slept. Unable to turn her brain off, she’d spent half the night tossing and turning, thinking about the pep rally and Jacob and Tucker and the squad and the halftime performance and how the hell she was going to deal with all of it.
She’d spent the other half of the night trying not to feel crushed. Trying to convince herself that she didn’t take Jacob’s
actions personally . . . and failing.
They had definitely almost kissed—twice! She knew how she felt about him. She was pretty sure she knew how he felt about her.
So what the hell had happened?
Of course, Jacob had texted. A lot. And called.
Jacob:
I’M SORRY RORY
I CAN EXPLAIN
PLEASE PICK UP THE PHONE!!!
But every time Rory thought about responding, she got so upset she stopped herself before she could say something she might
regret.
Now it was the morning of homecoming Saturday, and the first thing Rory realized when she opened her eyes was that the heels she’d ordered, which were supposed to come yesterday, had never arrived.
She opened the shopping app and went to the order tracking function, and there it was, in big letters: DELIVERY DELAYED.
“Mom!” Rory ran to her mother’s room and found her coming out of the bathroom in her robe, a huge towel wrapped around her
head.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” her mother asked.
“I need shoes! For homecoming!”
Her mother blinked. “Isn’t homecoming today?”
“Yes! I have to leave in an hour to help decorate the stands.” Rory felt like she could burst into tears. It was all too much.
How could she have messed up something as important as shoes? But she knew how. It was because she’d spent the entire week
focused on Jacob and his grade and getting him up to speed on the routines, and all that work had come to nothing because
he’d completely bailed on her.
“Maybe you can borrow a pair of mine?” her mother said.
“You know I’m a size bigger than you! And the ones I wore last year don’t match my dress. What am I going to do?”
“Okay, okay. Let’s work the problem.” Rory’s mother rubbed the sides of her arms and moved her over to sit on the bed, perching
next to her. “I’ll run to the theater and get you something from wardrobe.”
“There’s no time! I need something before the game starts because at halftime I have to run into the school and change and
then get on a parade float before they start the ceremony.”
“So I’ll bring the shoes to the school before halftime.”
“But you’re not coming to the game! You have rehearsal.”
“Honey, take a breath. You are way more important to me than any rehearsal,” her mother said, smoothing Rory’s hair behind her shoulder.
“I know I said I couldn’t make the game or the cheerleading competition tomorrow, but I got Nora to drive out from the city to take my place tomorrow, so I’ll be at regionals. ”
“You will?” Rory said, her voice breaking.
“Yes, and today, I can miss thirty minutes to bring you a pair of shoes, okay?” Her mother smiled. “We have dozens of black
heels from when we did Chicago, in all kinds of sizes. It’s all going to be fine.”
She took both of Rory’s hands in her own and looked her in the eye. “Repeat after me: We got this.”
Rory stared back at her mother, hoping to absorb even one ounce of her eternal optimism. “We got this,” she said.
Two hours later, Rory was on the track at the football field, the stands festooned with red and gold streamers, balloons,
and signs, her gown hanging from beneath the bleachers in a garment bag. Her hair was in a high bun, which would work both
for cheerleading and for glam, and she was hoping against hope that her makeup didn’t completely sweat off before halftime.
At least it was cold and cloudy. Everyone else was probably annoyed about it—not good weather for spaghetti-strap dresses
or photos—but she didn’t have to worry too much about her finishing spray holding up.
Which gave her more time to worry about Tucker.
Depending on how things went, she might have to ride on a homecoming float with him.
The guy she hadn’t spoken to in almost a week.
The guy who had ruined every fun thing about this day—and spread rumors about her, and been a total jerk, and got to have Jacob on his team.
She had no idea whether Jacob was even going to show up for any of the events, or what she was going to do if he did.
“Maybe we should just skip halftime,” Layla suggested as the squad gathered on the track before the game. They were all wearing
varsity jackets over their sweaters and sipping the hot chocolates that Carlos had bought on the way over. “I mean, if Jacob’s
not going to show.”
“All that work for nothing,” Dahlia muttered behind her cup.
“It doesn’t matter if he shows,” Rory said. “After yesterday, I don’t want him on the squad.”
“Rory, what?” Gwen said. “Are you sure?”
“Do you guys really want someone who’s going to just randomly bail on us with no explanation?” she asked.
“Didn’t he text you like a million times?” Layla asked. “He must have explained something.”
“Yeah, but that was all after the fact,” Rory said. “Too little, too late. If he’d talked to me beforehand, I maybe would have heard him out, but he just
ditched us. He chose soccer over cheer.”
In the most public and humiliating way possible, she added silently, thinking of Tucker’s triumphant smirk.
“I’m so confused,” Maya said. “I thought they threw him off the soccer team. I thought that was how he ended up here in the
first place.”
Rory sighed. “It’s a long story.”
She wasn’t about to tell them that she was the one who had convinced Coach Fitz to take Jacob back. Just yesterday morning,
she’d gone to his office to plead her case and make him understand that Jacob had changed—that he had proved himself to be
a responsible team player. But she’d also thought they’d come to an understanding. That, at least for this season, he could
participate in both sports. That, if Jacob was up for it, of course, they could just figure out any event conflicts as they
went. Maybe she’d somehow gotten it all wrong. Or maybe Fitz had put it to Jacob and Jacob had decided to focus all his energy
on soccer.
Layla whacked Rory’s arm. “He’s here.”
Everyone turned to look toward the parking lot. Sure enough, Jacob was walking toward them in his cheerleading uniform, his
varsity soccer jacket buttoned up over it. Rory’s heart pounded with trepidation as he approached. She made a snap decision.
This was not a conversation she wanted to have in front of the team. She handed Layla her cup and went to intercept Jacob,
jogging to meet him before he could get any closer to the squad, much less within eavesdropping range.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she stopped him. “What’re you doing here?” she asked, shoving her gloved hands under her arms.
“What do you mean, what am I doing here? It’s homecoming.”
“I’m sorry, is the soccer team playing in this game?” she asked, tilting her head.
He looked at the ground. “Rory, come on.”
“No. You’ve made your decision, so I suggest you leave before things get any more confusing,” she said.
When he met her gaze, his green eyes were bright. He wasn’t seriously getting emotional about this, was he? “Look, I know
it’s complicated, but at least let me cheer today. You need me for the halftime routine.”
“We don’t, actually,” she said, lifting her chin to better sell the lie. “We figured it out at the pep rally, and it was great
anyway. We’re good without you.”
He stared at her, obviously hurt. Her heart felt sick.
“I don’t want to leave,” he said, his voice raw.
“Yeah, well. You already did,” she said. “You left us yesterday.”
She turned around and walked away from him, a stiff breeze hitting her from behind and quickening her steps, as if telling
her she was doing the right thing. It was time to make a plan. One that didn’t involve Jacob Reilly.