Rory
thought he was going to fall off, and she didn’t really hate the idea. The entire crowd responded with ooohs and gasps. From the corner of her eye, she saw dozens of phones held aloft, hoping to catch the drama as it unfolded. The
wind kicked up, pulling sections of hair out of her bun and slashing them across her face.
“You don’t get to do that anymore!” she shouted, feeling completely out of her mind. Had she really just physically assaulted
Tucker?
He did it to you first, she thought.
“Miss Graham, is everything okay?” Principal Toohey asked.
She looked up at the older man—tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and kind eyes, and suddenly everything seemed to come into focus.
Everything seemed to solidify in her mind.
This day had not gone as planned, and it was all her fault.
She’d made mistake after mistake after mistake, and it was about time she corrected them.
“No. Everything is not okay.”
Rory stepped up to the microphone and removed the crown from her head. It snagged in her hair and she winced. Certainly half
of it was now sticking up straight from her head—she probably looked like Medusa—but she couldn’t have cared less at that
moment.
“Thank you so much, everyone, for voting for me for queen, but I don’t think I deserve it.” More gasps, muttering, and mumbling.
Over on the track, Gwen and Layla looked at one another, jaws dropped. Rory handed the crown over to the principal. “Please
give this to one of the seniors,” she said. “It’s their time to celebrate. I’ve got to get back into my uniform.”
Then she hiked up the skirt of her long gown and raced down the stairs of the stage.
Rory felt shaky and nervous as she walked up the steps to Jacob’s front porch that night. She’d been rehearsing what to say
all the way there, but as soon as she rang the bell, it all flew out of her mind. There was a huge commotion inside as what
sounded like a herd of elephants ran to answer the door. She took a step back when it was flung open and Jacob’s youngest
siblings stared out at her. Chad and Lindsay, Rory’s brain supplied. They were both already in their pajamas, and Chad was holding a tub of popcorn.
“Hi there, I’m—” the little girl started to say.
“Jacob!” Chad interrupted loudly. “Rory’s here!”
“You’re a cheerleader, right?” Lindsay asked, looking Rory up and down. She had an adorable lisp and a seriously spunky attitude.
“Yep. Sure am.” Rory’s voice was unnaturally bright. For some reason she suddenly felt like she was at a job interview.
“Can you do a standing back tuck?” Lindsay demanded, arms crossed as she narrowed her eyes up at Rory.
“Um . . . not at present,” Rory said.
“My sister Willow can,” the little girl told her.
“That’s great! We can use that on the squad next year,” Rory replied. This seemed to appease Lindsay, who nodded in an approving
way.
“Are you here for movie night?” Chad asked. “We’re out of popcorn.” He hugged the tub in his arms, angling away from her.
“Oh, no. I’m just here to talk to Jacob.”
“I like your ponytail,” Lindsay told her generously.
Rory reached up to touch her hair. She’d forgotten she’d done a side ponytail, mostly because she was in such a rush she couldn’t
get it centered. “Oh, thanks. I like your Encanto pajamas.”
Lindsay grinned. “Thanks! They’re not even hand-me-downs.”
“It’s very exciting around here when you get something new that’s all yours,” Jacob said, coming up behind Linday and ruffling her hair. “You guys go back and unpause the movie. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The kids ran off and Rory’s pulse kicked up, suddenly recalling why she was here. Jacob was wearing black sweats and a white
T-shirt that stretched taut across his chest and hugged his biceps. He didn’t look particularly happy to see her, and he didn’t
invite her in.
“What’re you—” he started, but Rory rushed to speak first.
“Before you say anything, let me get this out,” she said, lifting a hand. “We need you at regionals tomorrow. We cannot have a repeat of what happened at the halftime show. This squad has worked too hard and too long, and I am so proud of our
routine. We actually have a shot at winning. I’m not going to take that away from them; are you?”
Jacob stepped fully onto the porch, closed the door behind him, and opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off again.
“So I’m here to tell you, you can do both. You can compete at regionals and play in the soccer game.”
Jacob tilted his head, looking at her like she might have actually lost her mind.
“Look.” She took out her phone and opened the route she’d saved between the community college and Bergen High.
She turned the screen to face Jacob, and he glanced down at it.
“Regionals should definitely be over by seven o’clock, if not earlier.
And according to this it’s less than an hour to get to Bergen.
If we leave right after the trophy ceremony, we can get you there before the first whistle.
All I’m asking you to do is show up for the squad this one last time, and then you can go back to mocking us with Tucker and the rest of your little soccer buddies. ”
She put the phone back into her pocket and looked up at him expectantly. He stared back at her. And stared. And stared. Rory
held her breath. The wind swirled, and the candles in the jack-o’-lanterns along the porch flickered.
“Well? Aren’t you going to say something?” she prompted.
“I wasn’t sure if you were going to let me,” he replied.
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, go. Now it’s your turn. Speak.”
“First of all, I would have cheered with you all today if you had let me,” he said, leaning one hand on the doorjamb just
above his head, which only made his arm muscles more pronounced. “You’re the one who turned me away.”
“I know. I was wrong,” she told him, tearing her gaze away from his triceps and looking him in the eye. “I’m . . . I’m sorry.”
“Okay, and secondly . . . when did you figure all of this out? And why?” he asked, gesturing at the pocket where she’d stashed
her phone.
“Because I didn’t want you to have to give up soccer for cheerleading!
Or cheerleading for soccer,” Rory said, lifting her shoulders.
“It all just seemed so arbitrary. So I showed this to Coach Fitz yesterday morning, and he agreed that if you felt like you could handle it all, you should rejoin the soccer team and play in the Bergen game.”
“Wait, wait, wait. You talked to Coach Fitz?” he asked. “Is that why I got my jersey back?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No! He had Tucker and Kai tell me.” Jacob’s eyes went wide as if he’d just realized something important. “And of course they
didn’t tell me about being able to do both. They made it pretty clear I only had one choice. They told me I’d be off the soccer
team permanently if I didn’t choose them.”
Rory’s face flushed in irritation. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised at new evidence of Tucker being a selfish jerk, but
she was. It was hard to believe that their first date had been exactly one year ago, at her sophomore homecoming dance. He’d
seemed like such a dream at the time. A popular, fun, handsome junior. She could hardly believe he’d asked her, of all people,
to go to one of the biggest events of the year with him. And today she’d almost pushed him off an elevated platform onto a
muddy football field.
“Rory . . . why aren’t you at the dance?” Jacob asked, as if reading her thoughts.
“Oh, uh . . . I didn’t really feel like going without a date. And I don’t have a ticket, actually. Tucker bought them,” she
said, the blush in her cheeks deepening as she looked down at her feet.
“But I thought you and Tucker . . .”
She pulled a face and looked up at him. “That me and Tucker what?”
“Got back together?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
Rory cracked up laughing. “Hardly.”
He still looked confused. “But you won king and queen. He kissed you in front of the entire school. I was there.”
“Yeah, and then I shoved him off me and handed the crown back.” She shook her head. “Did you somehow miss that part?”
She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “I kind of bailed during the kissing part.”
Rory laughed again. She couldn’t help it. There were all these emotions swirling inside her. Emotions like relief and hope
and glee. She pulled her phone out and opened TikTok. “Half the school has posted this. Are you living under a rock?”
She handed him her phone and pressed her lips together as he watched the video of her shoving Tucker off of her, yelling at
him, and then giving her quick speech renouncing the crown. Jacob covered his mouth with his free hand. His eyes sparkled.
“That is epic. Can I watch it again?”
“Knock yourself out,” she told him.
After another couple of rewatches, he handed her phone back and leaned against the wall of the house, somehow avoiding both
the cornstalk next to the door and the fake cobwebs pulled across the window. With a sigh, he looked at her, his expression
unreadable.
“That might be my favorite video ever,” he said.
She smiled and shoved the phone back into the pocket of her jacket. “Happy I could entertain you.”
Jacob suddenly pushed himself away from the wall and stepped closer to her. “You know . . . I have two tickets to the dance
upstairs in my room, just begging to be put to good use.” He looked her in the eye and her breath caught. “Wanna go?”