Page 8 of Christmas Cheer

“But do you really need to ask why I don’t want to be your rally girl when you put them through hell?” She blurts out. “And I’m the one they always sob to—what? What is that look for?”

I’m unable to hide my grin. Yeah, I do put my rally girls through hell. Partly because they’re so bad about giving me shit I don’t want — if I’m expecting to get 8-figure contracts from the NFL out of this body, I’m not shoveling Doritos and M&Ms into it before games — but partly because I wanted them to hate being my rally girl. “I did that,” I boast. “I always told them you knew how to properly care for me.”

“Are you shitting me right now?” she hisses, attempting to knock my hand off her thigh. “Corey Stone cried on my shoulder every single day for a month, and I literally had no idea what I was supposed to do.”

“I worked Corey so hard I swore you were going to cave and volunteer to take over just to shut her up.”

She looks me dead in the eye. “I can’t believe I just had sex with you. You are the worst.”

Coach Eddings, who hasn’t been a coach at Wilm State in my lifetime but maintains the moniker since he owns this restaurant that’s a favorite of the program for fancy events, has the biggest grin on his face as he approaches our table. “Well now,” he drawls, his accent straight out of Texas even though we’re a thousand miles away, “you’ve done well for yourself this time, boy.” He slaps me on the back hard enough I know who to go to if there’s an emergency calling for the Heimlich maneuver.

“I sure have,” I say with a wink at Keira. She grabs her menu, no doubt to hide her pinking cheeks, but I snatch it away. “No need for that. I’ll be ordering for the table.” Both to show her I know her eating habits as well as she knows mine and to prevent any argument about the bill. I know she can’t afford this place. She’ll order a water and house salad, carb load on complementary bread, and pretend she’s happy.

This is my treat.

“And you are a vision, Miss Hughes,” Coach Eddings continues despite her looking like she’s on her way to bed. I’m not stupid enough to think it’s for my benefit or that this is some natural beauty thing; Coach Eddings is a womanizer with a notorious reputation for touching cheerleaders inappropriately.

Not tonight, though. And not ever that I’ve witnessed, so he still has all his teeth. Keira’s the only cheerleader I’m obsessed with, but I’m protective of them all.

Keira attempts a smile, but she isn’t in the mood for this ass tonight and manages little better than a twitchy glare.

I lift her hand to graze my lips over her knuckles chastely — until I bite down. “An absolute firecracker, too. Aren’t you, Hughes?”

She looks Eddings directly in the eye and says, “Your most expensive bottle of red, please.”

She’s not even a big drinker. Her dad died our senior year of high school when he got drunk and crashed into a van filled with students. For the rest of the year, I had to shut people up from making comments about how it was a miracle he was the only one who died, and poor Keira, who was already 18 and had no other family nearby, was stuck alone in a house she couldn’t pay the bills on. My parents offered to let her stay with us, but she refused.

Probably because of me.

So if an extra $500 on the tab will make her happy even though she only drinks half a glass of it, I’m down.

She’s also not a steak girl, so I order a mountain of appetizers for her to work through while accepting only a bite from my filet. She savors it with a smile but immediately goes back to the crab stuffed mushrooms and charcuterie.

Skeezeball Coach Eddings comes back around as we’re finishing to offer us a complimentary flight of desserts. Keira’s eyes light up when Eddings points out the brandied pears, and he laughs and says, “I brought extra just for you. I know how much you love them.”

He has the audacity to wink at her then, and I’m tempted to see how well he handles getting sacked these days since he thinks he’s still hot shit. But Keira just laughs, digs her spoon into the poached pear, and says, “I think I’ll miss these the most.”

What a bizarre,Wizard of Ozthing to say. “I mean, spring semester starts like two weeks after we get back from Miami, and then I’ll get you all the brandied pears you can stand. I’ll feed them to you in bed.”

I add that last part to drop a not-so-subtle hint to Eddings.

“Oh, not me,” she says quickly. “I mean, I’m studying abroad next semester. Germany.”

My stomach drops. I’m already planning to keep her very close the next couple of days and working out how to move her into my house for next semester. The idea of a long-distance relationship my final semester of—

“You can’t take a semester abroad!” I blurt out.

She narrows her eyes at me but pushes the other pear over so I can try it. “Of course I can. I am. It’s set.”

I nudge that pear like it’s a trap. She must want it for herself. And there’s a creme brulee and some weird chocolate tower thing I can have. But she’s giving me her pear.

My eyes dip down to the flight as too many thoughts hit me at the same time. “It’s your final semester. How are you going to get back in time for graduation?”

She shrugs and snaps a piece off the chocolate garnish, leaving me no choice but to at least try the pear, which is heavenly.

“I’m not. I already have a job lined up at the facility where I’ll be finishing out school at. It works out perfectly.”

Chapter 4

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