Page 108 of Saving the Halfback

We were giventhe option to take the bus or drive ourselves to the game, so the guys and I opted to drive. I offered for Chase to come with us—there was room for another—but he declined, stating he had somewhere to be afterward.

Beth came walking out of the school, dressed in her cheerleader outfit and Wes’s letterman jacket. “Bailey!” Shecalled me over from a black van she stopped beside. “We are taking Prim’s van. Come with us!”

Wes was there, but mainly, it was cheerleaders. When I got closer to the van, I immediately noticed a distinctive scent that had me taking a step back. This…this was the van that took me to the field last week.

“Ew,” Prim sneered, “not Farm Girl. I don’t need my seats smelling like manure.” She cackled. She was a very pretty girl, all the cheerleaders were, especially when they had their makeup done up like they did now.

“What the hell, Prim?” Beth scolded. “Don’t go acting all high and mighty, when I know for a fact, you—”

“Beth,” I interrupted, feeling a hand on the small of my back. I knew it was one of the guys; the gentle touch was a giveaway. “It’s fine. We were going to take my truck, anyway.”

“Have room for two more?” As Beth turned away from the van, Wes shrugged and followed her.

No, we only had one spare seat. “I’ll ride with Chase,” Lachlan said.

I looked up at him. “You don’t have to.”

He smiled. “It’s fine.” He leaned down, pressing a kiss to my temple before heading across the parking lot to Chase.

“I’m sorry ahead of time if I smell like manure,” I said, opening the truck door. Beth rolled her eyes and laughed. Wes tossed his gear in the bed of the truck, with the rest of our bags, and got in the front with Ethan, while Nolan, Beth, and I sat in the back.

“Don’t listen to Prim. She’s a hardcore Hadley fan. Sorry, most of the cheer team is.”

“But not you?”

“No, I can think for myself, thank you very much.”

Wes and Ethan were deep in conversation about tonight’s game already as we followed the bus out of the parking lot.

“We haven’t hung out much,” Beth said, turning in her seat, so she was facing me more. I did the same and found myself leaning back against Nolan.

“You weren’t joking about having no time to myself once football started up. Plus, I work for my family.”

“What do you do?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Anything, everything that needs to be done. We are taking beans off the fields right now, so we will be ready for winter wheat. I just spent all last Sunday sitting in a tractor.”

“We need a girls’ night. You need a break from all this.” She waved around the cab of the truck, and I smiled. She was right.

“Does your dad need any help?” Ethan asked.

“We can always use an extra body. If you want to come by tomorrow, I’ll show you how to drive the tractor.”

Nolan chuckled. “We better be careful. By the end of the week, Bailey might have the whole team working for her on the farm.”

Everyone laughed, but I couldn’t help thinking how much quicker things would get done if we had the whole football team working. Scratch that—I didn’t think I could keep everyone in line as well as Coach did.

I didn’t thinkI’d ever get over pre-game jitters. The fact that this school had a full-size stadium field, professional-quality locker rooms, and a crowd of fans that seemed bigger than our entire school, did nothing to help that. I bet they had professional football players as paid coaches. Our coach was the gym teacher that coached the team on the side.

Coach’s pregame speech eased some of my worry and got everyone hyped up, but the nerves were still vibrating as we passed through a long tunnel toward the field.

Just like the time before, I watched Nolan keep everyone’s energy bouncing as we waited to be called out. The music outside was blasting, the cheerleaders getting the crowds screaming. I stayed at the back of the team, helmet in hand, collecting myself.

Focus on the game. Don’t look up into the crowd. You know how to play. You remember how to run. It’s no different than practice.

And then his hand slipped into mine. I looked up at Chase. “Is it normal to be this freaked out before every game?” I asked him.

“I used to vomit before every game,” he admitted.

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