Page 61 of Home Field Advantage

A body slams into me and my first thought is that Sanchez and Devlin are about to kick my ass in front of everybody, but it’s Santiago, and then it’s Burke, and then Barnes, and oh God this is what it feels like to be on a team.

Shit, I might be crying.

The crowd is going absolutely bananas, and I pick out my family and friends and find they’re all on their feet, even Jeremy and Jason, and it feels like everything is forgiven right now even if it won’t be tomorrow. And it feels so good, I don’t want anything in my life to be broken anymore. I want to talk to Amber. I want to work shit out even if it means two more years of hiding in her room and dates nowhere but at Gutter Kittens.

I turn to catch her eye, to smile, to try to mouth a request to talk later, but all I get in response is a smirk. And then she and a couple of the other cheerleaders break away from the squad and come to stand about six feet away from the bench.

“Ready, steady, go!” she yells, and all eyes turn to her, including the majority of the squad left behind, who clearly have no idea what’s going on. The three of them—Amber, Crystal,and Nia, I see now—do a bunch of funky dance moves while the crowd cheers, and it ends with them lifting her up, a tiny pyramid of three with Ella Chow backspotting. (Insert a self-pat on the back for teaching myself a little about cheerleading.) Even without a megaphone, we can clearly hear her yell “Home-C-O-M-I-N-G!”

“Home-C-O-M-I-N-G!” Crystal, Nia, and Ella echo back.

“Home-C-O-M-I-N-G!” Amber repeats, pom-poms waving in the air. “Home-C-O-M-I-N-G! Jack Walsh, will you go with me?”

Silence.

Just… complete and total silence. Every guy on the team turns to gawk, even—especially—Miguel. Every cheerleader, too. Even I have no idea what to say.

Well, actually, I do. “Hell yeah, I will.”

And then there’s cheering again. And whistling and catcalling and I know it isn’t all friendly, and I know the team is whispering and snickering andnoneof that is friendly. But I don’t give a shit. Because she’s hopping down from the pyramid. Because she’s running over here. Because my brain is working on autopilot, picking her up and swinging her around and kissing her in front of the entire. Fucking. School.

Somewhere in the back of my brain it occurs to me that maybe I’m not thrilled at a scout seeingthis, but I’m done being anyone other than who I am. If anyone watching can’t handle me having a girlfriend, they can’t handleme.

Still, no one needs to see two people of any gender makingout for too long, so we force ourselves apart, grinning like idiots. “I’m forgiven?” she whispers.

“Not even close,” I whisper back. “Now I have to spend tomorrow looking for a suit.”

She laughs and squeezes my hand. “Sage and Morgan said they’d be very happy to help with that. And maybe tomorrow you can get your hair cut, too. If you want to.”

My heart swells a little bit at the suggestion. I know what she’s saying, and she’s right; the cat’s out of the bag. It’s time to look like me too. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. But for now…” She yanks the elastic out of my messy hair and pulls it up into a neater, photo-ready knot, and there’s something about how she isn’t bothered by any of the sweat or grime or how rank I must smell that sends the butterflies fluttering even harder. “Much better.”

“I’m suitable to be a cheerleader’s girlfriend now?”

She winks. “Well, youarethe quarterback.”

Chapter Thirteen

-AMBER-

“Will you stop fidgeting? You’re going to make me smudge it.”

I sit obediently, admiring my newly polished fingernails while my mom finishes winging my eyeliner. Ordinarily, I’d be getting ready with a few other girls on the squad, but, well, nothing about taking my football player girlfriend to homecoming on a day’s notice is ordinary.

If we were doing this normally, I’d be picking up Miguel and maybe a couple of friends who need rides. Instead, I dug hard into my savings and took out a loan from my mom tomake this night as special as possible to make it up to my two favorite people.

Of course, that left nothing for a mani-pedi, but thankfully, my mom is as talented with a nail polish brush as she is with an eyeliner brush. And a bronzer brush. And a contour brush. For someone who rarely wears makeup, she is pretty damn skilled with it. When she finally lets me take a look in the mirror, my immediate reaction is to catcall myself. If only I knew how to whistle.

“You look gorgeous, sweetheart.” She kisses the top of my head, taking care to avoid the curls I’ve painstakingly ironed into my hair. My cheeks shimmer with highlighter, my eyes look otherworldly aqua, and even I want to kiss my lips, which are the perfect bubble-gum pink to match my lace halter dress. “I hope tonight is wonderful for you. I know you’ve worked really hard at it.”

To hear that, most people would think I had something to do with planning the dance, which I didn’t. But my mom knows I spent hours getting in touch with Jack’s family and friends to beg them to make the drive to Atherton for the game. She knows I stayed up half the night writing and rewriting cheers and routines to make Jack look as beloved as possible and prove she has leadership skills.

She knows it meant that I threw away getting captain, that I might have thrown away being on the squad entirely, and she supported it anyway.

“Mom, I—” My attempt at a mushy sentiment is immediately cut off by the sound of a doorbell ringing, and I freeze in my seat.

She’s here.

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