A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love (29 page)

“Uh . . . maybe I have a ride?” I said uncertainly.

“Want me to wait inside?” she asked, clutching her coat closer to her.

Daniel was staring at me through the windshield. I couldn’t read his expression.

“Uh . . . I guess?” I said.

My mother smiled at me encouragingly. “I’m right in there if you need me,” she said. Then she jogged back inside to enjoy the heat. Which had been turned on for the first time today. The second she was gone, Daniel got out of the car. He left it running. For what? So he could make a quick getaway after he finally, officially broke up with me?

“Hey,” he said, pushing his hands into the pockets of his varsity jacket. He had topped it with a blue scarf, no gloves. Boys. Always trying to be so tough.

“Hey,” I said.

“You going to the thing?” he asked.

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah.”

Well. This was a stunningly fascinating conversation.

Daniel took a few steps toward me. “Annisa, I can’t take this anymore,” he said. “I should never have joined this stupid squad.”

“Don’t say that,” I said.

“No. It’s true,” he told me, locking his clear blue eyes on mine. “We never fought before this. A couple of weeks ago I couldn’t even imagine being mad at you and now—”

“Now you’re mad at me all the time,” I finished.

Daniel smirked. “Well, not
all
the time.”

My shoulder muscles uncoiled. “Daniel, I’m so sorry about the pep rally. I mean, I was all caught up in Sage’s plan and I didn’t realize exactly how bad it was going to be until, you know, I saw it.”

“Yeah. It sucked pretty hard,” he said. “But I kind of understand the pack mentality thing. Terrell is
really
good at talking me into stuff. And I don’t know why,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

I snorted a laugh. “Maybe because he’s the devil?”

“Could be,” Daniel said.

We stood there for a moment, shivering in silence. This was the most we had said to each other in days. All I wanted to do was hug him. I felt like some invisible force was pushing me toward him, but I held my ground. I still didn’t know if
he
wanted to hug
me.
I felt so awkward just standing there.

“So . . . what do we do now?” I said finally.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, then stepped even closer. My breath caught and I realized that a big part of me had thought he would never be this close to me again.

“Well, for starters, I was thinking this,” he said.

And then he reached out and pulled me into his arms. I pressed my face against the cold leather of his jacket and squeezed my eyes closed. Sweet relief! I felt like I was really breathing for the first time all week.

“What do you think?” he asked lightly.

“This is good!” I replied, my voice cracking.

Daniel leaned back and smiled. “So you don’t hate me anymore?”

“I never
hated
you,” I replied. “Do you still hate me?”

“I never hated you either,” he said.

Big sigh.

“I thought you were never going to talk to me again,” I said. “I came to your house . . .” I trailed off. We both knew I’d come to his house. We both knew that I knew that he’d seen me. How had things gotten so complicated?

“I’m sorry about the freeze-out,” Daniel said. “I just needed some time to chill. If I’d talked to you that day . . .”

Now it was his turn to let the sentence hang. I swallowed hard, realizing how he would have finished it.
If I’d talked to you that day . . . we would have broken up.

This really hurt. No one ever told you how much having a boyfriend could
really hurt.
Two days ago, Daniel had seriously thought about breaking up with me. I could hardly believe it.

“Anyway, there’s still something you have to explain,” Daniel said.

He let me go and took a couple steps back. My stomach dropped. The chili I had eaten for dinner gurgled. Mental note: Chili is never a good idea in the midst of relationship uncertainty.

“What?” I asked, shivering from both the cold and the abject fear.

“I guess I still don’t understand why you were so mad at me,” he said.

Oh, yeah. That. How to explain? I tilted my head back to look at him and gave it my best shot.

“I think I just felt like . . . like you were choosing the guys over me,” I said. “Like it was more important to you to . . . I don’t know, make Terrell laugh than to think about me. My feelings.”

Daniel blew out a sigh. “I guess I said some mean things at the slumber party, huh?”

“Yeah. Kind of. But it wasn’t just that. I told you how important that night was to all of us and it was like you just ignored it,” I said.

“I didn’t ignore it,” Daniel said. “I just didn’t get it.”

“Well, maybe that’s the problem. It doesn’t matter if you
get
it. You just have to . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Respect it? Listen better?” Daniel offered.

I smirked. “Maybe. Have you been going to therapy or something?”

“Nah. Just talked to Steven about it,” Daniel said with a smile. “Did you know his parents are psychologists?”

“That’s right!” I said. “I forgot he’s good at this stuff.”

“Well, all right. I’ll try to be better, but then the same goes for you,” Daniel said. “You have to listen better to me.”

“When have I not listened?” I asked, baffled.

Daniel laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, every time I’ve told you that something was a joke? You take everything so seriously, Annisa, and sometimes I really
am
just kidding.”

My heart turned and I looked at the ground, embarrassed. I guess if I expected Daniel to eat a little crow, I would have to do some chewing myself. After all, I
knew
I wasn’t totally in the right. I guess it was just sort of difficult to hear it.

“You think you could do that? Not take stuff so seriously?” he said, ducking his head to try to catch my eye. There was a big lump in my throat, but I knew I had to answer him.

“I guess so,” I said, rolling my eyes comically.

Daniel grinned and my heart completely unclenched for the first time in days.

“Good,” he said. Then he took a deep breath and blew it out. “Whew. This couple thing is hard,” he joked.

“Tell me about it,” I said with a smile.

“So we’re cool?” he asked.

The smile widened as relief flooded through me. We were not breaking up. We were making up! Right here, right now. “Yeah. We’re cool.”

“Good. So . . . you wanna go to school before they all leave without us?” he said, turning one shoulder toward the car.

“Wait! Don’t you want to do the whole best-part-of-fighting thing?” I said, jumping forward. I was giddy. I couldn’t help it.

Daniel looked adorably confused. “What’s that? Oh, man. Is that something you’ve told me that I didn’t listen to?”

“Ha-ha,” I said, shoving his shoulder. “No, no, no. It’s kissing and making up.”

“Oh! Right! That!” Daniel looked happier than I’d seen him in a long time. “Now
that
I can handle.”

And then I kissed him, and he kissed me back, and we stayed there for I don’t know how long, just keeping each other warm.

17

We were late. Guess make-up smooching can kind of make a person lose track of time. The two fan buses were still idling at the curb in front of the school when Daniel and I pulled up, but it seemed like they were all loaded up and ready to go. Daniel killed the engine and grabbed my hand as we made a run for it. As soon as his fingers touched mine, I didn’t much care whether we made it to the wrestling match or not. Daniel was holding my hand again. This night could not get any better.

As we raced around the side of the bus, I saw Tara, Phoebe and Sage staring at me through the windows toward the back. They did not look happy. They looked, in fact, thoroughly betrayed. Like I was holding hands with the enemy.

Gulp.

Somehow I had forgotten that the squad was still in a boy-vs.-girl clash to the death. Somehow making up with Daniel had blocked out everything else. But now we were about to enter the ring, together. On that bus was half the squad. How would they feel about me and Daniel making nice?

I was completely out of breath, more from a bizarre concoction of nerves and excitement than from the short sprint, when we got to the door of the bus. A couple of parentals from the PTA booster club stood outside the door and welcomed us on. They wore blue-and-yellow ribbons on their lapels and one of them was sporting a blue foam hat shaped like a crab, which looked like it had seen better days.

“You just made it!” Crab-Lady said with a pearly white smile. She stepped back to let us through.

“Thanks,” I said as Daniel let me board ahead of him.

We stepped up onto the bus and Daniel put his hands on my shoulders from behind as I walked down the aisle. I might as well have been wearing a target on my forehead. Interspersed throughout the regular old fans were our various teammates, and if looks could kill, we would have died ten times over. There were Terrell and Joe, glaring at Daniel’s hands like they would have liked to amputate them. There were Lindsey and Karianna, jaws dropped in such indignation, you would have thought I was wearing West Wind colors. Sage blew out a noisy sigh through her lips and Tara Timothy shook her head in disgust.

“I think it’s colder in here than it is outside,” Daniel joked in my ear.

I cracked a smile. He got it in one. About the only person that seemed happy to see us touching was Mindy, who waved at us from a three-seater at the center of the bus.

I really missed having Mindy on the squad. Always the voice of reason. The basketball team was lucky to have her.

“You guys made up?” she said with a grin.

“Yep. Just now,” I said, dropping into the seat next to her.

Daniel mushed in, letting one of his knees jut out into the aisle. I slumped down so far, my jacket rode up my back and my knees pressed into the seat in front of me. Daniel and Mindy both looked down at me, their blue eyes concerned. For the first time, I realized how similar they looked. Blond-haired, blue-eyed gorgeousness. They could be twins. Disturbing.

“Uh, Annisa?” Daniel asked. “What’re you doing?”

“Hiding,” I told him.

“Why?” Mindy asked.

“Have you not noticed that the entire cheerleading squad wants us dead?” I whispered as the bus roared to life. “We’re traitors. We’re Romeo and Juliet and they’re the Capulets and Montagues.”

Mindy laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic.” Then she got up on her knees and looked around. Instantly her face fell and she sank back down again, hunkering a bit lower than before. “Okay. I get your point.”

Apparently, she’d been hit by a few death rays by association.

Daniel reached out and laced his fingers through mine. “So they’re staring. So what?” he said. “I’m not going to let this squad affect us anymore.”

“No?” I said, perking up slightly.