A Non-Blonde Cheerleader in Love (8 page)

Coach walked out and Rincon smiled slowly at us. Hearts broke all over the bleachers. Daniel shifted uncomfortably and I wondered if the rise in my body heat was palpable. Had to get control of that.

“Well, as your coach mentioned, my name is Leo Rincon—”

“Oooh . . .
Leo,
” Lindsey whispered all huskily.

“I grew up in Miami and I cheered at Penn State,” he said. “After graduation I worked in the corporate world for a while, but that turned out to be boring as sin,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye that made Lindsey sigh audibly. “So now I am the head cheerleading coach at Florida State. I love my job, but when Deirdre called me, I had to come up right away to help. You never turn down a request from Deirdre.”

“Deirdre?” Sage said. “What kind of parents saddle a girl with a name like Deirdre?”

Yeah. Like
Sage
was such a winner.

“Oops. Were you not supposed to know that?” Rincon said. “That’ll have to be our little secret.”

The girls all giggled at that, and Terrell scoffed. I had a feeling the guys were kind of threatened by Rincon.

Coach returned then, kicking the door open because her arms were wrapped around the props box—a cardboard box that was covered with blue and yellow paper megaphones. All the veterans perked up slightly and there was an excited murmur that made me cringe. I had no love for the props box myself, being that the last time I saw it, the thing had spurred a good couple weeks of personal misery. It had contained several suggestions from persons unknown (most likely Tara and Sage) that I dye my hair blonde for uniformity before nationals. Suggestions that had made me paranoid and irritable, which then made everyone around me annoyed. Good times.

Yeah, I hated the props box. Everyone else, however, worshipped the darn thing.

“Everything going okay?” she asked Rincon.

“We like each other already,” our new coach replied.

“Aw, Coach. Did you bring us a present?” Terrell asked, eyeing the box.

The boys all snickered. Everyone except for Steven, who had witnessed the last reading of the props box and seen me freak out. I squirmed. Sarcastic jokes were not the way to get on Coach Holmes’ good side. But she smiled at him, clearly deciding to let it slide.

“This, for those of you who don’t already know, is a props box,” Coach said, thrusting both hands at the box like she was a model at a car show, displaying the latest Fast-and-Furious-mobile. “Whenever you have a compliment for another member of the team, or a suggestion on how to make our squad even better, you write it down and put it in the box. Anonymously, of course. Halfway through the season we’ll open it up and see what everyone has to say.”

Terrell snorted a laugh. Every girl on the squad turned around to glare at him. Even the ones who had spent all of Friday night flirting with him. You did not mock the props box.

“What? It’s a joke, right?” he said, spreading his hands wide. Met with silence, he raised his eyebrows. “It’s
not
a joke?”

“No, Mr. Truluck. I’m afraid it’s not,” Coach said impatiently.

Terrell scoffed again. “What is this, a team or a Brownie troop?”

“I don’t do Brownie troops,” Joe said.

Oh, they were so very dead. Suddenly I saw antlers sprout out of Terrell’s and Joe’s heads as Coach chased after them sporting an orange hunter’s jacket and wielding a shotgun.

“Listen up, people. We take the props box seriously,” Coach said, hands on hips. “Basketball season is a long season with a lot of games and a lot of practices. Eventually the squad tends to get unmotivated and certain people slack off, leaving others to pick up the pieces. For the past few years, that has resulted in blowups and fights between squad mates. Well, this year, I’m hoping to nip that in the bud. Once we start to feel a little tension, we’ll open up the props box, read the contents and get psyched up again.”

“It’s very therapeutic,” Autumn said.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m
always
psyched,” Terrell said casually, leaning back on his elbows.

Daniel laughed and Steven and Joe hid their smiles behind their hands. Tara had a serious “I told you so” face on, but she had enough of a self-preservation instinct to direct it at the gym floor rather than at Coach.

“Are you?” Coach said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Good. Then maybe you and your friends back there wouldn’t mind going into the wrestling gym and bringing back their extra mats so we can get to work in here. And while you’re doing that, you’ll be missing our warm-up, so when you get back, I’m thinking you should do double push-ups, triple crunches and ten extra laps around the gym.”

Now it was the girls’ turn to snicker.

“Crunches?” Daniel said.

“I don’t do crunches,” Joe said.

“You do now,” Rincon said. “Crunches are key. We have to build up your core strength for stunting. I think the guys will be doing at least a couple hundred today, am I right?” he asked, looking to Coach Holmes for confirmation.

A couple hundred? This guy meant business.

“Sounds good.” Coach Holmes smirked. “You didn’t think you were joining a Brownie troop, did you, Healy?”

Silence. My neck prickled with heat on Daniel’s behalf.

“Did you?” Coach repeated.

“No, Coach,” Daniel said loudly.

“Good. Now, the four of you. Go,” she said.

The guys scrambled up and loped down the bleachers past us. From the uniform slump of their shoulders you might have thought they were surprised and disappointed to learn they were actually going to have to work out.
Had
they thought they were joining a Brownie troop? What did they think we did all afternoon? Trade beauty secrets? Wait until our first trip to the weight room. These guys were in for a serious wake-up call.

“Told you she’d whip them into shape,” Chandra said under her breath as the other girls whispered and giggled. Coach slid a no-nonsense stare our way and everyone instantly clammed up.

“The rest of you, push-ups,” Coach said firmly, narrowing her eyes. “
Now
.”

 
“How much longer are we going to do this?” Terrell said softly.

“I think it’s kind of fun,” Sage replied flirtatiously.

She kicked up her feet and jumped off the third bleacher into Terrell’s arms. He caught her effortlessly, with his arms and hands in perfect position, which wasn’t all that shocking, considering we had each practiced it at least fifty times under Coach Rincon’s watchful eyes. Phoebe went next, jumping into Joe’s outstretched arms. On the other side of the gym, Tara and Coach Holmes worked on teaching some of the new girls a few of the more popular cheers while Chandra and the others went over basic all-girl stunts. Of course I, like Sage, enjoyed being right where I was, no matter how repetitive the activity. Because when I stepped to the end of the bleacher, Daniel was waiting for me.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Ready,” he replied with a smile.

I jumped up, locked my legs and came down right in his arms.

“Perfect!” Rincon said.

Couldn’t have agreed more.

Daniel smiled and placed me down on my feet. Jaimee was just about to do her jump with Steven when Rincon clapped his hands.

“I think we all have the cradling position down,” he said. “Let’s—”

“I could do it in my sleep,” Terrell said, not so quietly. Sage giggled and touched his arm. Unbelievable. She was flirting with Terrell. Right in front of her ex-boyfriend, who also happened to be her
current
boyfriend’s brother. What was it with this girl? It was like whenever she was around guys, she developed boyfriend-related amnesia.

“Terrell, is it?” Rincon said.

In the background the rest of the girls started up the hello cheer, their voices and claps echoing through the gym.

“Yeah,” Terrell said.

“Good. Terrell, you and your partner will be first,” Rincon said, stepping over to the blue-and-gold mat behind him. “To the mat, please.”

“Now you’re talking,” Terrell said, rubbing his hands together.

“The name’s Sage,” Sage told Rincon as she sauntered past him. “In case you were wondering.”

Classy. She was flirting with him too. Thankfully, Rincon didn’t flirt back. That would have been too gross to handle.

“Thank you, Sage,” he said flatly. Then he turned and shouted across the room. “Coach Holmes! Can I see you over here for a moment?”

Coach said a few words to Tara, then jogged over. “What’s up?”

“I’d like to demonstrate a chair sit, if you don’t mind,” Rincon said.

“Great. Let’s do it,” Coach replied.

“Everyone watch how this works,” Rincon said. “Guys, pay attention to my hands, my stance, my eyes. When stunting, we keep our eyes on our partners at all times. No exceptions.”

Coach Holmes stepped in front of him and he placed his hands on her small waist. She reached back and braced her hands on his wrists, which were already taped up with what looked like gauze and first aid tape.

“One, two,” Rincon said.

Coach bent her knees and popped up, as if weightless, into the air. She landed perfectly with her butt on Rincon’s palm, one knee raised, her arms in a high V. Across the room, Chandra whistled and everyone cheered. Coach Holmes was the goods.

“Nice,” Daniel said.

“This is gonna be so cool,” I agreed, the butterflies in my stomach fluttering with excitement.

I glanced over at Terrell and Sage, who were supposedly
so psyched
about stunting. He, for some reason, was inspecting her palm and she was giggling and blinking up at him.

As Coach cradled out into the position we’d all been practicing, Terrell whispered something to Sage and Sage doubled over laughing. Terrell grabbed for her waist and Sage squealed and whirled away, batting at his hand. I exchanged a look of doom with Phoebe. These two were both so wrapped up in their flirt fest that they were entirely oblivious to the fact that the whole gym was silent and we were all staring at them.

So very uncool.

“Barnard! Truluck!” Coach Holmes barked, her nostrils flaring.

They both stopped and looked up. Sage had the intelligence, at least, to go ashen.

“I think Coach Rincon’s instructions were pretty clear,” Holmes said. “You were supposed to be watching the stunt.”

“Sorry, Coach,” Sage said, snapping her feet together and placing her hands behind her back.

“I hope so, Barnard, because you and your partner there will be sitting out the rest of the stunting practice,” Coach Holmes said.

“What? Why?” Terrell protested.

“Terrell, what did I tell you at the beginning of practice?” Coach Rincon said, his jaw clenched. Man took his stunting seriously. “Safety, attentiveness, awareness at all times. You just completely missed the demonstration of the stunt I was about to teach you because you were too busy tickling your partner.”

Phoebe hid a laugh behind her hand and I bit my lip.

“I saw it,” Terrell said, lifting his chin. Even though his cluelessness was evident in his eyes.

“No, you didn’t,” Rincon said.

“Sit down, please, you two,” Coach Holmes said calmly.

“But I—”

“Sit.
Down
.”

I think every dog and young child in the state of Florida responded to the no-nonsense strength of that order. Sage sighed, but did as she was told. Terrell looked for a moment like he was going to argue further, but Daniel caught his eye and surreptitiously shook his head. Finally Terrell huffed by us and dropped onto the bottom bleacher, shoving his legs out and crossing his arms over his chest like a petulant five-year-old who’d just been put in time-out.

Honestly, I was starting to wonder why Daniel hung out with this guy. But then, I usually enjoyed hanging out with Terrell too. Back when he was just funny cutup Terrell who wasn’t constantly wasting everyone’s time and irritating my coach to no end.

“Daniel, Annisa, on the mat, please,” Coach said.

We exchanged a determined look and I knew that Daniel, at least, was ready to work. Good. Because I was more than eager to start learning these stunts. They were definitely going to bring a whole new dimension to the team.