Charming the Cheerleader
Maggie Dallen
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
1
Conner
Aww, how cute.
I stopped short in the kitchen doorway to take stock of the scene before me. My mom was hovering over a griddle full of pancakes at the stove, my stepdad was flipping through the local paper, and my stepsister Harley was bent over a piece of paper and fidgeting with a glass of orange juice at the kitchen table.
If a stranger walked into this kitchen they’d see a freakin’ Norman Rockwell painting. Portrait of Domestic Bliss.
Except they’d be wrong. Because here was the thing—this whole scene? It was weird. Everything about this scenario was sketching me out. My mom and Frank seemed determined to act like this whole blended family thing was no big deal, that it wasn’t strange at all that I was suddenly sharing a house with some weirdo artsy chick who, up until a few months ago, had been just another girl in my class.
Harley glanced up at me, her dark hair a curly explosion that seemed to be trying to escape the bun on the top of her head. Her brows were drawn together in a frown as she glowered at me through her thick, black-rimmed glasses. At least she and I seemed to be on the same page.
This new situation? It was weird. Coming down to breakfast and finding Harley Brooks sitting there was weird enough, but add in the fact that my mom and Frank were trying to make it seem normal and that was just annoying.
Like, my mom for example. She didn’t cook. Like…ever. “What are you doing?” I asked, going over and snatching the spatula out of her hands.
“I thought I’d make you and Harley breakfast for your first day of school.” She said it with a happy smile, but I caught the glimmer of relief as I took over at the stove.
Cooking chilled me out for some reason, but for my mom? The act of boiling water turned her into an anxious stressball.
As for Frank… I glanced over to where he had his head buried in the local paper. Well, for all I knew he was a news junkie and this was his norm. But it was still weird for me to see this balding stranger in his undershirt and boxers.
Ugh. No, thanks.
I turned back to the stove and flipped a pancake, fiddling with the dial on the range to get the right flame going on. If we were back home in our old house in our former town I would have dialed it in on the first try, not even having to look. Our old stove was a piece of junk, but I’d known it like the back of my hand, unlike this new, modern, way too elaborate oven.
We’d moved in on Friday so there were still boxes everywhere and the odor of fresh paint hung in the air, threatening to ruin the pancake smell, which was definitely the best part of this ridiculous morning.
“You kids had better hurry or you’ll be late on your first day,” Frank said.
“It’s not my fault Harley took forever in the bathroom,” I said.
Oh yeah, and the fact that I was now sharing a bathroom with a girl who used to be ‘that freaky chick’ back at our old school?
Nope. Not weird at all.
She looked up from whatever she was reading long enough to glare at me. “I get sick when I’m nervous. I can’t help it.”
I’ll admit, I had felt sort of bad for the kid when I’d heard her retching earlier this morning. I mean, I was grossed out, but I wasn’t heartless. I tossed a pancake on a plate and set it down in front of her with a little ruffle of her messy bun, which I knew would annoy her. Ever since our parents started dating six months ago, I’d teased her that she was my little sister and it drove her nuts.
She liked to point out that she was technically older than me by two months, and we’d been in the same grade ever since she’d transferred to our old school back in fifth grade. Whatever. She still seemed young to me, and quite frankly, she was kind of a mystery. Maybe because she was a loner at our old school, all into her weird art projects and only talking to the other outcasts. After years of going to the same school, all I really knew about this chick was that she didn’t party and she didn’t hook up with the guys in our class. She was all…innocent or whatever. So yeah, she might have technically been older, but she seemed like a little kid to me. She might have even been cute if she wasn’t such a pain. Very holier-than-thou, my new little step-sis.
Over the top of Harley’s head my mom gave me a pleading look. I rolled my eyes. I’d been kidding about the whole bathroom-hogging thing. Still, my mom wouldn’t be satisfied until I played nice. “You got nothing to be nervous about, sport,” I said to Harley as I headed back to the stove. “You’ve got me.”
She let out a huff of laughter. “Yeah, that makes me feel much better.”
I looked at her over my shoulder. “I’m just saying, I’ve got your back.”
“Yeah, but you’re just as much the new kid as I am,” she said. “We’re both walking into a new school in the middle of the school year—”
“You’ve only missed one month,” my mom pointed out.
“No need to be nervous, kitten.” Frank looked up from his paper to give his daughter a reassuring smile. “You and Conner can look out for each other.” He gave us both the sort of big grin one normally associated with a sleazy car salesman or maybe a creepy clown.
I held back a sigh. “New or not, I’ll be just fine, so don’t worry about it.”
Harley held up the sheet of paper. “Did you even look at your class assignment yet?”
I stared at her. I was trying to be nice here, and all she wanted to do was show me up? That’s what I got for being a softie. “No, dork, I didn’t get my assignments yet. When did you even have time for that? It’s Monday morning.”
She blinked those owlish eyes at me. “I went on Friday.”
I stared back at her in incomprehension. “While we were moving?”
She sniffed. “I had Frank stop on our way into town.”
My brows drew together in confusion, like they always did when I spoke to Harley for more than second. The girl was weird. Smart, but weird.
“That was good thinking,” my mom said, her tone just a little too sweet for a Monday morning. My mom still hadn’t quite figured out how to act normally around Harley. She was still trying to be the cool stepmom. Apparently she didn’t care if I thought she was cool because she smacked me lightly upside the head as I sat down with my own plate of food. “You could learn a thing or two from her, young man.”
Harley’s smirk annoyed the crap out of me as she turned to my mother. “Thanks, Lanie.”
It still weirded me out to hear her calling my mom ‘Lanie,’ like they were BFFs or something. Sure, I called Frank by his first name, too, but then—so did Harley.
“Thanks, Lanie,” I mimicked in a sing-song voice. Was it my finest moment? No. It didn’t exactly speak well of my maturity.
But it was kind of funny.
It also earned me another smack from my mom and a snort of amusement from Frank. Harley just arched her brows in challenge. She was always doing this to me, and I honestly had no idea why. She seemed to think we were involved in some sort of competition, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
W
e might not have been friends at our old school but we’d been in the same class for ages, so I knew what she was about, and trust me when I say...there was no competition. Harley might have been smart, but I was popular. She was a giant nerd and I was…well, let’s face it. Kind of a god, really.
Not in the King-of-the-jocks way. Nope. That wasn’t my style. I’d never been big on sports, but I didn’t have to be. I played the guitar. Was I a musical genius? No. But I was good enough to be in a band, and the only thing high school girls loved more than a quarterback was the guy in a band. Trust me, I was speaking from experience here.
Anyway, my point was—we didn’t play in the same league so there was no competition. She could have all the good grades and be the goody-two-shoes of this family. I was all for it. She thought there was a competition, but I wasn’t even playing the same game.
“Conner, you’ll give Harley a ride today, right?” Frank asked.
“Of course.” I met Harley’s challenging look with a smirk of my own. So she had a class schedule. Big whoop.
I had the car.
My dad gave it to me as a present before we left California for the East Coast. A not-so-subtle bribe to make sure I still thought well of him, even though he’d all but thrown me at my mom after their divorce years ago.
Whatever. I was sixteen—I didn’t need a father figure nearly as much as I needed a car, a fact he seemed to realize when it came time to say goodbye for who knew how long.
Frank cleared the plates and offered to do the dishes so Harley and I could get to school on time.
Apparently, ‘on time’ for Harley meant early.
Have I mentioned the girl was weird?
Right. Moving on.
By the time we reached the school, I’d almost forgotten about how annoying Harley could be because, yet again, the girl was back to being pitiful. I parked my Jeep in the parking lot closest to the front entrance and opened my car door, pausing when I realized she’d made no move to get out as well. “Come on, kitten, time to go,” I said, nudging her elbow and smiling in the face of her glare.
The easiest way to torment her was to use one of Frank’s stupid nicknames.
“Don’t call me that.”
See? It was almost too easy.
“You can’t hide out here forever,” I said. “Just walk in there and get it over with.”
“How can you be so calm?” she huffed. But she was getting out of the car, so my job here was done. I looked over to see her eyeing the groups of students who were huddled around cars, talking and laughing as they caught up from the weekend, I supposed.
“They’re just people, Harley,” I said, draping an arm around her shoulders to bolster her confidence. Like I’d said, the girl might have been annoying but I wasn’t heartless. “Just act natural. You’ll be fitting in in no time.”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered, her little elf-like body all tense against my side. “Everyone always likes you.”
She didn’t say it but the ‘I can’t imagine why’ was very well implied. Unlike me, Harley hadn’t even tried to play nice since our parents had gotten together in a whirlwind romance that was way too nauseating and best forgotten as quickly as possible.
“They’d like you too if you’d just relax,” I said.
She glanced up at me, surprise clear in her eyes. “That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be weird about it.”
She let out a snort of amusement. “Fine. But the truth is, you’ll fit in because people just like you and everything comes easily to you and…” Her voice trailed off for a second as she gave her head a little shake. “I have to work to find my people.”
“Your people,” I repeated.
Her nod was definitive. “Yes. The people who understand me.”
Fellow losers was what I assumed she meant, but I was kind enough not to point that out. Even if I’d wanted to, she’d chosen that moment to get super weird on me, basically curling up into a ball against my side.
Why? Apparently the sight of a group of no-neck jocks had her reverting to the walking equivalent of a fetal position. I barely held back a sigh. Why this girl was intimidated by a bunch of too-loud alphahole types who were blocking the front doors, I had no idea. The girl must have seen too many bad teen movies, or something.
“They’re just people, Harley,” I said. “Loud and obnoxious, sure, but you know the best way to deal with guys like them? Show them you’re not intimidated.”
She looked up at me, and her expression said she was thoroughly unimpressed by my words of wisdom.
Fine. She didn’t believe me? I’d show her.
I tilted my chin up when their gawking eyes latched onto us. “What’s up?” I said to a beefy guy with a neck as thick as my thigh. I waited for a manly nod in return but all I got was narrowed eyes like he was confused that I was speaking to him.
They were all staring at us in silence that was…yeah, okay, maybe just a little intimidating. Harley gripped a handful of my T-shirt at my side.
I gave them my infamous lopsided grin, the one that made girls swoon and guys mellow. “This way to the office, right?”
“Nah, man,” an ugly redhead said. “You must be lost.” He pointed away from the school and across the street. “Juvie is that way.”
His friends cracked up like this was the most hysterical joke they’d ever heard as I steered Harley past them and through the front doors.
“You really showed them,” Harley muttered next to me.
“Shut up.”
2
Rosalie
New guy.
The words were in the air everywhere I turned that morning, but I was too distracted to care.
Scratch that. I was distracted—I mean, it wasn’t every day I discovered my dad cheating on my mom—but even if that hadn’t been the case, I wouldn’t really have cared about the new guy. New guy, old guy, hot guy, bald guy—wouldn’t have mattered. I was over guys, period.
Too jaded for a sixteen-year-old? Maybe. But in my defense, guys hadn’t exactly been good to me lately. First there was Danny, my tool of an ex who broke my heart and then ruined my reputation with rumors during spring semester last year. Then there were Danny’s friends, who took his side and bolstered his claims that I was some heartless, frigid ice queen.
Not any old ice queen. I was the ice queen of Talmore High.
And now add my father into the mix. My former hero, the guy who taught me how to ride a bike, and the man now responsible for my overwhelming misery.
To tell or not to tell? That was the question.
“Well?” Allie was facing me, with Erika at her side. My two friends wore matching expectant looks.
“Um…”
Erika slung an arm over my shoulders. A senior, Erika was also head cheerleader, and she bore a striking resemblance to Eva Mendes—meaning, she was absurdly hot, and quite possibly even more universally feared than me. The difference? People feared Erika, but they also respected her. I was just feared.
“Girl, what’s with you?” Erika said, squeezing my shoulders. As the shortest of our little trio, I’d sort of become used to being manhandled like this. “You were totally spacing out.”
“Sorry.” I hadn’t told them yet about my dad.
I’d sort or been friends with these two ever since I’d transferred here freshman year. I’d been friends with Erika and Allie as much as I’d been friends with all of Danny’s friends. Which was to say…not really much of friends at all. They’d all accepted me into their group because Danny had told them to, but it wasn’t until Danny and I broke up last year that I’d seen who my real friends were. Erika was one. She’d taken me under her wing, and it was likely her protection that kept me from being a total outcast.
Anyway, all that was to say that while I loved Erika and Allie—I really did—I didn’t quite feel comfortable spilling my family’s secrets to them. I just wasn’t wired to open up like t
hat…to anyone, really. Besides, I still wasn’t sure what to say since I had no clue what I was going to do about it.
It happened a week ago—that was the day I’d gotten out of school early for a dentist appointment. I should have gone straight to cheerleading practice. Instead I’d gone home to grab a bite first, and instead had caught my dad red-handed with Betty Lawson, the realtor who was forever sniffing around our neighborhood.
I guess now I knew why.
My friends were staring at me, waiting for me to contribute to this conversation, no doubt. “Sorry, what did you say?”
Allie huffed, rolling her eyes. “I said, have you seen him?”
If Erika was our school’s answer to Eva Mendes, then Allie was our Christina Hendricks, all sexy curves and sex-kitten voice. She even had the bright red hair.
“Seen who?” I asked. “Oh. Right. The new guy.”
“Don’t be such a downer,” Erika said, dropping her arm as we all headed toward our respective classes in the east wing. “It’s been ages since we’ve gotten fresh meat around here.”
“Nice. Very nice,” I said, my lips twitching up in amusement at her classy turn of phrase.
“She’s right,” Allie said. In Allie’s world, Erika was always right. A junior like me, Allie was deeply invested in taking over Erika’s role as head cheerleader and steal her crown as most popular girl in school.
As far as I was concerned, that title was all hers, but for some reason Allie seemed to view me as a threat to her plans for total school domination. For this reason alone, we were more frenemies than friends most of the time, but I had no doubt that when Erika graduated and she saw that I was still not a threat to her dreams, we’d be better friends than we were today.
Charming the Cheerleader (The Bet Duet Book 1) Page 1
