Bring Her On

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands in the air. “I won’t press you. But if you wanted to tell me . . .”

  I glared at him.

  “Message received. Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

  I swung the conversation back in the direction of cheer, a safer topic, but my mind was still thinking about Echo.

  She was coming back into my life in a big way.

  Two

  “Where is your bow?” I asked Mack, my most-important flyer, who had apparently forgotten she was a cheerleader today. She’d forgotten her uniform somehow, but we had extras on hand that fit her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, threatening to cry mascara tears all over her already made-up face. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I had everything in my bag.”

  I could tell she felt completely awful, so I gave her a hug and told her I had emergency bows for situations like this.

  “You might not be prepared, but I am.” I spent many hours of my life going over every single contingency that could happen, so that we would never be surprised.

  My squad knew that even if someone broke their leg in the middle of a routine, we would be able to stop, regroup, and go on again, and nail it. I regularly would pull people from stunts and throw the alternates in, just to keep them on their toes. No surprises, ever.

  I pulled out the bow and slid it onto her ponytail and gave her a little extra hairspray. Big bows were back in now, and I was pleased. If your bow wasn’t half the size of your head and covered in rhinestones, what was the point?

  “Hey, it’s okay. Leave that at the door. Breathe.” I made her do some breathing exercises a few times with me until she seemed to be focused on the performance again.

  So much of what I did as a coach was be a surrogate mother, so it was no wonder I didn’t have any energy left for dating. I also didn’t have time.

  Dom led everyone in warmups and putting up a few stunts, and then I gave the rousing pep talk. I told them to look at the crowd. Their friends and families were here to support them, as well as local press, and other members of the community. Megan and the photographer lurked in the periphery, and I smoothed my hair. I’d taken extra care with it today. We all needed to look good today.

  Everything was set to go, but I was momentarily thrown off my game when I saw a flash of red hair climbing the bleachers. No, it couldn’t be her. I was just seeing things.

  I turned my attention back to my squad and we all put our hands in and did our little call and response cheer that we did before every performance. I didn’t like to say I was superstitious, but I was wearing my lucky earrings and rings, and had a quarter in my pocket, as I always did before they performed. Sticking my hand in my pocket, I rubbed the quarter five times.

  Showtime.

  The kids did amazing, everything hit and they were ecstatic when they got off the mat. I gave them a few little tips and pointers and then let them run and hug their friends and families and bask in the performance. I was proud of them.

  “They did good,” Dom said, putting his arm around me. “And guess who else did good?”

  “You?”

  “Well, yes, me. That’s a given.” He bumped me with his hip. “But you. You’re doing an amazing job this season.”

  I never really knew what to do with compliments, so I just ducked my head to hide my blush. I turned around to chat with one of the parents and that’s when I saw her, walking down the bleachers again.

  My mouth dropped open and I snapped it shut as I was going to respond to the parent.

  “Could you excuse me for one moment?” I shot Dom a look and he stepped in. We had been working together long enough that he could read my face as if I’d spoken aloud.

  It took me a second to find her again. She’d slipped into the leaving crowd.

  “Hey, Echo!” I yelled, maybe a little too loudly. She paused with her hand on the gym door to leave. People streamed around us and she had to decide to turn around and face me, or open the door and pretend she didn’t hear me.

  She picked the second option, and I wasn’t going to let that stand.

  I pushed the door open as she speed-walked to the parking lot.

  “Echo! Don’t walk away from me. What are you doing here?”

  People were staring, but I didn’t care.

  Echo pivoted on her heel and turned around fully. Her hair flowed over her shoulders in the breeze, as if she was posing for a hair product commercial.

  Seeing her again was as intense as seeing her the first time: a visceral punch in the gut. The freckles across her nose made me clench my fists.

  “What are you doing here?” I stepped closer so I could lower the volume of my voice and not create so much of a spectacle.

  A calm smile spread across her face. “Just enjoying the show. It was open to the public.” She gestured to the people walking around us.

  “It shouldn’t have been,” I muttered. I didn't like seeing her. It made me feel too many things at once. I wrapped my arms around my stomach to try and hold myself together.

  “You’re welcome at our practice any time, Kiri.” The smile twisted into something else. Something that made my heart pound in my chest.

  If there was one thing I hated, hated, it was her using my name. She didn’t have a right to my name.

  “Oh, so I can watch someone do a bunch of half-assed jumps? No thank you.” It was a dig, and we both knew it. If I wasn’t careful, my temper was going to flare and then I would say things that shouldn’t be said in public.

  She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes.

  “Are you making fun of my squad?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” I had to close my eyes and take a breath. “Just go away. I don’t even know why you came, except to steal our stuff.”

  She rolled her eyes and let out a little laugh that was more like an exhale than anything else.

  “Please, this is not that cheer movie from twenty years ago. Grow up.”

  “You grow up!” I snapped. Perfect comeback. So witty.

  A smirk played on Echo’s lips and then she gave me a little wave. “See you in Orlando, Kiri.”

  I wanted to hurl the smartest one-liner that would have her shaking in her heels, but she was gone before I could say anything, let alone anything smart.

  Looking up at the sky, I had to swallow the urge to scream. A hand tapped me on the shoulder and I almost did scream then, but for a different reason.

  “Hey, what was that?”

  I found Dom looking down at me.

  “I don’t know what she was doing here. What the hell was she doing here?” I rubbed my hands on my arms, even though it was a balmy evening. Echo even affected my ability to regulate my body temperature.

  “I thought that was her. You haven’t seen each other since New Englands, right?”

  I nodded.

  It had been almost ten years and then there she had been, right next to my squad, warming up on the mat. She’d made them all come over and wish my team good luck, but there was such an edge of sarcasm in it that I wanted to drag her off the mat by her gorgeous hair. I’d barely been able to focus on getting my kids ready, and Dom had to give me a pep talk in the hallway.

  When Echo’s team had won, it was like smiling while simultaneously being stabbed. I clapped and pretended I was fine losing to her, and that winning didn’t matter. Sure, I wanted it for my squad, but I also wanted to beat her, bad. Fuck sportsmanship. She and her squad were going down in a month if I had to put on a uniform and get on the mat myself.

  Dom put his hands on my shoulders and I grounded myself in his eyes.

  “I’m good,” I said, “I promise.” I shrugged him off and went back into the gym to talk to a few people before making the squad put the mats away. I heard plans about parties and hoped they were going to be responsible. Megan and the photographer said goodbye and that the story would be out on Wednesday and my stomach turned a little.

  My pla
n had been to head home and grind myself into the ground with work, but Dom shoved me toward his car.

  “Get in. We’re having a drink.”

  We picked up Heath from his and Dom’s house, and called a few other friends to head down to our favorite grungy bar, The Trap, that happened to be owned by a pair of motorcycle lesbians that had adopted us as part of their family.

  “Hey, Lou,” I said, when I walked in and saw who was behind the bar. Lou had gray hair shaved close to her scalp and always wore a leather vest with lots of pins all over it.

  “Get over here,” she said, coming around the bar and pulling me into a rib-cracking hug. She hugged Dom and Heath and Penny and Katie and Jason and Tom. Yes, all of my friends had paired off. I was the seventh wheel, but what were you going to do? I had six people on the lookout for a future wife for me.

  “Susie in the kitchen?” I asked Lou. Her wife had once worked as a sous chef for a Michelin star chef, but had fallen in love with Lou and had moved to Corsica so they could open a bar together. True romance right there.

  “Yup. Special is lobster bisque, garlic Caesar chicken sandwich, and our salad is summer vegetables,” Lou said, wiping the bar down with lemon-scented cleaner.

  Sure, you might not think you should get gourmet food in a dive bar with grimy mirrors and an actual vintage spittoon in the corner, but you would be wrong. You could get all that and more at The Trap. There were even homemade pies every day.

  We grabbed a table in the corner near the taxidermied bear called Brutus. Several of us hung our bags on his arms.

  “I swear, his eyes are following me,” Katie said, glaring up at Brutus.

  “You say that every time,” Penny said with a sigh. “If he was going to kill you, he would have done it one of the other times we’ve been here.”

  Katie’s eyes narrowed “Maybe he’s just waiting for the right time.”

  Penny ignored her wife and looked at me. “So, how’s it going?”

  “Good. Um, I had an encounter.” No use hiding it with this group.

  Jason braced his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands. “Oh, this sounds like it’s going to be good.”

  “Hold on, I think I need a drink first,” I said, sitting back and looking toward the bar.

  “I got you,” Dom said, taking everyone’s drink orders. I was starving, but not even Susie’s food could tempt me with my stomach full of knots about Echo.

  Dom came back with a vodka soda with lime for me, and drinks for everyone else. We passed out menus, and I could feel all the anticipation as we all put in our food orders.

  I took a sip from my drink to prepare.

  “Spill,” Katie said, pointing to me.

  “Okay, so you will never guess who showed up to the exhibition today.”

  There were a few wild suggestions before someone got the right answer.

  “Shut up, she did not,” Penny said, her eyes wide.

  “She did,” I said, gulping my drink. I needed to slow this down. Alcohol got me wasted so quickly that if I had this too fast, I was going to be under the table.

  “Why was she there?” Heath asked.

  I threw my arms up and they crashed down onto the table with a bang. “I don’t even know, that’s what’s so frustrating! Like, she’s seen our routine. Was she trying to see if we’d made more progress since the last competition? Was she trying to steal our shit? I don’t know. Maybe she was just there to fuck with me.”

  I mean, it was working. I was currently losing my shit over her.

  Kiri = 0

  Echo = 1

  “Whatever, I don’t want to talk about her, someone else say something interesting,” I said.

  There was a long silence.

  “Katie got a toy caught in her vagina today,” Penny said, as Katie did a spit take all over the table and we were all drenched in beer. Katie spent the next few minutes wheezing and trying to breathe as the rest of us cleaned ourselves up and tried not to die from laughter.

  “Why would you tell them that?” Katie said, sucking down water, her face as red as her lipstick.

  “Because I thought it was interesting,” Penny said.

  “You’re terrible.”

  “You married me,” Penny said, pointing to her ring.

  “Shit, I did, didn’t I?”

  They shared a look that made my heart ache. Why was I so sensitive lately?

  “I might regret asking this, but how did you get a toy stuck there?” Tom said, and Jason and Dom let out groans.

  The food arrived and for a few moments the topic of the toy in Katie’s vagina was forgotten, but it got brought back up a few moments later and Katie moaned and turned red again.

  “I’m not talking about this. Someone else say something interesting that doesn’t have to do with my junk,” she said.

  “We have an announcement to make,” Dom said, looking at Heath.

  “You want to tell them?” Heath asked.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  I had a feeling I knew what it was about, but I waited for confirmation, my sandwich poised halfway to my mouth.

  “We’re adopting a baby!” Dom said, throwing his arms in the air.

  “Mazel tov!” Tom yelled, and everyone cheered.

  “What’s going on over there?” Lou yelled from the bar.

  “Dom and Heath are getting a baby!” Katie yelled and Lou came over to offer her congratulations, and a free round. We got so many free drinks from her it was ridiculous.

  Talk turned to talking about Dom and Heath’s future baby, a much happier topic than thinking about Echo showing up today.

  “You have to let me do the nursery,” Katie said, gripping Dom’s arm. She worked as an interior designer, so it would have been offensive not to use her.

  “As soon as we have more details and we know for sure, you’re on our speed dial,” Heath said.

  I was so excited for Dom. He and Heath were going to be amazing dads, so that was something bright to think about instead of the Echo bullshit.

  The group had formed before I moved to Corsica, and they’d kind of adopted me when I came to coach and started hanging out with Dom. It was nice to have a circle of friends who were also queer and who I could relate to on a deep level. I’d been so worried about that when I moved, that I wouldn’t be able to find friends. I had a few long-distance friendships, but being able to call someone up and be at their house a few minutes later was a blessing.

  “I’m so freaking happy for you,” I told Dom as he drove me back to my car at CHS.

  “I’ve been wanting to tell you for ages, but we didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up in case it fell through, which it still might. We’re trying to prepare ourselves for disappointment.”

  “It’s going to work out,” I said, and he slid me a look.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.” I reached out and squeezed his hand.

  The kitties were apoplectic when I got home, because they’d had to wait a few hours for their wet food. Poor dears. They were never going to forget this treatment.

  “Jail for mother for one thousand years,” I said, as they chomped down as if they’d never eaten before.

  I scrolled through my phone, looking for baby items to buy for Dom and Heath and trying to decide if I wanted to get another snack, or if I was just bored. That usually led me to my favorite used jewelry site and in a few weeks a ring that had belonged to at least five people who had died mysterious deaths would show up at my door that I wouldn’t remember buying.

  I’d given the squad the day off tomorrow, and myself a day off as well. They needed time off to rest and for their muscles to heal. Pretty soon I’d be pushing them to their limits, but they’d done a good job today and deserved a break.

  I was also extremely strict about school and homework getting done, so I hoped they would at least have some time for academics. More than a few times I’d been a tutor for one of my kids who needed some extra help. I shoved them
toward Dom for anything math or science-related, and I handled all the humanities.

  Grabbing a bag of ranch-flavored chips, I crashed on the couch and put on my favorite trashy reality show, and the next thing I knew, I was waking up from an impromptu nap.

  “What the fuck?” I sat up and the bag of chips fell on the floor and spilled everywhere. The cats seized their moment and started licking and pawing at them, but soon decided that the chips were not kitty food and glared at me in betrayal.

  “Fuck,” I said, wiping my eyes, and then almost screaming because there was still ranch dust on my fingers that I’d just smeared in my eyes.

  “Shit, fuck,” I said, using my shirt to wipe my eyes. I got up from the couch and stumbled to the bathroom. Most of my lights were still on. I really had conked out.

  I did my best to get the ranch seasoning out of my eyes and then washed my face. Not enough energy for an actual shower. I stripped out of the outfit I’d worn today and left it on the bathroom floor.

  I ran my hands through my hair and tried not to think about the dream I’d just had. It was vivid and . . . less of a dream and more of a memory. A memory of sweaty skin sliding across more sweaty skin. Of panting and trying to be quiet and the thrill of almost getting caught sharpening the edges of desire.

  My hookup with Echo roared in my mind, along with the ghost of the sound she’d made when she came. Oh, I’d made her come again and again, and she had returned the favor. That was the only nice thing I could say about Echo: she gave excellent head.

  “Fuck,” I said again, and rinsed a face cloth in cold water and pressed it to the back of my neck. In the mirror, my cheeks were flushed, and my chest heaved as if I was out of breath.

  This was going to be a long competition season.

  Three

  Since it was my Sunday off, as well as the squad’s, I treated myself to a hot yoga class, a pedicure, and then biscuits and gravy at The Trap. They opened for brunch on the weekends, and I couldn’t pass that up.

  “It’s on the house,” Susie said, coming out of the kitchen with a mimosa in one hand.