Bring Her On

by Chelsea M. Cameron

  “We’re the only athletes in school that are still practicing, Cam,” I said.

  “That’s true, but in a few weeks fall sports start and this used to be my quiet time of year. My time of rest and relaxation and prep.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She gave me a tired laugh. “I love my job, I swear.”

  “I know you do.” She really did. No one could doubt that.

  “At least I didn’t have a parent threatening to strangle me.” That had happened more than once. Police had been called.

  “Be thankful for small blessings.”

  “You said it. Listen, I have to go, but we’ll talk Monday, if not sooner. Don’t break any more people!” she said.

  “I will do my best.” I gave her a little salute, even though she couldn’t see me. We hung up and I wiped the last of my tears. Talking with Cam had cheered me up after the awful day. The disaster could have been a lot worse, I kept telling myself. I’d had entire stunt groups go down before, broken noses, concussions, broken arms.

  “Everything good?” Dom said, coming back over from his office.

  “As good as it can be, where were you?”

  His face lit up and I saw that he’d been crying.

  “Heath and I might be getting a baby.”

  “Shut up!” I screamed, and the sound echoed through the whole gym. The music had been turned off, so probably everyone heard me. I didn’t give a fuck.

  I threw myself on him.

  “Details, details!”

  “Well, it’s not final yet, but we’ve been selected by a woman who’s pregnant and due in a month. We’re going to fly there right around the due date and be there for the birth. I asked our adoption agent if she wants to meet us to be sure, but she said that the woman wants us.”

  “Oh, Dom.”

  I hugged him again and we both cried together.

  “Go home to Heath, what are you still doing here?”

  “I have to lock up?” He said it like a question.

  “Oh, give me those keys, I’ll do it.” That would mean I’d have to babysit the Bulldogs, but whatever. Dom’s news was more important.

  He ran out of the gym, and I’d never seen him so happy. It warmed my cold, dead heart.

  The other squad seemed to finally be wrapping up, which was good since I had a shit ton of work to get home to, and three angry cats. I sat on the bleachers with my phone, making a list of what I needed to get done for work tonight. It was a lot. I always got behind this time of year, so I tried to schedule myself so I wasn’t working literally all the time, but I’d said yes to a few things I shouldn’t have, and now I was dealing with the consequences of my own actions.

  A pair of feet insinuated themselves in my view. I knew who owned those feet and I didn’t want to look up, but fighting the urge was like fighting gravity.

  “Thanks for staying,” she said, and it was another weird moment where I thought she was being genuine.

  “Whatever,” I said like a petulant teenager. I was feeling pretty petulant these days.

  “I’m trying to be nice here.”

  I looked down at my phone. “That must be a real challenge for you. My condolences.”

  My head snapped up again at an unexpected sound: a soft laugh that slid down my spine and made me think of darkness and damp sheets and the giddy feeling of getting away with something.

  Echo’s squad walked past all together, and they did look a little worse for wear. The ponytails drooped, and some of them had exchanged their matching outfits for other clothes, so they didn’t look as intimidating as they had this morning.

  “We’ll see you tomorrow, Coach Kiri,” she finally said and walked out.

  I sat on the bleachers and caught my breath for a few moments before I checked the gym, shut off the lights, and locked up. I had to drop Dom’s keys off and stop at the grocery store for provisions. The former took way too long, and the store was almost closing by the time I got there and threw a few things into my cart, along with tampons, which I really needed.

  I was in the potato chip aisle, trying to choose between salt and vinegar, ranch, and barbecue, when someone bumped their cart into mine. I ignored it, stuck on my chip dilemma. I should probably just get all three.

  The cart bumped mine again, and I turned around to cuss the person out to find Echo Rosenthal smirking at me.

  “Hi Kiri.”

  My mouth dropped open. “What are you doing here? Don’t they have grocery stores where you live?” They definitely did, so why was she here? Why wasn’t she on the bus? Seeing her so out of context was breaking my brain.

  “I decided to get some snacks for my squad for tomorrow, but there aren’t a lot of options in this town.” Her cart was full of protein powder and various nut milks and bags of beef jerky and carrot sticks and a bunch of other things.

  “What, no kale?”

  “Kale?” she asked. “Who eats kale?”

  “I mean, I assumed you did.” I gestured to her physique. Those muscles weren’t cut without a lot of work and a certain diet.

  “Ew, I hate kale. Spinach is better.” She pointed and there were bags of spinach in the cart as well.

  This was a ridiculous interaction, but I didn’t know how to end it, short of literally running away.

  “Well, good to know,” I said, and threw all three bags of flavored chips into my cart. “See you tomorrow.” I pushed my cart away as fast as I could, determined to get the last word.

  “Bye, Kiri,” she called after me, and I almost stumbled and fell face first into my cart. She couldn’t let me have even one. Echo always had to win.

  Seven

  “Okay, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.” Which was really the kindest thing I could say after the second full out that we taped the next day.

  The stunts were a complete mess after having to replace Mack, and at least two of my flyers were wiping away tears and trying not to let anyone see.

  “Hey, it’s going to be an adjustment.” I had to pep them up. A lot of them were looking pretty defeated.

  I was about to launch into what I hoped would be a rousing speech that would inspire each and every one of them as the music swelled and they all got up and hugged, when Cam walked in, looking more frazzled than usual.

  This was not a sports movie.

  “Hey, what can I do for you?” I asked her, stepping aside and leaving the inspirational speeching to Dom.

  “Just wanted to let you know mats will be here tomorrow and I’m going to make sure they will be ready for you before practice. No more sharing.”

  Thank fuck. We could finally work on sprucing up our tumbling, which was probably going to look pretty sad at first since the squad was a little rusty.

  “Awesome, thank you. Everything else okay?”

  “Yup, fine.” She gave me a tight smile that was clearly fake.

  “Lay it on me,” I said. I didn’t really have the time, but Cam regularly stuck her neck out for me and my program. She was also kind and hot, which was a level just below mean and hot on my attraction scale.

  “Just dealing with a coaching situation. I can’t say much. But I would say you should definitely read the paper tonight.” She gave me a significant look and that was bad. Really bad. I could read between the lines that it meant a coach had done something illegal, and she was trying to do damage control.

  “Let me know if you need anything. I’m not a crisis management expert, but I’ll do what I can.”

  Cam sighed. “It’s fine. We’ll deal with it. And it’s better to get it out in the open. I’d had my suspicions, but I didn’t know anything for sure.” She rubbed her forehead and looked down at her phone, which lit up with messages.

  “I’ll talk to you later.” She headed out of the gym and I turned back to share a look with Dom. He raised his eyebrows and I shook my head, in a gesture that meant I would talk to him later. This was nothing for teenage ears.

  I was about to check in wi
th the squad when my phone rang with a call from Mack.

  “Hi Mack, how are you doing?” She sounded groggy, but otherwise chipper.

  “Hey, I’m going to put you on speaker so everyone can say hi,” I told her.

  “Hi, everybody,” she said. There were shouts and asking her how she was doing and joking that she’d just done this so she could get out of practice. It was sweet and lighthearted and I was glad she didn’t seem too devastated, or at least she was hiding it well. I planned on having a talk with her mother later to get the full story.

  I decided to give the squad a break to get some water and have a few snacks. I’d front-loaded the day so we could get all the really hard crap over with at the beginning and let them rest a little bit at the end.

  Tonight we were working on performance, dance, jumps, and the cheer. Just polishing every little corner of the routine until it shined as bright as it could.

  While they had their break, it seemed like the team on the other side of the curtain was doing the same thing. I heard a strange sound and sort of leaned my head through a break in the curtain and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

  Echo had brought in a table from who knows where, and had a blender set up and was making her team smoothies. She looked up, as if I’d called her name and I had to duck away, but she had definitely caught me peeking.

  A few moments later, she ducked around the curtain.

  “Can I offer you a smoothie?”

  She had it in a cup and everything.

  “You are on a whole other level,” I said, looking at the cup with suspicion.

  “Thank you,” she said, but I didn’t mean it as a compliment. “I didn’t spit in it or poison it. It’s strawberry, pineapple, and spinach, with some protein powder.”

  It sounded amazing, but I would drink my own blood before even a drop of that smoothie passed my lips.

  “I’ll pass,” I said. I had my own drinks that I could be sure hadn’t been tampered with.

  “Suit yourself,” she said, taking a big gulp. “See? Not poisoned.”

  “Maybe you’ve built up a tolerance,” I fired back.

  “I’m not the Dread Pirate Roberts, and this doesn’t have iocane powder,” she said before she turned around, and it was annoying that she got the reference.

  I inhaled through my nose and turned to face my squad. Every single set of eyes was watching me and had seen my interaction with Echo.

  “They get smoothies?” Kevin said with a little pout.

  “We have enough for more!” Echo called out, as if she’d been listening. As soon as I left tonight, I was going to find a way to make that curtain soundproof. Or I was going to murder her and put her in the blender. Either way.

  I looked back at a sea of pleading faces. Some of them were legal adults, but they were pouting like toddlers who wanted candy. I guess it could be worse. They could be asking for dirty martinis.

  “Go ahead,” I said, gesturing. and they all dashed to the other side of the curtain.

  “I was not expecting that,” Dom said, blinking.

  “Me neither. She lured them away with fruit smoothies like some kind of healthy witch.”

  Dom patted me on the shoulder. “Well, you know what they say?”

  I sighed. “What do they say?”

  “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

  And he walked over to get in the smoothie line.

  I did not have a smoothie, but everyone else did, and I tried not to glare too much. Both squads were definitely mingling well, to my surprise. We’d seen each other enough times to start learning names and start getting familiar. I could see tentative friendships forming, and I was proud of my kids for being so welcoming. Honestly, it could have been a complete disaster, but my teens were classy. Maybe a little rough around the edges compared to the Bulldogs, but I was proud of them. Things would be different when we got to Orlando, and I think everyone was aware of that, but for right now, they were a bunch of teenagers getting excited about smoothies.

  “Your face is going to freeze like that if you keep scowling,” Echo said, sidling up to me. I hadn’t been surprised by her, I seemed to be aware of her no matter where she was. I had Echolocation.

  “That’s what Botox is for,” I said, drinking from my water bottle.

  “Baby, you don’t need Botox.”

  I gasped and stared at her.

  “You—” I clenched my water bottle so hard my fingers ached. I couldn’t think of a witty comeback.

  “Yes, what about me?” she asked, stepping closer. Her scent attacked me until I couldn’t smell the gym floor, or the sweat, or the mats. I could only smell something that was a mix of grapefruit and . . . sage maybe? I was thinking too much about the way Echo smelled.

  When I’d first met her, she’d smelled like cotton candy—her perfume at the time. I’d probably been wearing something equally as juvenile in too large quantities. Now I wore men’s deodorant because I liked the scents better, and sometimes added a little cologne, but I hadn’t today.

  “I don't know, what about you?” I snapped back at her.

  She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Easy, Kiri. You’d think I was getting under your skin.”

  She was. She was under my skin. She was in my thoughts, and in the way my blood pulsed in my veins, and my heart pounded in my ears. Being so close to her was turning me inside out and I didn’t know how much longer I could take it.

  I’d been waking up from dreams about her. About us together.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and she laughed lightly.

  “Just keep telling yourself that.”

  “What is your problem?!” I said, turning to face her. The gym went completely silent and I realized that I had yelled it. Oops.

  The blood instantly rushed to my face and I wanted to melt through the floor.

  “Calm down, it’s nothing to get your panties in a twist over.” How did she make every single thing she said drip with innuendo and sexuality?

  “Stop it,” I said, and I wanted to die right there.

  “Fine, fine,” she said, walking away and leaving me to deal with the stares. What did I do? I ran to the bathroom like a coward.

  I sat in the stall and tried to get myself together. Being in close proximity to Echo was just . . . I was losing it.

  The door opened and someone walked in. I peered through a crack in the stall and almost told her to get the fuck out.

  “Leave me alone,” I said, pulling back the curse word at the last second. It wouldn’t look good if one of the cheerleaders came in here and heard me cursing a blue streak. I couldn’t lose my job on top of everything else. Coaching fed my soul in a way that my other work didn’t.

  “You okay in there?” She leaned against the sink and I wished for a sinkhole or a portal to open up and take her away. Take her away so she could stop driving me up a wall.

  “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Since those cheer camp days?” I decided it was ridiculous to sit in the stall and glare at her through the crack, so I stood up and yanked open the door so hard it slammed against the stall. She didn’t flinch.

  “Why are you bringing this up?” I started to wash my hands for lack of anything better to do. Plus, I didn’t want her spreading a rumor that I didn’t wash after using the bathroom.

  “Just thought that since we seem to have issues, we should go back to where we first met, talk it out, and then we can move on.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head back, her red hair falling almost to her waist. I remembered what that hair felt like when I ran my fingers through it. So soft and silky.

  “Can’t we just pretend it didn’t happen? Seriously, I don’t want to have this thing between us. It’s fun for you, but it’s not fun for me.” I slammed the button on the hand dryer to drown out her response. She waited until my hands were as dry as they’d ever been in my entire life before she answered.

  “It’s not that big a deal, Kiri. People hook up all the time. We were tee
nagers.” She shrugged one shoulder as if it was no big deal. “Unless your problem is that my team beat yours, in which case, there’s not a whole lot I can do about that.”

  I waited to answer until my hands were bone dry. “I don’t care about any of it. I’m just annoyed that you’re in my space and as soon as this competition season is over, I’m not going to think of you.”

  This was the biggest lie I’d ever told and we both knew that.

  “Okay, Kiri. Okay. I’m not going to lie, it’s fun winding you up. You just get so cute and flustered. I like your hair like this.” She reached out and brushed her finger along the line of my undercut. I wanted to flinch away, but my body did the opposite. I leaned into her and she took another step closer.

  “I think about those nights we had, Kiri. I think you do too.”

  The room became as hot as a sauna, and I swear my body temperature rose at least ten degrees.

  “I know we’re on opposite sides, but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t . . . revisit those nights. Just for fun. We’re both adults.” Was she suggesting what I thought she was suggesting?

  “No,” I said, but that was the only thing I could say. “That is never going to happen.”

  “If you say so,” she said, one side of her mouth turning up in a smirk.

  “Come on, we should go back out there, or else rumors might start.”

  I needed to regain my composure that she had disturbed, again.

  Echo left the bathroom and I had to take at least ten cleansing breaths before I could push myself through the door and go back into the gym with a fake smile plastered on my face.

  I made it through the rest of practice and got my kids out. The Bulldogs got on the bus, but Echo hung around.

  “I don’t think I should leave you alone with her,” Dom said in my ear. “You might rip each other apart, or, you know . . .” He raised his eyebrows and I knew exactly what he was insinuating.

  “That is never going to happen. Don’t be gross.”

  I wished the idea of getting into bed with Echo was gross. I was trying to make it gross by picturing her naked and covered in garbage or snakes or something. Nope, still hot.