“Speaking of matching outfits,” Dom said, using his drink to motion to the entrance to the restaurant, “here come the Bulldogs.”
I turned and looked over my shoulder. There she was, with her squad. They had their matching outfits and practice bows. Yes, they had special bows just for practice. That was another item I wanted to add to my list to get for my squad.
Echo seemed to be searching for something or someone and our eyes locked after a few seconds. I inhaled sharply, and a rush of warmth suffused my body. I felt my face going red.
“You’re blushing,” Dom sang. We were at a table by ourselves, thanks to some miracle, so we could talk relatively freely. The kids and the parents were all buzzing and laughing together.
“Shut up,” I said, shoving him, but he didn’t move.
“Just don’t do anything bad, again. Gotta stay focused.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I'm the head coach, remember? That’s my line.”
“I wouldn’t have to coach you right now if you hadn’t slept with the enemy.”
I groaned and finished my pizza. “Listen, let’s not talk about that, or her. It’s all about them.” I looked at my squad. My goofy, amazing, annoying, silly, talented squad. They’d all put their complete hearts into this season and I wasn’t going to let them down.
I stood up and walked to the center of the tables they’d pushed together and sat down in an empty chair.
“Hey, Tigers? Can we take a minute and do grateful?” Everyone said their gratefuls and then it came around to me.
“I’m grateful for all of you, I’m grateful for second chances, and I’m grateful for my three cats that I miss very, very much.” Katie and Penny were cat sitting and kept sending me periodic videos and pictures so I could make sure my babies were okay.
There were laughs about my cats and then one of the teens asked if they could go to the pool. I’d told them to bring their bathing suits just in case.
“You can go to the pool as long as people are willing to supervise,” I said. More than a few of the chaperones said they would, and I knew that I was going to send them thank you baskets when we got back for being so cool about everything.
“Okay, pool time!”
I wanted to swim, but I didn’t want to drown in a hotel pool full of thrashing and overexcited teenagers, so I sat on the edge and tried to read a book as Dom texted with Heath.
“Any news on the baby front?” I asked.
“Still waiting. The due date is in two weeks, so we’re hoping she won’t go while I’m here, but if I have to, I will get on a plane and Heath will meet me there.”
I reached out and squeezed his hand.
“Let’s hope it’s after Nationals, but if you have to go, you have to go. I’ll handle this.” I waved my hand in the direction of my squad, who were having chicken fights in the pool.
“We both know that’s not true, so I’m going to hope she doesn’t go early,” he said.
I let the squad have a little more pool time and then herded them all upstairs for showers and bed. Tomorrow they’d get up early and prep for prelims, which weren’t happening for our division until tomorrow afternoon.
When we’d registered, I’d gotten our warm-up and competition time and I wished it was sooner in the day, so they wouldn’t have to sit with the jitters for hours, but no such luck.
I made sure all the chaperones were set and then went to my room and shut the door. Blissful silence. If I wasn’t so nervous, I would enjoy this a whole lot more. If I were just a regular guest, I would have ordered room service and watched a terrible movie.
Actually, there was nothing that said I couldn’t do that, so I picked up a menu and started scanning it when there was a knock at my door.
I looked through the peephole and found Dom.
“Hey, just checking on you. I’m going to bed. I’ll knock on the door in the morning just in case,” he said.
“Thanks, that would be great.”
We hugged and he headed to bed, but I did one last room check before I went back to my room and ordered some food and flipped on the TV. The food came pretty fast and I wrapped myself in a fluffy robe as I lay on the bed and tried to pick which bad movie I was more in the mood for.
If I let myself think too much, I’d go off the deep end of anxiety and spiral and then I’d be no good to anyone. I took one of my pills, just in case, and left another one out on my nightstand in case I needed it in the middle of the night.
I was tired, but sleep wasn’t going to happen, unless I literally took a sleeping pill, but that could make me hard to wake tomorrow, and I didn’t want to risk it. Maybe I should have roomed with someone else. At least there would be someone to talk to, to distract me from all the stress.
The calm I’d had the past few days had given way to the storm, and I couldn’t settle down. I got up and paced around the room, flicking through channels, not pausing long enough to even know what the show was before moving on to the next option. I couldn’t go on my phone, because there were just messages of good luck and too much cheer stuff that only made things worse.
I was about to break down and call Dom to come and hang out with me when there was a knock on my door. A soft knock, followed by a new message on my phone.
I’m outside.
I opened the door and she slipped in, looking up and down the hallway to make sure that no one had seen her. I closed and locked the door, just in case.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered. She wore a pair of black yoga pants and a loose tank that did all kinds of favors for her figure. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Why was she allowed to be so hot?
“Why are you whispering?” she said at a normal volume.
“Because you’re not supposed to be here, Echo. What if someone sees you? How are we going to explain that?”
“I’ve never gotten caught sneaking into your room before,” she pointed out, which was fair, but we had a lot more at stake now if we got caught. At camp, if she’d gotten caught in my room, the first assumption wouldn’t be that we were hooking up, and we planned to say that we were just hanging out and the adults probably would have believed us. Sometimes being assumed heterosexual came in handy.
That wouldn’t work now. We were both out, really out. My entire team knew both their coaches were gay. Their parents knew. The article that had come out a few weeks ago had talked about it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again.
“I wanted to see you,” she said, walking into the room and turning around to face me.
“You did?”
She nodded and flopped on my bed, spreading her arms out and sighing happily.
“Yeah, I did. Are you nervous?”
I took a few steps toward the bed. I knew what would happen if I joined her. It crackled in the air, making me tremble.
“I don’t think we should talk about the competition right now,” I said.
She rolled onto her side and looked up at me, a sultry smile on her face.
“What should we talk about, Kiri?”
I slid the robe from my shoulders. “I don’t think we should talk at all.”
Echo sat up and pulled her shirt over her head. She had a bra on, but she made quick work of discarding it.
“I was hoping you’d say that. The only thing that gets my mind off competition is sex, and well, I haven’t had you here the past few years and it was horrible. Get over here.”
We crashed together on the bed, and it was a struggle to get naked again, but this time we knew that there was a time limit, so we got down to business.
“Fuck, you’re so hot,” I said, running my hands up and down her body. “We’re going to have to make this quick. I have to do a room check soon.”
“Then we’ll make it quick,” she said, shoving me down and straddling me, placing a hot kiss on my mouth and sliding her hand down my stomach. I didn’t see why we couldn’t get two things done at once, so I took one hand from where I’d fis
ted it in her hair and squeezed her ass before sliding it between us.
We stroked each other and I plunged my fingers inside her as she did the same to me and the sensations were enough to make me want to cry. Echo and I moaned into each other’s mouths and stroked and thrust, getting faster and more frenzied.
“More, I’m close,” she said.
“Me too,” I gasped, and then I felt the contractions with my fingers and that set off my own orgasm. I moved my hand and she ground her hips into me, drawing out the pleasure with each other until she lay on me, panting in my ear.
“Thank you,” she said, rolling onto her back and smiling at me. “That was great.”
“You’re welcome? I mean, I got something out of it too.” I flopped onto my stomach and stared at her for a few moments.
“I seriously wish we could just fuck all night, but that’s definitely a bad idea. I’m going to go back to my room. Okay?” It made sense. The longer she stayed with me, the bigger the chance that we’d wind up getting caught by someone.
“Yeah, fine,” I said, still unable to think clearly through the sex haze.
“Sorry, I wish I could stay. Good luck at prelims tomorrow. You’re going to do great, but my team will do greater.” She kissed me on the cheek and got dressed almost as fast as she’d gotten undressed. Echo listened at the door and stared out the peephole for a long time before opening the door and sticking her head out into the hallway.
“Bye,” she whispered, before scampering away, and I was left naked on my bed and wishing she could have stayed longer.
Thirteen
Somehow I eventually got to sleep, but the call of my alarm, and Dom’s knock on the door, came too early. The sex with Echo had helped take my mind off things enough to let my body rest, so I sent her a message to thank her.
You’re welcome, baby.
Breakfast was a nightmare as I had to encourage a bunch of teens with nervous stomachs that they had to eat something to fuel them through the day. I passed out almond butter packets to the ones who were refusing to eat anything, just so they’d have something to burn for fuel. From then on it was a rush next door to the convention hall where the competition would take place. Prelims were held indoors, but the Finals would be outside under the Florida sun, if we qualified.
There were dozens upon dozens of squads, and I had to admit, they looked far more professional. I had done my research and knew who was probably going to end up qualifying in the top ten spots for Finals. Our division had over thirty teams in it, so we had to wait a while for our time on the warm-up mats.
Some of my kids had never been to Nationals and trying to get them to focus on me and not the chaos around them was a challenge. I didn’t know when Echo’s team had warmups, and I hated that I wondered if I was going to see her before we got to perform.
“Okay, let’s do this quick. I want to do tumbling, stunts, and pyramid.” There was no point in going over the cheer or the dance, or the other little transitions, since we wouldn’t need the mat for those.
I counted out the stunts and it was not going well. Everything was going down, and I could see the nerves getting the best of them.
“Okay, take a minute,” I said after the fourth fall. At least everything was getting caught. The flyers just weren’t confident in their abilities.
“We’ve got this. Come on. I would not have brought you down here if I didn’t think you could do this. Remember New Englands? Just do what you did there and I will be happy. Don’t do this performance for me. Do it for yourself. Do your absolute best, that’s all I ask. Energy eleven.”
I made eye contact with each and every one of them and smiled.
“You’ve got this, Tigers. Let’s go.”
We broke and started over, this time everything was hitting and then I moved on to the tumbling, and then we ran the pyramid once, making tiny tweaks.
A woman with a lanyard and a t-shirt with the competition’s logo on it came to tell me that our mat time was up, and that we were going on fifth.
I gathered the squad in the hallway and told them we were going fifth.
“This is good. You want to go near the beginning, or near the end. In the beginning, you get to set the tone for the other squads. If you’re in the middle, you get lost in everything else. This is good.” I rubbed the quarter in my pocket. I had every single piece of lucky jewelry on my fingers, wrists, and ears. The jingle of metal when I moved was strangely comforting to my ears.
Dom and I herded the kids to the dressing area to get their uniforms on. Then it was touch ups on hair and makeup, making sure we had all wrists and knees and ankles taped that needed to be taped for support, making sure shoes were tied and securely on feet, and keeping them occupied.
We didn’t go backstage until we were third in line to perform. I was doing my best not to panic, but I kept clutching onto Dom.
“Don’t look now, but Echo’s team is going on two after us,” he said.
I turned around and looked. There she was, all dolled up and looking so sexy. We made eye contact and she winked at me. I winked back and hoped that no one saw me.
The backstage area did have a few mats so the cheerleaders could stretch and a few could do last-minute tumbling practice. I told them not to do too much because I didn’t need an injury while they were all jumpy and nervous.
They could barely hear me over the other team’s music, and I had to keep them together but, too soon, it was our turn. I gathered them all in a huddle.
“You’ve got this. I love you all. Have the best time. Do your best. Make yourselves proud. I’m already proud of you. Be there for each other. Soak it in. You will remember this moment for the rest of your lives. Energy eleven.” I could close my eyes and remember being on the mat myself. It was one of the best feelings in the world, hitting your routine, smiling at the crowd and drawing on their energy. The best fucking thing in the world.
We did our group cheer and I hugged every single one of them before leaving them in the back and running to the front of the stage where the coaches were supposed to stand and watch. Dom grabbed my hand and held it so hard that I thought he was going to break my fingers.
Our little area was right next to the stage, but we were down in a pit, so the stage floor was level with my chest. Not ideal, but I could still support from the sidelines. Our parents and supporters were in the audience and the announcer called out “Performing next, the Tigers of Corsica High School!”
My entire body shook violently, and my heart pounded so loud, I was sure everyone could hear it. My cheerleaders took their places, and then there was that moment of silence before the music came on. I rubbed the coin in my pocket five times and let out a shaky breath.
The music started, and I screamed and cheered and jumped up and down and lost my mind and my voice as I did my best to support them with my energy. When the first stunts hit, I took a breath. When the second stunts hit and I saw the looks on their faces, I knew it. They had it.
“Corsica Tigers, the red and the blue, you’d better watch out, we’re coming after you!” I screamed the cheer along with them and held my breath for every stunt, and even though there was a tiny wobble in the pyramid, I breathed a sigh of relief when it was over. The dance came at the end of the routine, and they fucking nailed it. They hit, they hit, THEY HIT.
Dom picked me up and we screamed as the team screamed and jumped up and down and some collapsed to the floor after the music ended.
Dom and I ran backstage and there were tears and hugs and I realized I had probably done permanent damage to my vocal chords, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
“I could not be more proud of you, every single one of you.” There were more sweaty hugs and then I herded them backstage and then to the front to see their parents and supporters.
Now we just had to wait. They’d done all they could.
I joined them in the stands and hugged everyone all over again.
“All the other teams have had one fall,
” one of the moms told me. She was my favorite because she knew enough about cheer to add up deductions. Each fall, each bobble, each failed tumbling pass was a different deduction. She could watch a routine and add them up and give me a range she thought that the routine might be in.
“How did Heartwood do?” I asked, and a few of the parents shared looks. We’d been backstage still when they’d gone on and hadn’t come out until after they were done.
“Two falls. One stunt and one tumbling pass.”
Wow.
“Did the flyer hit the mat?” I asked.
“No.”
That was good. A flyer hitting the mat was pretty much the biggest deduction of all. The judges were a little more lenient on tumbling, but it still wasn’t good to have a tumbler fall.
I made eye contact with Dom.
“What do you think?” I asked him.
“I didn’t see it, so I can’t compare, but I think if they had two deductions then . . .”
We were probably going to beat them. That had been my goal this whole damn time, but there was a miniscule part of me that felt bad for Echo’s squad. Having an off day was expected, but the worst time to have an off day was when it counted. Her kids were probably devastated.
The team and I had to wait hours until the scores were announced, so the only options were staying and watching all the other teams, or go to one of the holding areas. I didn’t want them to get all in their heads about their performance compared to other squads, so I gathered them up and headed back to one of the spare rooms.
Some of the parents had gone out and bought snacks, so I made them eat, and then Dom pushed a protein bar into my hand.
“You haven’t eaten all day.”
“That’s not true,” I told him, but I took the bar. “I had an almond butter packet this morning.”
Bring Her On Page 13
