Say Yes to the Cheerleader

by Abby Crofton

  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

  Other Books by Abby Crofton

  About the Author

  Say Yes to the Cheerleader

  Abby Crofton

  abbycrofton.com

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  SAY YES TO THE CHEERLEADER

  Copyright © 2016 by Warm Flannel Reads

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  Cover Design: Kitty Pixels

  Chapter 1

  She smiled at me. Those beautiful brown eyes looked right at me while that full mouth turned up, showing just a peek of teeth perfected by braces in the seventh grade. Kate Monroe smiled at me.

  I think.

  The first thing I did when I saw that dazzling smile pointed in my direction was look behind me. Because there was absolutely no reason for Kate Monroe—cheerleader, yearbook editor, goddess sent from above to torture me with her beauty—to smile at me. While we knew of each other because we’d been in some of the same classes since middle school, and we were now both seniors in high school, we’d never been particularly friendly. A few comments shared during class or an “excuse me” while bumping into each other at a doorway (okay, those bumps might not had been entirely accidental on my part) had been the extent of our interactions for years.

  So there was no reason for Kate Monroe to smile at me. Except when I looked behind me there was no one else there. No one to my left or right, either. Just me, standing in the middle of the hallway as I came to the slow realization that Kate Monroe may have just smiled at me.

  And now it was two periods later and I was still trying to figure it out.

  Kate Monroe, whose name I couldn't even break apart in my mind because “Kate” and “Monroe” together made the magnificent person who had overtaken my imagination, was a friendly person. She’d never been a bully, or hung out with people who were jerks. Her group had always been the overachievers who volunteered at the animal shelter on weekends because they liked animals and needed to beef up their college resumes. So it wasn't entirely out of the question for Kate Monroe to just randomly smile at me. She might have smiled at lots of people throughout her day, bringing sunshine and happiness to all around her.

  If it hadn’t been made totally clear yet, I had a bit of a crush on Kate Monroe.

  But even if Kate Monroe went around handing out her smiles like candy on Halloween, there was something different about the smile that she shot in my direction. It was pulled up just a little bit more on one side, and the look she gave me was almost shy. Though I’d seen the word “coy” used lots of times in novels, this was the first time I would’ve used it in real life. She smiled at me coyly from beneath her extra-long lashes.

  That kind of stuff happened in romance novels where there were lords and ladies, and dancing at fancy balls, and ladies got their skirts thrown up over their heads in the rose gardens at midnight.

  I may have gone through a phase a couple of years ago. Thank you, public library self-checkout, for saving me from embarrassment about my love of historical romance.

  So now I’d spent hours, during which I should have been paying attention to chemistry or calculus (I couldn't even remember which classes I zoned out in!), analyzing a less-than-two-second maybe-moment I’d had with Kate Monroe.

  Leaving whatever class I had been in, I wandered in the direction of my locker, automatically dodging other students in the hallway. I would figure out what books I needed for my next classes when I got there. Unfortunately, I was waylaid by the last person I wanted to see—Jenny Jeffries.

  I thought about turning around and running in the other direction, or at least trying to veer around her, but it was too late. We were already standing right in front of each other.

  “You’re in my way,” she said, staring me down.

  Maybe I was sick of being pushed around for years by the person in front of me, or maybe Kate Monroe’s smile had given me a little extra boost of confidence. Either way, I was feeling bold this morning. I refused to give her the satisfaction of backing down. I stared right back at her.

  “There’s plenty of space,” I responded. “Feel free to walk around.” Sweat was pooling underneath my T-shirt and my heart was hammering, but I held my ground.

  Her eyes narrowed. Good, I was getting to her. We only had a couple more months of school, and then I would never have to see her again for the rest of my life. I had nothing to lose at this point.

  My attention was diverted when some kid came barreling down the hallway. He suddenly lost his footing and went sprawling across the floor, books scattering everywhere. Jenny immediately bent down and started gathering his things while I did the same. As I was stacking the last book near me, I saw her help the kid up and hand him his books. He turned to look for the rest, and I stepped up to hand him what I’d gathered. With a parting “Thanks,” he continued his run down the hallway. Jenny and I watched him go until he turned the corner and was out of sight.

  Her soft expression vanished when she turned back to me. Her glare could have curdled milk. I gulped. I was pretty sure that if she had come even a centimeter closer to me, I would have backed down and run the other direction as fast as my out-of-shape body could carry me, but luckily I didn’t have to test the strength of my resolve. She finally walked past me, but not before giving me a hard bump with her shoulder.

  When she was safely away from me, I let out a sigh of relief and continued to my locker.

  I kept my head down, afraid to make eye contact with anyone. I could not handle any more hallway interactions today. I did not know which one was worse. At least with Jenny I knew where I stood. Kate Monroe was a total enigma.

  While the idea of Kate Monroe smiling at me was thrilling, it was also confusing. Because Kate Monroe was a girl. And I was also a girl. Kate Monroe had had boyfriends in the past and identified as straight. And I had accidentally come out to my English class as a lesbian a few months ago.

  If there was anything the Internet had taught me (which had been much and varied), it was that lesbians should never, ever go for straight girls. Only heartache and disappointment could come from that.

  I didn’t know if that was true personally. I had never been on a date with anyone, straight or gay, but it made sense. Approaching someone who was not interested in you, or was interested in only experimenting with you, probably wouldn’t lead to a long-term relationship.

  Not that I was looking for a long-term relationship. But a medium-term one would’ve been nice. One with lots of kissing and cuddling would’ve been ideal. Especially if it was with Kate Monroe.

  I let my forehead fall to the front door of my locker in dismay. I should not have been entertaining thoughts of a relationship with Kate Monroe because it would never happen. Even if she turned out to be a lesbian, there was no way that Kate Monroe would be interested in me. I wasn’t particularly pretty or funny or smart. My grades were good enough to get me into one of
the state schools, but I’d never been ambitious enough to work for anything more than slightly above average. Kate Monroe would only go out with lesbians who were going to go to one of the Seven Sisters schools and double major in biology and fighting the patriarchy.

  That was only if Kate Monroe was a lesbian, which she wasn’t, so if she had smiled at me, it was not coyly but most likely friendly, and she probably hadn’t smiled at me anyway.

  I took a deep breath and slowly let it out, my head still leaning against my closed locker. Time to leave fantasyland. Kate Monroe would never be interested in me.

  “Hi, Haley,” said a voice to my right. I turned my head and immediately stood up straight. Kate Monroe was at my locker and talking to me. “Do you have the notes for history class from yesterday? I had a doctor’s appointment and had to miss class.”

  It took me a couple of seconds to respond. I think my brain was shutting down, trying to prevent me from saying something stupid, which was a good move on its part, because what I really wanted to do was babble about how shiny Kate Monroe’s hair looked, and did she always smell so nice, and were those freckles on her cheeks? I had never been so close to her face before. She was now standing next to where I had been resting my face against my locker. She was even more gorgeous up close.

  I was finally able to string a few words together that made some sense. “Yeah, I took notes. You can borrow.”

  My voice sounded weird, flat and emotionless, and my arms moved on their own, reaching down to my backpack to get my history notebook. Kate Monroe was actually talking to me. This had gone way past smiles.

  “Thanks, Haley,” she said. As she took the notebook out of my hand, our fingers were in no way close to touching each other, but I swore I could feel the heat coming off of her skin. I had to suppress a shiver of excitement. At the same time, it was like I was watching the scene take place, like an out-of-body experience.

  I was able to get out a “You’re welcome” before Kate Monroe turned and left. But not without giving me a quick smile first.

  Two smiles. She knew my name. I had given her my notebook. She had freckles. The girl I liked had talked to me.

  All in one day. No way was I getting anything done in the rest of my classes.

  Chapter 2

  I needed my best friend. There were too many things floating around in my head, crashing against each other like bumper cars at the state fair. Marie was the one person I could trust to help me sort through everything. In addition to trying to stay motivated for school even though I'd already gotten into college, getting used to being out, and all the little personal stuff I had to juggle, I now had Kate Monroe on my mind. And not in the way she had been on my mind before: a rainbow-colored dream where she had held my hand and given me kisses as we walked the streets of Paris searching for the perfect pastry, my fantasy always coming to an inevitable end when I would wake up to a few seconds of disappointment that it all wasn’t real.

  Now it was all too real. Kate Monroe was talking to me, giving me smiles, asking me for favors in real life. It was a long way from Parisian strolls, but it was still more than I had ever thought I would have with her. And what if, by some weird cosmic alignment of the stars, she wanted more? What if she was flirting with me? What would I do?

  I was not sure about the answer to that. I would have liked to think I would be brave and bold and meet any attraction head-on, but what was more likely was that I would run and avoid and hide in my room until college started. But how could I live the rest of my life knowing that I’d had a chance with Kate Monroe but had passed on it because I was afraid? That was what it would come down to. Fear.

  Of rejection, of heartbreak, of what other people would think.

  Though I was probably way off. More likely there was no flirting going on, and all my interactions with Kate Monroe today had just been a coincidence.

  I was home now, sitting in my room. I barely remembered the rest of the day, or even how I’d gotten home from school. Everything after I handed Kate Monroe my notes was a fog. Did I go to my other classes? No idea. Did I drive home with my sister? Did she catch a ride with someone else? Was she walking along the side of the road, cursing me for leaving her behind? Any of those things could have happened and I'd have no clue. My mind was trying to make sense of what had happened today, and it was having trouble processing it all.

  I needed to talk to Marie. Marie Gills and I had been friends ever since her mom had moved her and her younger brother Bob to our town in the ninth grade. That had been a tough time for both of us, Marie coming to a school where all of us had been together since kindergarten, and me slowly (very, very slowly, in fact) realizing that while the girls were gushing over the football players in their jerseys during game day, I was sneaking peeks at the cheerleaders in their uniforms. Those short skirts had played a large part in my sexual awakening.

  Marie and I had solidified our friendship during junior varsity volleyball tryouts. To this day, I don’t remember the reason I had tried out for volleyball. I had never been athletic. I was actually pretty lazy. I had asked my mom later why I’d wanted to play volleyball, and she had said she’d wondered that herself.

  At least Marie had had a reason. She’d been trying to make friends at a new school and had gone out for what seemed to be the easiest sport in which to meet people. What she hadn’t known was that our school was known for its sports programs. Everyone was super competitive, and they had been training since the womb to get on one of the sports teams. And the parents were scary supportive, since athletic scholarships to universities were at stake.

  We’d been by far the worst two players on the court, so Marie and I had been the first ones cut. As we’d stood away from the rest of the team, silently gathering up our things in relieved shame, she’d asked in a whisper whether I wanted to go get a cheeseburger. She must have sensed a kindred spirit. I had quickly agreed, and we’d bonded over our shared failures and greasy fast food.

  I unlocked my phone and opened the messaging app. Marie's name wasn't there, but Princess Bananahammock was. Too many Friends reruns a few months ago had led to my best friend commandeering my phone and changing some settings. My sister Eddy was now Regina Falange, and I had never loved Marie more.

  I pressed on Princess Bananahammock and started typing.

  Me: something happened today

  It was only a few seconds before she replied. Marie was probably at home, babysitting her little brother. She picked him up from after-school care when she was done for the day and watched him until their mom came home from work. Marie liked the arrangement since it meant she couldn't stay after school for clubs or sports. The volleyball disaster and her general apathy had soured her on extracurriculars.

  PB: let me guess

  PB: ok I give up

  PB: TELL ME!!!!!!!

  Thank goodness she was also impatient, because I didn't think I could take any guessing games today.

  Me: Kate Monroe talked to me

  Me: and she borrowed my notes

  Me: and our fingers almost touched

  Me: it was the best moment of my life

  That last one was probably an exaggeration, but in that moment it felt like the truth.

  Marie knew about my crush on Kate Monroe. Right after I had semiaccidentally come out, she’d shown up at my house with an overnight bag and pulled out the spare bedding for a sleepover. I think it had been her way to show that things weren’t going to change between us just because everyone knew I liked girls. One of the fears that I’d had about coming out was how people would react. I was so stupid for thinking Marie would treat me any differently; she was the best. So we’d sat and talked and watched ten minutes of fifteen different movies on Netflix, and at one point Marie had asked me who I thought the prettiest girl in school was. And before I could think about it, I’d said, “Kate Monroe, of course.”

  This had just gotten Marie fired up, and she’d asked me probably a hundred questions that night about Kate
Monroe and girls in general. I’d answered all her questions, except for the ones that had made me blush. Instead, I’d hit her with a pillow for asking them in the first place.

  So Marie knew how I thought Kate Monroe was basically perfection, and because she was an awesome best friend, she had hardly ever brought up Kate Monroe since that night. I think she knew that I was self-conscious about talking about my crush, and so she hadn’t pushed.

  But now I was voluntarily bringing up the subject for further discussion.

  During those few minutes it took for Marie to answer my last text, I pictured her jumping around her room, making that weird high-pitched noise she always made when she was excited about something. I’d seen her do it a dozen times before when a boy she liked acknowledged her or looked extra cute that day. Truthfully, I’d always thought it was silly, the way she reacted to the smallest thing her crush did. But now that it was happening to me, I totally understood where she was coming from. It was both nerve-racking and exhilarating when the person you dreamed of sweeping you away to a private island getaway actually knew your name.

  PB: I AM COMING OVER!!!

  I was texting to ask if she was going to bring Bob over too—I hoped she didn’t leave him by himself in her rush to get over here, he was only seven years old—when she said: right after I drop bob off at a friends house.

  I grinned. Okay, that mind-melding was a little creepy, but I was glad that Bob was going to be taken care of. I loved that little guy. He had an old soul to go with his old-man name. While Marie could be a little excitable, Bob was that rare kid who was almost always calm. I’d never seen him throw a tantrum, and I’d been at their house a lot over the years.

  I usually didn’t mind if Marie brought him over, but I was glad he had gone to a friend’s house. Marie and I probably needed a few hours of best-friend time to get through all my Kate Monroe-related anxieties.