“Don’t mention that name when your brother’s around,” said Paulette, still clapping. “Pity how Luke’s face turned out, no?”
Indeed. Luke had never been the cutest of boys but now his good looks started firmly below his neck. He only looked worse when Dylan finally reached the sidelines and Luke said something with a violent shake of the head like he was trying to beat an old argument back to life. Dylan waved Luke away but the muscled boy stepped forward, jabbed a finger at Dylan’s chest, scowled.
“The hell is eating him?” Joel said.
“There’s no telling.” Paulette chewed trail mix.
“They haven’t been the same since Dylan started dating Bethany Tanner,” Wesley said. He nodded at a tall blonde cheerleader who was iridescent with glitter. Joel recognized the girl from his brother’s Instagram but couldn’t place what Wesley meant. Unless Joel was much mistaken, Bethany and Dylan had been dating for years.
Joel regarded Luke and Dylan with a touch of concern: whatever they were fighting over it seemed far more dire than an old breakup.
In the end, he said nothing.
The wind held. The Cougars were beaten back again and again. After a few long plays, someone called a time-out from the sidelines and, a moment later, Beyoncé’s reliable hype belted from the speakers. Three black cheerleaders threw themselves into a hip-hop dance. Flanked by two girls, the boy in the center of the trio—the sole boy on the cheer squad, to Joel’s eye—threw his hips forward and back with a flair that made Joel smile.
Wesley itched his cheek. He said out of the side of his mouth, “We’ve had more of that the last few years.”
And just like that, all of Joel’s old anger at this place came flaming up again. His mother was wrong—things were exactly like they’d been in his day. When the cheerleaders’ routine was over, Joel realized he was the only person in the front row clapping.
Wesley flinched at the sound of Joel’s applause. People stared.
Joel clapped harder. It was going to be a long weekend.
BETHANY
At the start of the fourth quarter, the Bisonette cheerleaders piled themselves into an inverted pyramid. From her place in the pyramid’s center, Bethany Tanner—cheerleading captain, blonde darling, Homecoming Queen-to-be—scanned the faces in the stands for her father. If she didn’t see him now, then Bethany might—just might—have a chance of succeeding at the weekend plans for which she’d spent an aeon preparing.
Her father wasn’t here. All the fear floated free of her shoulders as she hit the crowd with her most radiant smile. That smile was a hundred percent genuine. Bethany was a very honest person.
“What’s that sound?” the girls shouted to the packed stands. “What’s that noise? What’s the herd with all my boys?”
The rest of the cheer went great, just great, and by the time it was through, Bethany’s head was so swollen with anticipation she almost missed her cue.
“Ready for dismount,” said Kimbra Lott, one of the sturdy spotters behind the pyramid who nobody came to see.
“Ready for drop,” said Jasmine Lopez, the second-prettiest girl at the school and Bethany’s dearest friend, standing on the pyramid’s flank.
“Bison herd!” Bethany shouted, but the boys had returned to the field and nobody was paying attention to her anymore. Which was fine. Just fine.
Bethany, Jasmine and Alisha Stinson, the girl to her other side, all raised their linked hands. The girls at Bethany’s feet counted to three and heaved her up as Alisha and Jasmine flung her skyward. For one delirious second Bethany was airborne. All she could see were stars.
When she landed in the interlaced arms behind the pyramid, Bethany felt a fingernail burrow itself into the tender flesh of her knee.
“Sorry,” whispered Kimbra Lott.
Bethany winced at the pain, but blessed the girl by ignoring her. Tonight was too good to spoil on someone as pedestrian as Kimbra Lott.
By the start of the fourth quarter, the Bison were sixteen points up, the wind had grown heavier and battered the visiting team every time they worked up a lick of momentum. Maybe the saying was true, Bethany thought: maybe God really did love football.
When He had a boy like Dylan Whitley playing for Him, how could He not?
Her boy, Dylan Whitley. Hers and nobody else’s.
* * *
When the town stormed the field at the end of the game—the Bison had won 35–16—Dylan and Bethany posed for photos for the Bentley Beacon, for the school’s sports blog, for underclassmen’s Instagrams. Dylan’s body was taut and hot and clammy where it pressed against her hip. His fingers behind her back played with the top of her bra.
At Dylan’s signal, he and Bethany kissed deep. She popped one leg up behind her. When the little crowd around them went apeshit, Dylan and Bethany laughed into each other’s mouths.
A troupe of grade schoolers brought out a collection of footballs for Dylan to sign. When a coordinator brought Dylan a towel, he wiped his face and offered it to the crowd with a smile. A girl from the middle school snatched it from his hand, giggling at her own courage.
“Can we have your gloves?” asked a pair of sandy-haired boys with the Bison’s logo lacquered to their cheeks.
The boys’ mother, a dowdy housewife in a T-shirt, looked Dylan over and whispered to Bethany, “Who gets to take home his cup?”
Bethany laughed, thanked the woman for coming. Down the line, she saw the other players and their girls holding court—much smaller court—with Sharpies and selfie sticks.
A rumble of thunder made the field lights tremble as Paulette Whitley and Dylan’s brother arrived. The two boys embraced with far more enthusiasm than was strictly necessary.
Bethany tapped Dylan on the back to remind him he had one more duty to fulfill. Her man eased off his jersey with a chuckle, signed a dry spot on the back, passed it to a portly kid from the Mathletes. Bethany struck the boy’s name off a list in her phone. She assured a pimply college dropout with a baby on her hip that she was absolutely scheduled to receive next week’s jersey.
The portly kid took a few steps away, thinking no one would notice him, and brought the jersey to his nose.
“Y’all should raffle that shit for charity,” said Dylan’s brother, with what was either perplexity or disgust.
“Don’t give them ideas. They’d eat me if they could,” said Dylan. “How was Mexico?”
“Lots of fifty-k.” The boys snickered at some private joke. “You’ll have to come with me next time.”
Bethany cut in to introduce herself, smiling and struggling to conceal how badly Joel Whitley perplexed her. He hardly resembled the boy she’d seen in the scandalous pictures that had caused such a stir around town years ago, the pictures Bethany had sworn to Dylan she’d never seen.