Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Is she practicing for tonight’s performance or taking a nap? Is she doing her hair and makeup with the girls or chilling at home? Is she . . . fuck, is she being tracked down by those goons right now?
I toss and turn, staring at the ceiling and wall before repeating the pattern again.
I could call her. Apologize again, or ask if the Thin Mints helped soothe her broken heart, or just ask if she’s okay. That wouldn’t be weird, would it?
It definitely would be. And a move like that will only make it harder to act like the asshole she expects next time she, Dom, and I hang out. Because that can’t change. Two days of uncharacteristic niceness on my part won’t be enough for her to reconsider her opinion of me, but it might make it harder for me to continue being the asshole I always am. She’s too real, too raw, too special to keep treating like the bratty annoyance she thinks I see her as.
But I’ll have to do it. There’s no other option, and ultimately, I just need there to be a next time we hang out, and for Penny to not get further caught up in whatever Mob drama has come to bear at her doorstep.
That’s got to be my focus.
And, oh yeah, the fucking game.
Chapter 12
Penny
“Five, six, seven, eight!”
Layla counts us down and, as a team, we walk onto the ice, waving our poms at the crowd. Yes, walk in tennis shoes, not skates. Why? Because dance, which isn’t really an answer, but also . . . very much is.
Over the sound system, the announcer shouts, “And here’s to the flyest cheerleaders in the league, our Ice Hawkettes!”
There’s a few “ca-caw” callouts that break through the roar in my head, but beyond that, I don’t hear the crowd as we take our starting positions. It’s showtime, and whether they’re ignoring us in favor of ordering a beer from one of the vendors that walk the arena or laser-locked on us, it’s all the same to me. It’s time to work . . . and work.
I didn’t always want to be a cheerleader. Once upon a time, I was a figure skater who lived, breathed, and dreamed of spins and jumps. While Dominic would practice hockey on one end of the rink, bragging about how he’d be an NHL pro one day, I’d be at the other end, pretending I was the star of Disney on Ice when I was young, and later, imagining that I was competing at the Olympics. Unfortunately, only one of us took it as far as we dreamed, which is why there are people in the audience tonight wearing my brother’s jersey number.
I might’ve gone further if it hadn’t been for the coach I had the year I turned fourteen, who was strict to the point of abusive, and by the time my parents figured out why I was suddenly stressing about the puberty-driven changes to my body, the damage had been done to my love of the sport.
But I still loved many aspects of figure skating, like the choreography, the movement, and the performance. So I found a way to turn the body that was deemed too short and too curvy for figure skating into a plus by becoming a cheerleader in high school. There, I focused on power and projection, precision and passion, and with my background, I was a force to be reckoned with.
When Dom got drafted into the pros, my parents and I went to all his games, and I had another brilliant idea when I saw the cheerleaders. They were the best of everything I love—dance, cheer, and skating—and a new dream was born. When he got traded to the Hawks, I secretly tried out and became a Hawkette the next year, and this is my third season with them, making me one of the veterans.
The music starts, and we begin to move as one, our well-rehearsed routine flying by in what seems like warp speed. At the same time, it’s slow motion, the movements automatic, letting me simultaneously smile and wink and engage with the audience in front of me, demanding their attention and working hard to keep it.
Somehow, I manage to do it all without stumbling a bit on the slippery ice. In my regular life, I’m a disaster waiting to happen, tripping over my own feet and attracting drama at every turn, but when I’m performing, nothing can stop me and I ooze confidence in every step. It makes no logical sense, but I’ve long ago given up on figuring out the hows and whys of it, and just appreciate that I haven’t eaten ice in the middle of a performance . . . yet.
Too quickly, since I don’t want to leave this graceful zone of existence, the last note plays, and we hold our ending pose for a beat, letting the applause sound out before we start waving and clapping our poms together. I see a little girl in one of the lower sections waving back excitedly and give her an extra-big smile.