All around me, the crowd yells, “Blue and white, FIGHT!”
The cheerleaders go into the next part, but everything around me seems to be muted. Everything except Lacey. My pulse picks up speed and my gut swirls with some unnamed feeling. She keeps staring at me too, and I don’t know what it means.
It’s only when the cheerleaders finish and turn back to the field that I snap out of it and back to reality. My heart isstill hammering away in my chest when Lacey glances over her shoulder to see if I’m still looking at her.
Rowan elbows me. “Earth to Vaughn.”
“Sorry.” I blink and turn to him.
“I’m going to hit the concession. Do you want anything?” His brows tug together, and he asks another question before I’ve answered the first. “What’s wrong with your face?”
I smooth a hand over one cheek, down to my chin, and across. “What do you mean?”
“You’re smiling.”
My hand falls away. “Fuck off. I smile lots.”
He laughs.
Okay, not lots, but it’s notthatrare. Except maybe lately I have been moodier than normal. But not without good reason.
Rowan stands and hitches his thumb in the direction of the food tent. “Want anything?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
When he’s gone, I look back to the cheerleaders. Not all of them. One. Lacey.
And my mouth curves up again.
Chapter Fourteen
Lacey
After the football game, I lose Vaughn in the shuffle of the crowd leaving and the players heading off to the locker rooms. Frost Lake lost, and the mood is glum as people walk toward their cars.
The squad packs up quickly. I send them all home before I remember I still need to take the signs down from along the fence.
I groan and drop my duffel to the ground, but when I scan the fence, half are already gone. Then I spot the source. Vaughn stands at the fifty-yard line, removing tape that holds the large poster board along the chain-link fence.
My stomach flips at the sight of him, and I ignore the quickening of my heartbeat that seems to signal I’m more excited to see him than I should be. Nope, nope. Not getting fooled by him again. He blew me off the first time someone more important than me needed something. I thought we were becoming friends, but he just needs me to pass algebra.
A week ago, that wouldn’t have hurt my feelings so much.
As I approach him, he glances up.
“Thank you,” I say as he removes the sign and sets it on the ground in a stack with the others he’s already taken down.
“It’s the least I could do. You’ve been so great to me, even when you didn’t want to be.” A small playful smile quirks up one side of his mouth as he meets my gaze for only a second before he starts removing the next sign.
We work together for the next few minutes until the signs are down and the field is empty.
I take the stack from him and carefully roll them up so I can slide a big rubber band around them to store for the next game. Without asking, he walks with me to the large equipment bag, and he hefts it up on one shoulder and follows me into the women’s locker room where he sets it, much more carefully than I ever could, into the storage closet.
“Thank you,” I say again.
When we exit the locker room, the lights are out on the field.
“Do you usually set up and tear down on your own?” he asks.
