the rest of
the girls on the squad still seemed to hate me.
It
seemed to take forever for the football team to run through the good
luck tunnel, but then finally the last blue-and-white helmeted figure
was past me. I turned to run over to our normal spot on the sidelines
and found myself face to chest with Jackson.
He
looked incredibly gorgeous in the blue-on-white uniforms that Miss
Winters had picked out for the male cheerleaders. I was still
honestly more than a little blown away that Jackson was on the team.
Not that he'd made it, but that he'd tried out in the first place.
I
didn't have any room to talk, but the guys we'd had try out for the
cheer squad were mostly nerds. I generally got along with nerds
better than with most other kinds of people, but once I'd realized
that the guys on the team were going to be catching Cindi as she did
a backflip off of the top of the pyramid I'd suddenly become a lot
more concerned about how strong they were than how smart they were.
Jackson
was the shining exception in the group. Miss Winters had eventually
selected five other guys, two per pyramid, but it was Jackson who was
already taking the lead in practices. He was even talking about
getting the other guys into the weight rooms a few times a week so
that they could bulk up.
I
tried to stop before running into Jackson, but I was moving too fast.
If it had been one of the other girls I would have knocked them flat,
but Jackson simply put his hands around my waist before I collided
into him, and then picked me up so that I was looking down at him
with my feet pointing straight up in the air.
I'd
seen Jackson practice this particular lift with a couple of the
other, smaller girls but I'd never expected to find myself performing
it with him. My hands found his shoulders out of reflexes I didn't
even know I had, and I pushed against him in an effort to take some
of my weight off of his arms.
I
had a split second to feel my stomach knot up from being so high up
in the air, and then I felt my skirt slide down towards my stomach,
revealing the tight little shorts that were part of the skirt. Cindi
was a flyer, and she had a good point that it wasn't like anyone was
actually seeing our underwear, but the shorts were still more
revealing than anything I normally wore.
As
Jackson brought me gently back down to the ground I could feel a
blush breaking out all over my face, and I honestly wasn't sure
whether it was because of my skirt having slid down or because I was
making a spectacle of myself in other ways. He'd just saved me from
the humiliation of bouncing off of him and falling down, but the last
thing I wanted to be doing right now was to be performing the kinds
of tricks that would make people notice me.
"Sorry,
Adri. It was the only thing I could think of to make it look like
you'd planned on running the opposite direction from everyone else."
My
cheeks got even hotter as I realized he was right. Somehow I'd gotten
turned around and I'd been headed towards the visitor's side of the
field. I'd almost been doubly embarrassed and only quick thinking on
Jackson's part had saved me from looking like a complete idiot.
"Thanks,
Jackson. I guess I'm even more nervous than I realized."
I
got a smile in response as we both ran to our assigned spots and
started into the first cheer. The game went by more quickly than I'd
expected it to. We yelled and jumped and kicked and almost faster
than I could believe it, I looked up to find that there was less than
a minute left in the first half.
My
nerves had settled down during the first half of the game, I'd even
pretty much forgotten about my near miss with Jackson earlier. I was
just starting to worry about our halftime routine when I heard
screams of outrage from the fans on our side of the field.
A
couple of the other girls were disciplined enough not to turn and
look, but I wasn't one of them, not that it did me a lot of good. The
only thing I could see was a group of blue and white
the girls on the squad still seemed to hate me.
It
seemed to take forever for the football team to run through the good
luck tunnel, but then finally the last blue-and-white helmeted figure
was past me. I turned to run over to our normal spot on the sidelines
and found myself face to chest with Jackson.
He
looked incredibly gorgeous in the blue-on-white uniforms that Miss
Winters had picked out for the male cheerleaders. I was still
honestly more than a little blown away that Jackson was on the team.
Not that he'd made it, but that he'd tried out in the first place.
I
didn't have any room to talk, but the guys we'd had try out for the
cheer squad were mostly nerds. I generally got along with nerds
better than with most other kinds of people, but once I'd realized
that the guys on the team were going to be catching Cindi as she did
a backflip off of the top of the pyramid I'd suddenly become a lot
more concerned about how strong they were than how smart they were.
Jackson
was the shining exception in the group. Miss Winters had eventually
selected five other guys, two per pyramid, but it was Jackson who was
already taking the lead in practices. He was even talking about
getting the other guys into the weight rooms a few times a week so
that they could bulk up.
I
tried to stop before running into Jackson, but I was moving too fast.
If it had been one of the other girls I would have knocked them flat,
but Jackson simply put his hands around my waist before I collided
into him, and then picked me up so that I was looking down at him
with my feet pointing straight up in the air.
I'd
seen Jackson practice this particular lift with a couple of the
other, smaller girls but I'd never expected to find myself performing
it with him. My hands found his shoulders out of reflexes I didn't
even know I had, and I pushed against him in an effort to take some
of my weight off of his arms.
I
had a split second to feel my stomach knot up from being so high up
in the air, and then I felt my skirt slide down towards my stomach,
revealing the tight little shorts that were part of the skirt. Cindi
was a flyer, and she had a good point that it wasn't like anyone was
actually seeing our underwear, but the shorts were still more
revealing than anything I normally wore.
As
Jackson brought me gently back down to the ground I could feel a
blush breaking out all over my face, and I honestly wasn't sure
whether it was because of my skirt having slid down or because I was
making a spectacle of myself in other ways. He'd just saved me from
the humiliation of bouncing off of him and falling down, but the last
thing I wanted to be doing right now was to be performing the kinds
of tricks that would make people notice me.
"Sorry,
Adri. It was the only thing I could think of to make it look like
you'd planned on running the opposite direction from everyone else."
My
cheeks got even hotter as I realized he was right. Somehow I'd gotten
turned around and I'd been headed towards the visitor's side of the
field. I'd almost been doubly embarrassed and only quick thinking on
Jackson's part had saved me from looking like a complete idiot.
"Thanks,
Jackson. I guess I'm even more nervous than I realized."
I
got a smile in response as we both ran to our assigned spots and
started into the first cheer. The game went by more quickly than I'd
expected it to. We yelled and jumped and kicked and almost faster
than I could believe it, I looked up to find that there was less than
a minute left in the first half.
My
nerves had settled down during the first half of the game, I'd even
pretty much forgotten about my near miss with Jackson earlier. I was
just starting to worry about our halftime routine when I heard
screams of outrage from the fans on our side of the field.
A
couple of the other girls were disciplined enough not to turn and
look, but I wasn't one of them, not that it did me a lot of good. The
only thing I could see was a group of blue and white
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