Chapter 46: Cheer Captain

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The bus ride back did not feel like a victory party.

The Normans had won in a landslide, but the real test was already waiting. While they handled Burbank, Santa Ana High opened its postseason at home with a 67-12 destruction of Birmingham High and advanced to the next round.

That score said enough about the Saints’ offense.

Most of the bus sat tense and quiet.

Nolan, by contrast, had become the calmest person aboard. His head rested against the window, eyes closed, body loose enough to look asleep.

After a while he opened his eyes and yawned.

"Where are we?"

"Hollywood Hills," Flea said from beside him. "Almost back."

Another forty minutes and they would reach BHHS.

Flea leaned closer.

"What did you do last night? After the game you disappeared and did not come back until late."

"You can think of it as camping near Burbank," Nolan said, voice slightly nasal. "Outdoor education."

He had spent the night with Burbank’s eighteen-year-old cheer captain, in a reckless but mutual detour through the local scenery. Once the temperature dropped, the great outdoors had punished both of them.

...

With classes over and campus caught in the strange quiet after graduation season, the team rested briefly, split up for dinner, and gathered again at Nickoll Field at one in the afternoon.

Thomas was operating on bloodshot eyes and terrifying energy.

"Same routine. Fifteen-minute warmup. Thirty minutes of technique. Then outdoor strength work. Flea, I am personally watching your pull-ups today."

Flea looked betrayed.

"After that, speed and conditioning for forty minutes. The final scrimmage will simulate Santa Ana’s key players. I watched their film all night. Last two years. Every useful snap."

Thomas spoke fast enough that he sounded caffeinated by hatred.

Near the end of warmups, Nolan noticed the BHHS cheer squad entering the stadium in orange-and-black uniforms. Grace led them.

With her came the school’s most visible cheerleader: Sarah Michelle Gellar.

It was Nolan’s first real meeting with the teenage actress who had already started making a name in Hollywood.

She was nothing like Katherine. Sarah was petite, maybe five-foot-three, with a rounder face, a high blond ponytail, and a bright, mischievous energy that seemed designed for teen movies. Her eyes moved quickly. Her smile knew exactly where the camera should be.

The next football game would be at Nickoll Field, so BHHS cheer needed rehearsal the same way Burbank had rehearsed for its home crowd.

For Nolan, this was new. For the rest of the team, it was normal.

Once formal technique work began, players separated by position. Quarterbacks threw, receivers caught, kickers kicked, runners protected the ball, defenders drilled tackling and strip work.

Under the hard Southern California sun, Nolan moved easily and sent a football into a long clean arc. It spun forty yards through the air and dropped into a receiver’s hands as if the ball had been led there by wire.

At the field edge, the cheer squad launched into a chant.

"We are the Normans, orange and black!"

"We are the Normans, we have the might!"

"Go, go, go, Normans, show your skill!"

"Win, win, win, Normans, we know you will!"

Pom-poms flashed in clean rhythm. The chant was simple, but even Nolan felt a little heat rise in his chest.

During breaks, football players and cheerleaders mixed easily. Most of them knew one another, and the stadium held only the two groups. Small clusters formed, talking about training, summer plans, and the upcoming game.

Nolan was new, handsome, and suddenly famous. That made him an obvious subject.

His girlfriend mattered less to the social ecosystem than it should have. Katherine had graduated. Nolan would still be around campus next term.

"Quarterback," one cheerleader asked, smiling, "did you really grow up with Katherine?"

"I did."

Nolan looked past her toward two girls sitting slightly apart from everyone else.

Amy and Naomi.

He had seen them attend cheer tryouts together, but he had not known both had made the squad.

Before he could cross over, Grace approached.

"Nolan, come here a second."

They stepped aside.

"As acting athletic director, my father has approved the charity sale," Grace said. "Access only. No budget, no full plan, no staff. If you want this, you build it yourself."

Nolan nodded.

He had expected that.

After Grace left, he returned toward the crowd.

"He is coming this way," one cheerleader whispered.

"He is going to talk to you."

"You two are more excited than I am," Sarah said, flipping her ponytail as if the outcome barely interested her.

It did.

In her private ranking of BHHS, she was the most popular girl in school. The fact that Jennifer Love Hewitt existed on the same campus complicated that story, but Sarah did not enjoy complications.

Hewitt was her age. Hewitt had also started young in show business. Her family had moved from Texas to Los Angeles to support her career. Because she worked off campus, she did not appear at school as often, but the few times she did, Sarah felt the threat immediately.

Worse, Hewitt had already taken a role Sarah believed should have been hers.

That made her the enemy.

Cheer had been Sarah’s way to be seen more often, more publicly, and with more school power.

Now the name Nolan Callahan was traveling through campus faster than gossip usually could.

For Sarah, the quarterback had become important.

If she could draw the most talked-about boy in school, that proved her own pull.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Nolan approach. She cleared her throat and adjusted her uniform with the effortless care of someone who had practiced looking effortless. She had even been sitting at an awkward angle because it made her line look cleaner.

Nolan walked straight past her.

He sat across from Amy and Naomi instead.

"Sarah," one of her friends said, delighted in the cruel way only friends could be, "looks like he is not interested. He would rather talk to the new girls."

The school news had once teased that Sarah was Nolan’s crush. That was before his status changed.

Now that he was more famous, he seemed less interested.

Or, worse, he thought Sarah Michelle Gellar was beneath him.

"Motherfucker," Sarah muttered, flushed and furious. "That big bastard."

She watched Nolan laughing with the two new girls until anger pushed her upright.

"Come on," she told her two closest followers.

Then she marched straight toward him.

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