Page 29 of Infatuated as They Come (Sinful Trilogy #2)

Holly

Thursday was finally upon me and I was far too nervous as me and the girls walked from Claudia’s dorm room to the stadium. There were a million butterflies in my stomach and they just seemed to double the further we walked.

Everything so far had been going well. Practice in the morning was fine and there hadn’t been any last-minute wardrobe malfunctions—though that possibility still hung in the air—and my muscles felt all loose and relaxed after all our group stretches.

But my nerves were still present. I just wanted everything to go well.

It had been a hot minute since I had organized so much choreography and the last thing I needed was to make an idiot of myself in front of a whole stadium of football fans.

A big part of me wanted to impress Claudia as well.

The chatter from the girls was soft and light. They were all bright, positive vibes: everything I should have been. I was a cheerleader. I was supposed to be cheerful, but all I could feel was a hot, uncomfortable wave of nerves.

I eyed my phone as we walked, my white sneakers patting against the ground. I saw a few texts that made me smile despite my ever-present nerves. There were sweet words of encouragement from my mom and dad and Annie and Brodie, but nothing from the person I really wanted to hear from.

“Let’s go team!” Claudia suddenly shrieked, and I realized then that our long walk from the dorms had finally brought us to the stadium .

Sophie had been right next to her, pressing her hands to her ears. “Girl, come on. Save it for the game.”

“What?” Claudia said. “Just tryna pump you all up!”

I laughed, wishing I could channel some of Claudia’s never-ending energy.

I dumped my bag on the ground next to Natalie’s and pulled out my pom poms, getting ready to get started on our warmups for the night.

The game was a good half hour away and when I looked up into the crowd, I could see the seats quickly filling up.

My eyes scanned left and right and up and down, trying to locate that familiar face that hadn’t felt so familiar lately, but my quick search didn’t give me who I was looking for.

Warmups went by with ease, my muscles and joints feeling extra loose. I tried to keep my brain focused on the routine I had learned off by heart, but my eyes kept wandering to the crowd trying to find Sawyer. Was it weird to miss someone you lived with?

“You okay?” Natalie was suddenly standing before me, her head tilted and her voice laced with worry. “You’ve had that look on your face all night.”

I shook my head. “What look?”

“That look that says something is on your mind. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just…” My eyes moved back to the hoard of people in the bleachers. “My classes were extra hard this week.”

“Don’t you just love college?” she asked.

“So, so much.”

She squeezed my shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll ace all your classes. Don’t stress!”

“Thanks,” I murmured.

“We’re on!” Claudia said from behind me. “Are you okay? Don’t be nervous!”

Spinning around to face her, I nodded. “I’m okay. I’m ready.”

I forced myself to focus on the routine, to just channel all of my energy into my high kicks and toe touches and double hooks, but it felt so rigid and mechanical as it carried on.

Nothing was flowing like it usually did.

My brain was telling me what move I had to make next, not my body.

I wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I kept searching for Sawyer’s green eyes in that crowd.

Sawyer had seen me cheer plenty of times before, but it had meant a lot to me that he showed up.

The whole routine just felt like me trying to force myself through one move and then to the next, biding my time until we got to the end.

Natalie’s and Millie’s soft, strong hands were on me as we moved on to the final stunt, their hands grasping my hips as they hoisted me up and into the air so I could finish off the routine with a simple stunting position I had done a million times before.

I lifted one of my feet and raised both of my hands into a V shape as they grabbed at my ankles, keeping upright and steady as my stupid brain wouldn’t stop telling me to look for Sawyer.

My quick search told me he hadn’t shown up.

It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did and I certainly shouldn’t have lost my footing, a sharp cry leaving my lips as I went from standing tall to feeling like I was falling.

It all happened in a millisecond. One moment I was up in the air, arms out straight, and then the next I was losing my balance and ending the stunt much earlier than planned.

It was Natalie and Millie that stopped me from crash landing right to the ground. They kept me as steady as possible until my feet finally found grass.

“Whoops, I got you!” Natalie said from behind me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m so sorry!” I cried out. I had accumulated a few falls from cheer, but never when doing something as simple as a liberty. “I don’t know what happened.”

“It’s okay.” Millie gave my back a rub. “Just a tiny fall.”

I could see the other girls completing their liberties with ease, the spotters guiding them down to the grass as the last of the routine was over and done with. I felt shame creep up on me, my cheeks as red as my uniform.

“Hey, it’s okay, it was one stunt,” Millie whispered into my ear. “Don’t worry about it.”

Millie was sweet. She could probably see the embarrassment on my face. My hands rubbed at my arms, feeling my hot skin as I looked at the crowd. Why couldn’t I stop looking for him? And why hadn’t he showed up? And why had I barely seen him ever since we moved to this stupid, big city?

My humiliation still felt very much present as Claudia draped an arm around my slumped shoulders. “I messed up,” I said. “I’ve done that move so many times. I don’t know what happened.”

She squeezed at me. “It’s okay. Don’t stress. Are you hurt?”

I lifted up my leg and stretched it out. “No. I fell okay. No pain.”

“That’s all that matters then. It was an accident.”

“You’ll never let me help with the choreography again. I don’t blame you.”

“It wouldn’t be cheer without a fall every now and then, right?” She shrugged.

“I guess not,” I mumbled.

“Exactly. Nothing to lose sleep over! Go Falcons!”

The game flew by and then there were the dozens of hugs and kisses on the cheek, the girls still oh so cheery, but I felt anything but. We all said our goodbyes before I shoved my pom poms into my bag, zipping it up with much more vigor than necessary.

From the corner of my eye, I could see some of the other girls with their boyfriends, and all I could wonder was where mine was.

I blew out a breath of air, feeling strong hands on my waist—hands I’d recognize anywhere. I turned to see Sawyer, his hair slightly tussled in the way that I loved, but his brows were furrowed and his eyes were full of worry.

“Is it over already?” he asked.

I nodded and hooked the strap of my gym bag on to my shoulder. “Yeah. All done. Go Falcons…”

“Holly, I’m so sorry,” he said, voice sounding strained. “I know how much this meant to you. I should have been here.”

“Well, there’s always next week,” I said, twisting one of my white sneakers into the ground. “It’s not a big deal.”

I was in his arms the next second, his arms wrapping around me as he pulled me close.

I wasn’t even sure why I was so upset. Sawyer had seen a whole bunch of the routines I had come up with in high school, but tonight just felt special.

It felt different. It had all been planned out in my head: he’d show up on time and the routine would go by without a hitch and then we’d grab dinner and take it home and cuddle on the couch all night.

“I’m sorry I missed it,” he said, holding my waist tight. “I fucked up tonight.”

“It’s just a stupid cheer routine,” I said, giving my head a shake. “It’s not like you’ve never seen me cheer before.”

“But tonight was different. This was your night; this was your routine. I wanted to see you cheer. You asked me to come and I couldn’t follow through on one easy fucking request.”

“It’s okay,” I said, forcing a smile.

“It’s not. You’re allowed to be mad at me. You’re allowed to be angry when I fuck up, and I fucked up really bad tonight.”

“Work comes first.” I pressed my hands to his broad chest. “I get it. It’s okay.”

“No,” he said, the word flying out of his mouth fast. “You come first.”

“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t do that.” He cupped my face with one hand and I stilled, noticing how his eyes never left mine.

“It’s just cheerleading. It’s not important.”

“It’s important to you so it’s important to me. Stuff you love is important and tonight meant a lot to you. And it meant a lot to me too…”

“So, what happened?” I gave him a weak shrug.

He sighed deeply. “I thought I had enough time to finish something up at work and make it here on time. I messed up tonight. I’ve been messing up a lot lately. I know I haven’t really been around.”

Hands rubbing at his chest, I shook my head. “You’ve been busy with work and your art. You have your own life here too. It’s okay.”

“You’re in my life and you’re the best part.

The biggest part. The part I love the most. I don’t ever want you to feel lonely,” he said.

“As soon as I get out of bed, I miss you, and then when I’m at work I miss you, and then when I get to leave all I feel is relief, and then when I finally get back it’s so late and you’re tired and I’m tired too.

I know it’s not a good excuse. I want to spend every single minute with you, Holly.

I’d be the happiest man in the world if I could do that. ”

“Then let’s do it,” I said with a sad laugh. “I’ll drop out tomorrow and you can quit your job and I’ll buy us a house wherever you want.”

He smiled at me. “That sounds real nice. And I wish we could do that…”

“But?”

“Your dad would have a lot of fun killing me if you dropped out. I don’t want you to stop going to school, and I know you don’t really want that either.

Dropping everything and running away isn’t the option.

We don’t have to do that. I just… I just need to fix this and make it better.

I love making you happy so much, but I haven’t really been doing much of that lately, have I? ”

“You do. You’re working so hard, Sawyer. I know that. I understand,” I said, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.” He closed his eyes, and when he opened them back up, I saw determination looking back at me. “Dinner. Tomorrow night. Just you and me. It’ll be like summer. We can go back to that. We’ll go some place fancy. How does that sound?”

I tugged at his shirt a little. “It doesn’t have to be fancy…”

“No, we’ll go somewhere nice. Just us.” He nodded. “We’ll have dinner. We’ll do it. Tomorrow, I’ll take you out some place nice, and it’ll just be us two for a few hours. You can get all dressed up and look beautiful like you always do, and it’ll be like old times. Sound good?”

He drew me closer to him and I buried my face in his neck, loving how I seemed to fit flawlessly against his broad form.

He squeezed at me and I got lost in the feeling of him—of his arms and the way he smelled and how he always managed to hold me just right, with me pressed to his chest and his fingers stroking through my locks.

Like it was right where I belonged, and I never wanted to belong anywhere else but with him.