Page 161 of Rock Bottom Girl

I was on my feet with the rest of the crowd, watching the perfect arc of the ball as it crossed midfield and sailed toward the Bugler’s penalty area. Libby was waiting for it. With her back to the defender, she trapped the ball and neatly crossed it to Natalee.

“SHOOT IT!” Jessica and I screamed together. We were joined by the rest of Culpepper screaming similar sentiments.

Natalee didn’t even trap the ball. She swung her leg like a baseball bat. The ball hit the cross bar with a resounding clang and then bounced off a defender out of bounds.

The crowd groaned its disappointment, but Natalee and Libby high-fived, their grins a mile wide. They were having fun.

“Nice try, ladies,” Vicky bellowed from her perch on the team bench.

Marley was grinning.

I pulled my phone out.

Me: You are fucking fantastic.

They hadn’t scored, but in one play, Marley had invested the crowd in the game, in her girls. And she’d ratcheted up the team’s confidence. They had a shot. A real one, and every single person in the stadium knew it now.

* * *

Ruby scored the Barn Owls’first goal on a fast breakaway, tying the game up at 1-1. The crowd was hooting and hollering like they’d spent the afternoon drinking two-for-ones at Smitty’s. Even the guys team, sans Coach Dipshit who had been escorted out of the stadium by security, was watching raptly.

The cheerleaders in full winter gear sashayed over to the fence dividing the stands from the sidelines and Jessie J’s “Bang Bang” blasted over the speakers.

“I love this song,” Ned screeched on Jessica’s right. He bounced his nonexistent ass on the cold bleacher.

The squad broke into a dance number that made me think they’d watchedBring It Ona few times. Shocked, the crowd watched as two girls backflipped their way down the sidelines. The two lone guys on the team tossed their ladies in the air, caught them, and then dropped into clapping push-ups while three cheerleaders front flipped over them.

“What the hell is happening?” the guy in the flannel jacket on my right asked in amazement.

The male and female cheerleaders had switched positions with the girls doing the clapping push-ups—could I even do one?—and the guys back flipping over them.

“Awesome,” I told him. “Awesome is happening.”

“This is so exciting,” Jessica said, linking her arms through mine and Ned’s. “I feel like women’s lib finally made it to Culpepper! I want to set my bra on fire!”

The boys team sat slack-jawed while the rest of the crowd exploded. Marley high-fived the cheer coach. It was pandemonium in the stands, and goddammit, I was a little bit teary-eyed. That was mygirldown there, and she was awesome. She had no idea the effect she was having on the entire community. I’d been going to sporting events in this town for more than twenty years, and I’d never once seen the cheer squad get a reception like that. Hell, the guys soccer team had a bounty for who could hit the squad with the most number of tortilla chips from the stands.

It was Marley. She inspired people to be better. Myself—who was really already as close to perfect as you could get—included.

I was going to marry her. Really, I had no choice. Marley Cicero was meant to be mine, and I was meant to be hers. We would hash out the details later.

The action on the field started again, and I, along with the rest of the town, watched as the two teams battled it out on the green grass under the lights.

Every breakaway, every tangle resulted in groans and cheers from the stands. And when the Buglers managed to put another ball past Ashlynn in the Barn Owls’ goal, I felt the devastation of the crowd as acutely as if we were all connected. The time ticked down in the first half, and with each passing minute, the Buglers seemed to grow bigger and stronger, forcing our defense to fight hard.

“This is bad. This is real bad,” Ned moaned.

“It’s going to be fine,” Jessica promised him, squeezing his mittened hand with her gloved one. “Marley can turn it around with the halftime speech.”

68

Marley

Iblew it with my halftime speech. I was so amped up from the first half that I stumbled my way through “awesome jobs” and “way to gos” until Vicky elbowed me out of the way and danced and howled her way around the circle shouting things like “victory” and “ass-kicking.”

The girls were more bewildered than amped up. But pride strangled any real coachy motivation from my throat.

They were playing at the Bugler’s level. Sure, the opposing team had gotten lucky twice now. But that didn’t mean we weren’t going to return the favor. Down 2-1 at halftime was better than anything I could have imagined at the beginning of the season.