Free Hunted by Dean Murray Page B

you?"
    "Not
really."
    Jackson
shrugged. "I suppose that most of the other cheerleaders
probably didn't start out knowing much about football either. You
should learn though, it's actually a pretty cool sport."
    There
was an element of longing there that I hadn't been expecting. That
didn't make any sense though. Jackson was plenty built, if he loved
football as much as I thought he did, he should be playing football
instead of watching from the sidelines like this.
    "Why
don't you play?"
    Jackson
started like I'd caught him off guard, like he hadn't been expecting
me to be quite so observant.
    "I
wish I could, but my…mother doesn't approve. She thinks it
would take away from my studies and distract me from other things
that she thinks are more important than football."
    "That
doesn't make any sense. I mean she let you join the cheer squad,
right? Helping us out is at least as big of a time commitment as
being on the football team."
    "Yeah
you've got a pretty good point there. Partly it is because we move
around so much. I couldn't have played here because I missed the
tryouts. Mostly though, she just hates football. Even me being able
to join the spirit squad wouldn't have happened normally. Things just
kind of lined up perfectly last week for me to be able to try out and
for her to say yes when Miss Winters picked me."
    There
was something there that I wasn't sure how to classify. It wasn't
quite vulnerability, but it was a close cousin. I opened my mouth to
say something harmless, but the words that came out weren't what I'd
been planning on.
    "Well,
I'm glad that things worked out. I have a suspicion that you'll
probably have to save me from making an idiot out of myself at least
once or twice a game."
    "Somehow
I don't think you're going to struggle anywhere nearly as bad as
that, but I'll gladly help out as often as you need me to. Let me
know if you change your mind about practicing some stunts."
    He
leaned in closer so that I could hear him despite the fact that his
voice had gone soft.
    "It
could just be our secret."
    Jackson
winked at me and then stood and walked away as he rolled up his mat.
I felt like my head was spinning. I'd been worried that I was being
too forward when I'd told him that I was glad he'd made the team.
    In
no world I'd even read about did a guy dripping as much hotness as
Jackson ever want to get to know a chubby basket case like me. I was
pretty sure I'd fallen asleep while stretching. I had to be dreaming,
there was no other way to explain it.
     
     

Chapter 7
    The
rest of the game flew by in a blur. I managed to hit all of my marks
and I didn't drop either of the girls I was supposed to spot for the
stunting routines. All in all, if that had been the final result of
the evening, I would have felt pretty good about my debut appearance
on the squad.
    After
my mind-blowing conversation with Jackson I figured that the night
was probably out of any other big surprises. It turned out I was
wrong, it just took a little while for the rest of the surprises to
shake out.
    Things
calmed down on the cheer front, mostly because Miss Winters was so
enthralled in the game that she stopped feeding us cheers as quickly
as what she'd done for the first part of the game. Apparently she was
a hardcore fan and the game was even more exciting than I'd expected
after Jackson's tip about Tristan.
    If
anything Jackson had undersold just how good Tristan was, which was
lucky because we lost one of the offensive linemen on our first
possession. Even with the tiny amount that I knew about football, I
still could see the difference in the game after that happened.
    From
what I overheard from the other girls, the first half of the game had
been all about offense with neither team's defense being able to slow
down the other side's offense very well. Victor apparently had
enjoyed tons of time in the pocket before being forced to make a
throw. Tristan was under almost constant pressure, but it hardly
seemed to faze