Fuck, it isn't easy. I mean, I hadn't thought it was going to be a cakewalk, but after the first practice, I'm in so much pain and my shirt is soaked through with sweat. Freya comes up to me, her bag slung over her shoulder and her body glistening with exertion. Shit, if that doesn't make me want to throw her back on the mat and roll around with her a little.
I hadn't seen her much since there were a total of twenty-one (now twenty-two) people on the team, and I hadn't been added to her stunt group. I'd worked with a tiny flyer (the term for the one we were lifting) named Carrie, who was one of the girls Freya had been dancing with at the bar. She's bouncy and has red curls that kept getting in my face as I backed the stunt group. Still, she's pretty light, so it wasn't that bad. I was still scared shitless of screwing things up and breaking her.
"I'm not that fragile," she says after one of the stunts comes down, due to me. She pats me on the shoulder, and we set up again, with me in the back. It's odd that I have my hand on the ass of a girl I've literally just met, but I guess that's part of this whole deal. This is what I signed up for. Because a hot girl in a bar dared me.
Every now and then I'd see Freya out of the corner of my eye, pulling her leg back and over her head in a scorpion position and then executing a double twist down into the base's arms. She's really . . . flexible. I tried not to stare too much when she did shit like that, but how could I not?
"Ready to throw in the towel?" she asks.
"Hell, no, that was fun." It had been, actually. Plus, continuing to annoy her with my presence is a bonus. My head is still spinning with all the new information I've been cramming into it.
"Fun?" she says the word like she's never heard it before.
"Yeah, I can't wait to come back tomorrow." This is going to be a huge time commitment for the foreseeable future. Oh, well. I thrive on pressure.
She stares at me for what feels like forever, and I want to push a strand of hair that escaped her ponytail behind her ear.
"Okay, well see you tomorrow morning at five," she says, giving me a megawatt smile.
"Excuse me?" The practices are always at night, not in the morning. At least that was the schedule I'd been given.
"Conditioning at five. We do two-a-days in this joint. Or is that too much for you?" Oh, she's making me want to do so many things.
"No, not at all. I'll be there."
She turns around and trots away with her friends.
"We meet at the field house," she throws over her shoulder.
And thus, I become a cheerleader.
* * *
"Rawr," I yell, making my hands into claws and chasing the kids around. They scream and hide on the playground equipment.
"I'm gonna get you, my pretties," I say in the imitation of an old lady. Henry, one of the little boys, glowers at me.
"You're mean," he says, sticking his lower lip out.
"Aw, buddy, it's okay. I'm just pretending," I say. He seems unconvinced. Kids are the biggest skeptics, I swear.
"Pretending is mean." Oh, boy. Toddlers are brutal. I've been working at the campus day care in my spare time since last year, and I seriously love it. I guess it's an unconventional job for a guy who looks like me, but I don't care. I love wrangling the little munchkins. They're all so innocent and the world hasn't had a chance to fuck them up yet. Well, most of them. The world fucked me up at an early age, so I want to reach out to those kids. Help them so they don't turn out like me, basically. My childhood was rough, to say the least. I was a kid of "the system" and it was difficult. It was hard. But there were people who cared about me, and now I want to repay what they did for me. By doing it for someone else.
"How about we go on the swings?" I say to Henry, and his face lights up.
"Come on," I say, holding out my hand.
"Okay, Rhett!" he says, and we dash off to the swings together.
Freya
"How's purgatory?" my best friend, Mia, asks via Skype.
"It's not purgatory. Just Maine," I say, giving her a glare. I can't really reprimand her, since I'd pretty much said the same thing a time or two.
"Maine, Schmaine," she says, waving a hand. "I just can't believe you had to transfer. What is up with that? You could have just gone up on the weekend or something. I would have come with you." I shrug and change the subject. I don't want to talk about why I had to transfer. Mia knows, but she doesn't quite understand. She tried to talk me out of it so many times. My mind is made up and I'm not changing it.