Rally (Treasure State Wildcats Book 3)

In the past week, I’d lost Rush to football.

It was both fascinating and frustrating to watch an athlete’s life from such a close vantage point.

Football had been a huge part of his routine before the playoffs, but now? Since Thanksgiving, he’d been utterly consumed.

I’d been desperate to talk to him, to pick up where we’d left off in the kitchen, but he’d been so busy that I hadn’t pushed. He had plenty to worry about at the moment.

Every waking moment of his life seemed to be taken, either with football, class or mandatory study time at the fieldhouse.

Next week was dead week on campus as everyone crammed for finals, Rush included.

He left the house before I woke up each morning, and when I came home from the diner after my shifts, he’d already be asleep. Last night, I’d poked my head inside his room to see him snoring on top of his covers, still dressed in a hoodie and jeans. So I’d slipped a good luck tomorrow note under his door and left him to rest.

I’d spent a week observing from afar.

Until today.

The parking lots outside both the stadium and fieldhouse were full, and rather than spend an hour hunting for something close, I’d parked the Explorer by Williams Hall and hiked across campus for today’s game. Even bundled in my thickest coat, hat and gloves, the cold was a shock, but the nervous energy was keeping me warm.

The lot that stretched from the fieldhouse to the stadium was chaos. Tents had been set up behind tailgates. Some people had brought in small campers, complete with portable firepits and barbecues. The scents of smoke and grilled meat filled the air.

A shirtless man wearing an enormous foam cowboy hat guzzled a beer, the liquid dribbling from the corners of his mouth and down his hairy belly. When it was gone, he crushed the can in a fist and yelled, “Go Big Blue!”

The other guys in his group cheered, and someone threw him another beer.

“Let’s fucking go!” He popped the top and chugged.

I giggled and kept on walking. The crowd grew thicker and thicker as I approached the stadium until I had to weave past people to get to the entrance.

Was it like this all the time? Excitement and anticipation buzzed in the air like sparks.

Rush didn’t know I was coming to today’s game. He didn’t know that I’d gotten up at five o’clock yesterday morning to come to campus and wait in line to get a student ticket—they’d sold out in ten minutes, and I’d been far from the first person in line.

He would have insisted on getting me a ticket himself. Maybe seating me beside his parents. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Ryan and Macy, but this was my first Wildcats football game. Maybe it was silly or sentimental, but today, I didn’t want to be Rush Ramsey’s roommate or friend or the woman having his child.

I wanted to be a student, just a normal student, here to cheer on her school’s team in the freezing cold.

With my ticket clutched in my gloved hand, I shuffled into line with the other fans slowly filing into the stadium. I breezed through the metal detector and let the attendant scan my ticket. Then I wandered past the rows of concession booths below the stands.

I’d stuffed a stack of flyers in my pocket this morning, today’s printed on electric-blue paper with the headline filling most of the half-page sheets.

SAVE DOLLY’S DINER

It was a new tactic, appealing to the sympathetic. Okay, so maybe it was over the top, but at this point, I was willing to try anything to lure customers to the diner.

Outside of the concession booths were tables with napkin dispensers and industrial ketchup and mustard pumps. I divided my stack and left piles on various tables until they were gone. Then I scanned the signs posted above the ramps leading outside and followed them toward my seat.

The student section was already packed, and clearly no one sat where they were assigned, but I managed to squeeze into an end seat on a bleacher five steps up from the railing on the front row.

People rushed around the sidelines on the field. Some wore orange vests. Others must be employees from the athletics department. And then there were the cameramen toting their equipment into position to record and capture the game.

The scoreboard flashed with different advertisements. Music blared from the stadium’s sound system. It had been energetic in the parking lot, but by the time all of the seats were filled, this place was electric.

“Wow.” I couldn’t stop my smile.

“What?” the guy next to me asked, practically shouting over the noise.

“Nothing.” I waved it off.

The stadium was huge from the outside, but the interior was bigger than I’d expected. Racks of massive lights stood on poles towering above the highest row of bleachers. The afternoon sun glinted off the windows of the skyboxes that overlooked the field. More and more fans were filtering in, filling up the empty spaces.

It was a sea of royal blue and silver, even with people wearing winter gear. I’d never been so grateful that my coat was gray. Not an intentional purchase, but at least I wouldn’t stick out.

The only football game I’d ever been to had been in high school my freshman year. I’d gone with a few friends to watch the game, and afterward, we’d all decided to try out for the cheerleading team.

I’d mentioned it to Mom the next morning. She’d laughed in my face and told me I’d make a horrible cheerleader.

I’d skipped the tryouts. My friends had all been picked for the team, and then they’d stopped being my friends after that.

Was I a cheerleader? Probably not. I didn’t smile enough to be cheery. I wasn’t loud or boisterous. Mom hadn’t necessarily been wrong, she’d just been a bitch about the delivery.

Still, as I watched the Wildcat cheerleaders on the sidelines, clapping and laughing, a pang of envy twisted my side.

Who would I have become if I hadn’t taken so much of my mother’s criticisms to heart?

Maybe it was time to find out. Maybe it was time to stop believing I wasn’t good enough.

The draft is all about picks. You’re my pick.

Rush’s words had played in my mind countless times this week.

It felt selfish to pick him. But I was going to all the same.

He was my pick.

Rush and Squish.

A flutter in my belly brought a smile to my lips. The baby had started moving a few days ago. It was slight, the feeling like bubbles in my tummy, but after an hour on Google, I’d learned all about quickening.

Soon, Rush would be able to feel it too.

More and more people arrived, fitting themselves into every available space until the clock on the enormous scoreboard ticked down to five minutes. My breath billowed in white puffs but the chill was tempered by the sea of warm bodies. The sun was a bright, white orb in the clear, blue sky.

I wiggled my toes in my boots, hoping the three pairs of socks I’d worn today would work. Most of the snow had been shoveled off the actual bench seats, but there was a layer of trampled ice beneath my soles.

The music cut out and the announcer’s voice boomed through the sound system. “Welcome, Wildcats! It’s a beautiful day for Treasure State football.”

The crowd erupted, the noise deafening. It swallowed my laugh. A new song started to play, the beat a low, steady thrum. Everyone around me started clapping and stomping to the rhythm.

The announcer kept talking, introducing the opposing team as they jogged onto their sideline. Then all attention turned to the tunnel across the field. A gleam of silver helmets came first as a line of players, arms linked, emerged.

Yards and yards separated us, but I knew the man in the center without seeing his face. I knew that walk, those shoulders, that stride.

Rush.

The camera zeroed in on him, projecting him to the big screen. Through the face mask, he stared out at the field, his expression hard and focused.

My heart skipped.

It was the same way he looked when I watched his games on television. He was nothing but steely determination. He was here to win, at all costs. It was intimidating and powerful and so freaking sexy.

My heart rate spiked, my pulse thundered.

Mine. That man was mine.

All eyes were glued on Rush. He commanded the attention of thousands of people as he walked to the sideline with the entire Wildcat team marching in formation at his back.

He owned this stadium.

And he was mine.

I was out of place in this mob of football fans. I was freeloading off Rush’s insistence to help. I wasn’t sure where exactly I belonged or what my future entailed.

But I did know exactly what I wanted.

Wants were risky. I wasn’t used to letting myself want. But I wanted Rush enough to try.

My heart felt two sizes too big as the clock kept ticking down. Two minutes. One minute. It was wild to be this nervous for a game I wasn’t playing in, but the emotions swelled so big I almost couldn’t breathe. With only thirty seconds left until it started, I closed my eyes and tipped my head to the sky, letting the sunshine warm my face.

For the first time in my life, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The first quarter of the game was a blur. My football crash course from Mike helped some, but I still wasn’t sure when to cheer and when to rage at a bad call from the referees, so I waited until the people around me reacted before I joined in with the same.

When Rush threw a touchdown pass, I screamed so loud my voice cracked.

He was in his element. He was larger than life. He threw the ball with precision, and when he tucked it beneath an arm to run it himself, he was almost unstoppable. He was a force.

The opposing team didn’t stand a chance.

No matter what else happened on the field, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Rush.

He hadn’t added the long sleeves beneath his jersey and pads like most of the other players. The roped muscle in his arms was on display every time the camera swung his direction. And the pants, oh my God, the pants. They accentuated the bulk of his thighs and the perfect curve of his ass.

The sweat at my temples and spine had nothing to do with my layers. There was a coil in my lower belly, twisting tighter and tighter with every play, every yard gained. By halftime, the Wildcats were ahead by fourteen points. By the end of the third quarter, twenty-one.

“We’re going to fucking winnnnn!” The guy next to me pumped his arms back and forth like he was running in place, his entire body radiating the thrill. He cupped both hands to his mouth and screamed, “Rush Ramsey for President!”

Everyone around us laughed, and the people seated in the rows below us all turned.

There was a woman, a very beautiful woman, two rows below with dark hair trapped beneath a Wildcats beanie. The smile on her face dropped at the same time as mine.

Halsey.

We stared at each other for a long moment. She looked as stunned to see me as I was to see her. I’d been so focused on the game, on Rush, I hadn’t spent much time looking around the student section.

Her shock faded before mine. Her eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared. The girl beside her followed Halsey’s line of vision, and when she spotted me, she sneered. When the friend leaned in to say something into Halsey’s ear, there was no mistaking the word.

Slut.

It hurt more than I’d ever admit. No matter how much time passed, Halsey, her friends, would always think of me as a slut. A whore.

And there was nothing I could do but live with it.

Something happened on the field, a play I missed. When my eyes flicked back to the game, they were blurry with tears.

Now that I’d seen her, I couldn’t stop from noticing every move Halsey made. She and her friends kept speaking in each other’s ears. They’d glance back at me, standing alone, and snicker.

How many insults would I have to survive to have a thicker skin? Would it always hurt?

What would it take for people to just let me be? To let me live my life? I wasn’t hurting anyone by breathing. I was just standing here.

Why did my very existence seem to cause so much anger for people?

The burn in my throat was unbearable as I kept blinking the tears away, doing my best to watch Rush on the field. To catch one more play.

He moved with such grace and agility. He was born to be out there, holding that ball. It was breathtaking. He launched it through the air, sending it flying with a perfect spin, into the arms of an open receiver. Erik.

He caught it and raced to the end zone for another Wildcat touchdown.

I let the cheers sink in deep, the chant for Rush, Rush, Rush soak into my bones. Maybe Squish could hear these people celebrating his father.

“Good game, Rush,” I whispered, then slipped away, up the stairs and out the nearest exit.

I missed the end of my first Wildcats football game.