Chapter nineteen

Cheer Queers Group Chat

Perry: I’ve run out of body glitter. Can I borrow someone else’s for today’s game, please?

Bradley: How are you going to give it back? Because I don’t want a wet wipe of your crusty glitter.

Gio: Ew

Perry: That is such a dad thing to say, Bradley.

Brad: Well, I did have a hookup tell me I have Daddy energy.

Gio: Yeah, if the Daddy in question is Phil Dunphy.

Brad: I know you think that’s an insult, but I love him, so I’m taking it.

Hudson: He gives off bi energy.

Wyatt: Are we allowed in this chat?

Nate: #TokenStraighties

Luke: My brother gave me a gallon tub of body glitter, so I have you covered.

Gio: I wish my brother was a stripper.

Gio: Wait!

Perry: SWEET HOME, ALABAMA

Gio: I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT!

Nate: My brother works in a cemetery.

Lexi: This is chaotic.

I chuckle at the message thread.

“Is that your group chat popping off?” Ryder asks as he pulls into a parking spot.

“Yeah, the cheer queers being hilarious.” I look up from my phone at him. He’s so beautiful. I lean over and kiss him.

He doesn’t stop smiling as he asks, “Lexi, are you planning on telling your friends about us?”

“Well, I think they already kind of know.”

“But what about them definitely knowing?”

“Yeah, that’s cool. I want them to know. Why are you asking?”

“Because they are staring right at us and they definitely know,” he says, looking straight through the windshield. I follow his gaze and see Luke, Hudson, Wyatt, Bradley, Perry, and Gio hooting and hollering as they watch us.

I turn to look at Ryder. He has a huge grin.

“You have to keep me now. Your friends know about us.”

“That’s not why I haven’t told them.”

He smiles and caresses my cheek. “I know. You wanted to make sure it was serious between us before you told your friends that you’d suddenly fallen for your sister’s best friend.”

“Yeah.” I really do need to tell him I’ve had a crush on him since I first met him. But not today. Today is all about cheering for the football team so they don’t lose against our rivals. I press another kiss to his lips.

“You’re going to be at the game?”

“Fuck yeah, I will. I’m going to be cheering on the cheerleaders. You go get ready, and I’ll see you later.”

“Bye, Ryder.”

“Bye, baby.”

I get out of the car and am immediately engulfed by all my friends.

“I am so glad we can talk about this now. I take it you’re official boyfriends?” Perry asks, arms folded. I ignore him and wave to Ryder as he drives off.

“Alexis Torrance Hart, answer his question,” Gio demands. Fucking Kait. Do pacts made when you are seven years old mean nothing to her?

“We are officially boyfriends. I can’t believe it. I feel like I’m in a dream. I want to pinch myself.”

“Oooh, I’ll pinch you!” Perry says, way too excited over the prospect.

“Fuck off with your boney-ass fingers.”

“How big is Ryder’s dick?” Hudson blurts.

“For fuck’s sake, Hudson. I’m not telling you his dick size.”

“Why not? Isn’t that like a bonus to being gay? You get to talk about your boyfriend’s junk. You don’t need to be chivalrous.”

He looks at each of us, but no one knows what to say for a moment before Luke pipes up.

“Chivalry isn’t just for girls.”

“It’s a shame because I’ve always wondered. He looks like he’s hung.” He actually looks disappointed.

“Do you need to talk about anything? If you have questions about your sexuality at any point, you can talk to any of us,” Brad says gently.

“Thanks, man.” Hudson smiles.

“How did it all happen? Did my photo of you on my Insta story help things along?”

“Yes, that did help. How did you know he would look at it?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I tagged him in it. I just made it black and then really small, and I think I may have hidden it in your hair.” He shrugs like it’s nothing.

“Perry, you’re a fucking genius.”

“With my love life, I’m hardly a fucking genius.” He chuckles at his own joke. “Anyway, do we have to keep this a secret from Kait, or does she know?”

I close my eyes at the memory of Kait barging into Ryder’s room yesterday.

“She definitely knows what happened because it feels like there’s a story there,” Gio says, smirking at me.

“She suspected something might happen between us for a while, and we may have missed movie night.” There is a collective gasp.

“It’s not that big a deal.”

“It’s a huge deal. I can’t believe you missed movie night.” Luke says, eyes bugging out of his face.

“Can’t believe she’s still talking to you,” Wyatt adds his thoughts.

“Well, she is. She burst in on us while we were still naked after sex, and then Ryder and I got into this whole confusion because I still had the DateMe app on my phone and the notification tone went off. He thought I just wanted him for sex, and I was trying to date someone else. We talked it out…in front of my sister, and we did the whole I want to be your boyfriend thing. Kait was happy for us, but she did say she would kick our asses if we ever miss movie night again. Which is valid,” I add on.

I really don’t think I could be any happier right now.

“Like, totally valid.” Perry nods.

“We should go get changed,” Gio says. “We need to lather Perry in body glitter.”

“I’m not the only one who needs to get lathered up, jerkface. It is an important part of cheerleading.” We walk past the STU cheerleaders as they make their way to the away team’s cheerleader locker room.

“Hey, you guys entering the LGBTQ+ charity competition in a couple of weeks?” Adam, one of their spotters, stops and asks.

“Yeah, cannot wait. It’s gonna be so much fun,” Bradley says, fist-bumping him.

“Fuck yeah, definitely is. Can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

“Same,” Brad says. “I heard there will be another group cheerleader party Christmas thing. Caleb, the head cheerleader on the Beaumont squad, is hoping to organize something like that.”

“Great, we’ll see you there,” Adam says, smiling at us all. “Good luck today.” He runs after his squad, who smiles and waves but goes straight to their locker room.

”See, why don’t TV shows and movies ever show that. The fact that, you know, we can just be nice and kind to each other. Cheerleading isn’t all bitchy girls and sassy gays,” Luke says, throwing his hands in the air.

“Speak for yourself,” Perry says, making us all laugh. We head into the male locker room, and I start changing immediately. I put on my Flora Vista cheer jersey and forest-green pants over my sparkly green jock.

I don’t tend to wear much makeup, only a coat of mascara, a bit of highlighter, and a couple of little green hearts by my eyes. Then I’m ready to go. Luke, Perry, and Hudson tend to go all out. Glitter everywhere. I think they even use spray glitter in their hair. They look gorgeous, and I do it for special events, but the removal is too much effort.

We meet the girls outside the locker room and make our way onto the field, where the stadium is already packed.

“We’ve got pompoms,” Sammy says, bringing out a big bucket on wheels that holds them all. “Right, we’ve got this. We’re going to help these guys get that win, and we’re gonna kill it.”

We all start clapping, getting ourselves pumped up. I love this. I love the rush. I love participating in our team winning and commiserating with them when they lose. The people in the stadium enjoy our show. It’s hard fucking work, but we get to have fun and do what we love.

Coach Phillips calls us in. “The football guys are going to be coming out in five minutes. I know we talked about this, but I’m laying it out again. I want you to do only the basic cheers today. I want to make sure you’re on either side, as usual, to welcome them onto the field. Got it?” she says, and we shout our agreement. “We’re not doing any of the competition stuff today. We’re going to want to keep that tight. Basic cheers unless we start to lose. Which is not going to happen. Let’s go get this crowd pumped.”

We all clap and whoop. The coaches go over by the stands as we line up boy, girl, boy, girl along the field, facing the home crowd.

And then we start our chant.

Give me an R.

Give me an H.

Give me an I.

Give me an N.

Give me an O.

GOOOOOOOOOOOO RHINOS

The stadium erupts in cheers as we jump up and down and clap. Luke and Liz throw in a couple of backhand springs.

Who’s gonna win this?CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

Rhino’s gonna win thisCLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

Who’s gonna win this?CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

Rhino’s gonna win thisCLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP

We see the signal that the team is about to run onto the field, so we make our way over. Cheering and clapping as we go. Tucker is one of the first on the field, winking at Gio as he runs on. I look at my best friend, who is definitely not making eye contact with me. I wonder what’s going on there?

As the game starts, we’re doing well, but when it gets to the final quarter, we’re down by three, and the crowd has gotten a bit lackluster.

“Okay, let’s do the FVU chant!” Kait shouts, and we turn to face the home crowd.

Flora Vista, you can do it. Flora Vista, get into it. Flora Vista, you can do it. Flora Vista, get into it. Flora Vista, you can do it. Flora Vista, get into it.

Slowly the crowd starts chanting with us until it’s all anyone can hear. And then we notice one of the STU players fumbles the ball, giving our guys a chance to get it up the field and run it into their endzone just as the buzzer sounds.

We did it.

We start screaming and shouting. The atmosphere is absolutely electric. Everybody starts hugging each other. I look up at the stands at Ryder, who’s been watching me all along, and blow him a kiss. Which he catches and puts in his pocket.

He’s an adorable little dork.