Page 52 of Falling Into You

Rory

“Where is he?” Carlos said under his breath. Actually, he probably yelled it. The gym was so loud Rory wouldn’t have heard him otherwise. But with the chants happening in the stands and the sound of feet stomping up the bleachers, a yell sounded like a whisper.

“I don’t know.” Rory’s heart fluttered nervously. She needed Jacob to get here already. She wanted to tell him about her conversation with Coach Fitz before the pep rally started. She should have just told him in the breezeway, but she’d gotten too distracted by his... closeness.

She glanced at the wall clock hanging just above the door of the gym. Any second now, Jason Beretti, the president of the school, was going to take the mic and kick off the pep rally. Once he did, the cheerleaders were on. Jacob knew this. Why was he so late?

She was watching the door when Tucker stepped through, leading the soccer team. Fashionably late as always. Tucker was of the opinion that no school function began until he arrived. She was just about to look away so he wouldn’t think she was watching him, when Jacob stepped inside. Her heart leaped. But then she saw what he was wearing.

“What the—”

She wasn’t sure who said it. It might have even been her. But they were all thinking it.

Jacob had changed out of his cheer uniform. He was now wearing a pair of black sweatpants and his soccer jersey. And instead of coming over to join the squad, he walked right over to the bottom bleacher and took a seat between Kai and Dutton Sharpe, another striker on the team.

Rory stared at him, willing him to look over at her. To meet her eyes and explain what the hell was going on. But Jacob refused to look at the squad. He kept his hands laced together, his forearms resting across his knees, and stared at the floor. Tucker, however, had no problem staring Rory down. He had an irritatingly smug look on his face.

“What is he doing?” Layla asked.

He’s making his choice, Rory thought, her heart breaking down the middle.

She turned to the squad. “Huddle up.”

Everyone gathered into a circle. Her head was pounding, and tears were threatening to well up behind her eyes. Shehad no idea what was going on, but it was clear Jacob was not going to be joining the squad for their routine. Or maybe ever again.

But she was the leader of this team, and she had to make a decision, fast.

“We’re going to sub in the flying triangle for the double wall, okay? Everyone got that?” The squad nodded. “Carlos and Gwen, you’re the center point.”

“Okay, but what’s going on?” Gwen asked. “Is Jacob out?”

“No. I don’t know,” Rory said. “I’ll talk to him after. But right now, we’ve gotta pull this off. Can I count on you?”

They all agreed, assuring her they had her back. Rory put her hand in the middle of the circle. “Lumberjacks on three. One, two, three—LUMBERJACKS!”

The crowd responded with a roar, and Rory told herself that everything was fine this way. Better, even. Never mind that she was on the verge of bursting into confused, betrayed tears. This was the new plan. Jason grabbed the mic, and the crowd roared again, and there was no going back. For the next forty-five minutes, she was the embodiment of school spirit.

She hit every beat of their revised routine and didn’t look at Jacob Reilly once.

Rory had barely slept. Unable to turn her brain off, she’d spent half the night tossing and turning, thinking about thepep rally and Jacob and Tucker and the squad and the halftime performance and how the hell she was going to deal with all of it.

She’d spent the other half of the night trying not to feel crushed. Trying to convince herself that she didn’t take Jacob’s actions personally... and failing.

They had definitely almost kissed—twice! She knew how she felt about him. She was pretty sure she knew how he felt about her. So what the hell had happened?

Of course, Jacob had texted. A lot. And called.

Jacob:

I’M SORRY RORY

I CAN EXPLAIN

PLEASE PICK UP THE PHONE!!!

But every time Rory thought about responding, she got so upset she stopped herself before she could say something she might regret.

Now it was the morning of homecoming Saturday, and the first thing Rory realized when she opened her eyes was that the heels she’d ordered, which were supposed to come yesterday, had never arrived. She opened the shopping app and went to the order tracking function, and there it was, inbig letters:DELIVERY DELAYED.