Page 35 of Falling Into You

“It’s actually late this year,” Rory said, her heart twisting. She’d told her parents to hold the date about a zillion times. It was on the family calendar app. “Remember we had this whole conversation about my dress and the weather? I bought that fake-fur stole?”

“Oh, right!” Her mom’s eyes lit up with recognition. “I do love the dress you picked out. Good idea going with the red.”

“Thank you,” Rory said. Her mom hadn’t been able to come dress shopping, but Gwen’s mother had taken them all to the boutiques downtown over the summer when she was home on leave from the military. Rory had texted her mom photos from the dressing room, and the whole cast had voted for the red. “Anyway, you’re both gonna be there, right? At the game?”

She watched her mom and dad exchange a long look. The longer it lasted, the further her heart sank into her stomach. No way. There was no way they were going to back out on her now. She’d made sure they had it on their calendarsmonthsago.

“Well, that’ll be restaurant week, kiddo,” her father said with a grimace, cutting into a new slice of French toast. “I’m probably going to need to be in the kitchen all day.”

“And we have matinees,” her mom put in. “It’s opening weekend.”

“You can’t missoneof them?” Rory demanded, hating how whiny her voice sounded. She turned to her father. “Andyouhave a staff of like a dozen people! They can’t cover for you for a few hours?”

“They’re all already going to be working. It’s the busiest weekend of the year for us,” her father explained patiently, his brown eyes sincere. “I’m really sorry, but it’s just bad timing.”

Thick tears welled up behind Rory’s eyes and clogged her throat. She dropped back in her chair, her arms across her chest, staring down at her half-eaten plate of food and trying so very hard not to cry. Her mother had yet to say anything, but Rory knew what was coming.

“And I just don’t feel comfortable leaving my cast and crew when the production is still so new.”

Rory scoffed and shook her head, still refusing to lookat either of them. How could she ever have thought things would be different this time?

“But you feel comfortable leavingme. On one of the most important days of my high school career,” she said finally, glaring at her mom.

“Oh, come on, honey. You’re only a junior. There’s always next year.”

“I’m nominated for homecoming queenthisyear,” Rory countered. “And I’m one of the first juniors ever to be nominated, by the way. Who knows if I’ll even get nominated next year?”

It wasn’t lost on her that her nomination had to be at least partially due to her being Tucker’s girlfriend. Captain of the winning varsity soccer team, one of the most popular, sought-after guys at school—Tucker made her shinier and more interesting just by holding her hand in the hallway. She wasn’t always sure whether she liked it, but it was true. There were probably even some senior girls who had voted for her because Tucker was her boyfriend.

“I’m sorry, Rory. We just—”

“This is ridiculous!” Owen shouted out of nowhere. He had been silent this whole time, but now he was standing over the table, cheeks red. “She’s been talking about this for weeks and weeks and weeks! Nonstop! It’s, like, all I ever hear about! How could you people have forgotten?”

For half a second, they were all stunned into silence.Owen never shouted, let alone made a scene.

“Owen! Sit down,” their father said in his no-nonsense voice. “It’s inappropriate to yell at your parents like that.”

Owen, stony-faced, landed hard on his chair. Rory wanted to kiss him, she was so grateful.

“Okay,” she said as calmly as she could, “what about regionals? Are you coming to that?” The competition started Sunday morning—surely no one could have a scheduling conflict then.

But she was answered with silence.

Rory wondered why she kept setting herself up for disappointment. Before either one of her parents could formulate excuses or apologize again, she got up from the table, shoved her chair back in with a clatter, and walked inside the house.

Jacob

Jacob had always found it annoying that sports practices were still held at 3:00 p.m. on half days. Either have them right after school or don’t have them at all. Going home to chill for a few hours and then having to drag himself off the couch was just torture.

But today he’d never gone home at all. He, Carlos, Stuart, and Gwen had grabbed lunch and then come back to the school to practice. Gwen had stood in for Rory so Jacob had someone to stunt with, and Stuart had coached him from the sidelines. It had gone pretty well, and he was excited to show Rory how far he’d come. Cheerleading was a lot more fun, and a lot more challenging, than Jacob had expected. He had always loved the team element of soccer, and it was even more pronounced with cheer: People were relying on him to literally support them, and he kind of loved the responsibility. Plus, the feeling of creating a performance together wasweirdly electric. Part of him really did wish that he could somehow figure out how to be on both cheer and soccer at the same time.

Which was what he was trying to parse out in his mind as he approached Coach Fitz’s office, hoping to talk to him before the official, scheduled cheer practice began. Tucker’s words from Monday night were still ringing in his ears, and he’d been hearing it from the rest of the team for the past two days as well. He had to see if he could get Coach to let him play in Friday’s game. If he didn’t at least try, his friends might actually disown him.

Of course, he wasn’t sure where this left his commitment to the cheerleading squad. The last thing he wanted to do at this point was leave Rory and the others high and dry a week and a half before homecoming and regionals. Maybe he could work out some kind of deal. Cheerleader by day, soccer player by night?

When he knocked on the open door to Coach Fitz’s office, the man was in his chair with his feet up on the desk watching some Owen Wilson movie on his laptop. Was this his professional development?

“Coach? You got a minute?” Jacob asked.