Page 42 of Falling Into You

“Jacob’s here, and he’s ready to cheer!” Jacob shouted solo. “I’m! An! Ass!” He pointed at himself with his thumb on each word, waggling his hips.

“He’s! An! Ass!” The whole squad pointed at him three times.

Rory burst out laughing. She couldn’t have held it in if she’d tried.

“Jacob’s here, and he’s ready to cheer!” Jacob continued. “Don’t! Hate! Me!” This time he punctuated the words with jazz hands.

“Don’t! Hate! Him!”

“I promise I won’t do it again!” Jacob shouted.

“No! He! Won’t!”

“No! I! Won’t!” Jacob kicked on each word—not very high, but better than usual.

“No! He! Won’t!” The cheer ended with Jacob standing on the bent thighs of two of the girls, his arms up in a high V. The JV cheerleaders waved their palms overhead, and the people across the street joined in with the applause.

Jacob jumped down to the ground, looking up at Rory with hope in his eyes. At least, she thought she saw hope. It was kind of hard to tell behind all that face paint.

“Um, Rory?” Owen said, nudging her. “I feel like you should go down and talk to him.”

She looked at her little brother. “What do you even say after a performance like that?”

Owen laughed. “Apology accepted?”

She smiled back at him. “Okay. But we’re still going for ice cream.”

Rory jogged downstairs and outside. She came to Layla first, still standing in the driveway.

“Itoldyou he’s in love with you,” Layla whispered, giving Rory a quick hug.

“Shut up,” Rory said. She could feel herself glowing. Which was so annoying. She was not supposed to be glowing over Jacob Reilly.

The JV girls had gone back to the cars to get sweaters and chat, so Jacob was alone when Rory reached him.

“Okay, you win,” she said as she approached. “That was impressive.”

He was still out of breath, his broad chest heaving a bit beneath his cheerleading sweater. “I really am sorry. I called my sister, and she said I had to look at it from your perspective, and when I did, I realized I sounded like a real jerk. I promise I’ll take it seriously from here on out.”

“Your sister is very wise.”

“She’s all right,” he said with a smile. “So, forgive me?”

There was a warm, tingling sensation around her heart that radiated through her chest. “Sure.”

“Great, because I also kind of have some bad news.”

“What?” Rory asked, wary again.

“I have a D in math. If I don’t get at least a B+ on my test next Wednesday, I’m off the team.”

About a million different thoughts and emotions flittered through Rory at that moment. Panic, disbelief, irritation.Why did the universe seem to have it out for her, anyway?

But then she realized: This was a solvable problem. And she excelled at solvable problems.

“What?” he said, sounding nervous. “What are you thinking?”

She tilted her head as she looked up at him. “Do you want to go get some ice cream?”