Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(6)

“What’s up, man? You just went quiet,” Gavin said.

“Nothing, it just . . . it sucks.” I looked back over my shoulder at the boosters and couldn’t see Claudia anymore. “There’s, like, a ticking time bomb on this whole thing.”

“What whole thing?” Orion asked.

I threw my arms wide. “This. Football. High School. Friends. Girlfriends . . .”

“Dude. Claudia’s never gonna break up with you,” Gavin said, giving me one of his don’t-mess-with-me stares. “She lives for the Marrott love.”

Orion snorted a laugh.

“What? She totally does,” Gavin said. He cracked his knuckles again. Orion stopped laughing.

“Please. Everyone knows long distance doesn’t work.”

I started to jog. Just because. My blood was pumping suddenly, and I needed to do something to work it out. The two of them started to jog too. Within a minute we were rounding the turn and I spotted Claudia again, holding up one end of a sign while her best friend, Lauren Codry, held the other. It read GO MARROTT! #11 in huge blue letters. I smiled, but my heart felt sick.

“You don’t know, man. Maybe you guys’ll end up at the same school,” Orion said, pacing me.

I laughed him off. “Yeah, right. Claude’s crazy smart. She’s applying to Princeton early admission. My best hope is some triple-A school gives me a football scholarship, and who knows where the hell that’ll be.”

“Whatever, man. You think too much,” Gavin said, shoving me. “We’ve got the whole year. Just chill.”

I paused near the opening in the fence, with the boosters and cheerleaders right up the hill from us. The cup, which I was still holding, had been squeezed into a sweaty, twisted stick of cardboard. I threw it in the nearest trash bin.

“I’m chill,” I said, raising my palms and forcing a smile. “Do I not look chill?”

“G! A! V! I! N! What’s? That? Spell?”

We froze. The JV cheerleaders had just started up this loud chant. I looked at Gavin. He pushed his wet hair back from his face and shrugged.

“G! A! V! I! N! What’s? That? Spell?” they repeated.

Six girls in front were holding up big placards spelling out his name in red, the sixth one holding a heart. Then this girl, a sophomore named Tara Schwartz, popped up from behind the line of them. Two girls held her up by her feet as she raised her arms in the air. Gavin had been tutoring her in Spanish since last spring, and I knew they’d hooked up a couple of times.

“Gavin!” she shouted solo.

Gavin was the color of a lobster and looked confused. Greg Howell stepped up alongside us to take a few pictures of both the cheerleaders and Gavin’s stunned face.

“Gavin Dunnellon! Will you go to homecoming with me?”

“Awwwwwww!” someone on the Boosters moaned.

It was official—homecoming season was here. Every year my school had this tradition where we asked each other to homecoming with these big, stupid displays. As soon as one person started it, there’d be, like, twenty crazy stunts a day, like dudes coming to class in gorilla outfits, girls having pizzas delivered to the caf for a guy and his friends. Last year someone even hired a skywriter.

Everyone looked at Gavin. The girls holding Tara up started to shake.

“Um, sure?” Gavin said.

The hill erupted with cheers. Tara popped up into the air and her friends caught her. Then Gavin climbed the whole hill in, like, five long strides to talk to her, and he was smiling for real, so I knew he hadn’t just said yes to keep from embarrassing her in front of everyone.

“Dude. What was that?” Orion asked.

“Welcome to Lake Carmody High,” I said with a grin. “Where nothing you do is too cheesy.”

“Hey, guys! Come check out what we’re doing!” Claudia shouted down to us.

Orion and I jogged up the slope next to the bleachers, and I kissed Claudia hello. She reached up and hugged me, full-body, not caring that I was covered in sweat. Then she gestured down at the signage.

“We’re making one for each starter,” she said. “We figure we’ll hang them over your lockers tomorrow and then bring them out here the day of the game.”

There were a couple dozen girls and, randomly, one guy on the boosters. They looked up at me, waiting for my reaction.

“Cool,” I said with a nod. “They look awesome. And hey, you’re gonna have to make one more. We got a new starting running back,” I added, slapping Orion’s chest with the back of my hand.

“Congratulations! That’s so great!” Claudia said, her eyes lighting up. “But all the boosters are taken. We’re gonna need someone to double up.”

Every starter on the team is assigned their own booster. Basically the girl (or guy) decorates your locker for you, makes you a big basket of food the day before the game, and does other random cool stuff throughout the season.

“Does anyone want to be Orion’s booster?” Claudia called out.

“I’ll do it!”

The girl from that morning—the one who had stolen Claudia’s scarf out of her bag at lunch on the first day of school—stood up from a seat on the bleachers. I hadn’t even seen her sitting there until now.

“You’re not even on the boosters,” Claudia said, her face falling.