Back Tucks and Touchdowns

Bring It On

Two Days Before the Sleepover:

It was the last practice before school started.

"It's conditioning time, ladies!" Erica yelled, earning a collective groan from the varsity cheerleaders.

"Oh hell no," Rocky swore, causing Jazz and Tasha to giggle beside her. The other seniors merely smiled; they were too focused on catching their breath, and wiping sweat from their face.

During the last two weeks of summer, the girls had cheerleading camp from morning until late afternoon, and their coach, Erica Danes, was notorious for her brutal summer workouts. She claimed that she wanted to get the girls in shape before school started since they would be so focused on routines by then.

Rocky, however, claimed that Erica liked to take her frustration out on them since she was a lonely bachelorette who had no other purpose in life other than to feed her cats and coach cheer teams.

"Let's go! I want to see lunges from here to the other side of the gym! Quickly now! This is the last thing you'll do before you're done!"

The girls quickly scrambled into action, and Katya grit her teeth against the burning sensation in her legs. Her tank top clung to her skin in a sweaty manner, and she could feel beads of sweat roll down her spine unpleasantly.

Although they were indoors, the gym felt sweltering with the heat of burning bodies and a poor ventilation system, but Katya preferred this compared to working out on the scorching football field.

"C'mon girls! Chest up! Hands on your hips!" Erica bellowed. "Rosalyn, if I see your knees go over your toes one more time you're giving me twenty pushups!"

Beside Katya, Rocky let out a low growl of frustration. "Fucking slave driver."

After what seemed like forever, all the girls made it to the other side of the gym, and Erica called them in for the end of practice and announcements. Almost automatically, the seven seniors drifted towards each other, and sat in a small huddle on the fringe of the varsity group.

Maisy leaned against Katya, while Jazz collapsed beside her. Behind them, Katya heard Rocky and Danica whispering expletives under their breath while Shelly and Tasha stretched out their sore legs.

Despite how tired they all were, there was still a sense of nervousness in the air that had been prevalent throughout the entire practice. Now that they were seated for announcements, a small thrum of curiosity seemed to travel within their group, and whispers broke out from some of the underclassmen. Katya didn't even need to eavesdrop to know what they were talking about.

Guardian Angels.

It started out as a rumor at the beginning of cheer camp, and was thrown around as a joke between all the varsity cheerleaders. The whole idea of having guardian angels for the football players was so absurd, that everyone assumed it wasn't true.

But Erica proved them wrong by announcing that it wasvery much not a joke. However, she refused to tell them anything until the last practice of camp.

Which was why everyone was anxious about announcements tonight.

"Settle down, settle down" Erica called, clapping her hands together to grab everyone's attention. "Now, before I talk about how proud I am of you guys for working so hard these past two weeks, I'm sure all of you are dying to know about the new changes this year."

Katya felt everyone around her stiffen in concern, and her own heart seemed to skip a beat at Erica's cautious tone.

"Right. So the idea is that each senior cheerleader is going to be assigned a senior football player to 'watch over' during the season and support them," Erica explained, her face expressive as she looked at all of them in turn.