One of the Girls (Friendzone #1) Read online

  What a horrible problem, right? Poor Mia Ashlock, liked by everyone and never lacking for a date. Boo-hoo. It sounded so conceited—even to me. But, despite being a walking cliché, I wasn’t stuck on myself. At least, I tried not to be. I liked to think I was relaxed and down-to-earth.

  My mom was Miss Pennsylvania in her mid-twenties. She’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever known. My father is brilliant, a rocket scientist—literally. I’m not dumb, but I can’t even begin to comprehend what goes on in that big brain of his. He’s an average-looking dork with a warped sense of humor. I may have been blessed to take after my mother physically, but I’d trade my looks for dad’s brain in a heartbeat.

  “Great.” Cassidy groaned. “It’s starting already. Are all guys stupid, or just the ones at Roosevelt?” My back was to the football field, and she was staring over my shoulder, her eyes tracking whoever was attached to the sound of shoes pounding on metal. The footsteps drew closer, and Cass shot me a warning look.

  “Hey, ladies,” a deep voice greeted. I ground my teeth, then turned around and plastered on a tight-lipped smile. Ross Grantham and his buddy Scott were hovering over me. “Hey, Mia.” He flashed his signature grin. Most girls considered it sexy. I only saw the big bad wolf with his canines on display. Ross was persistent, and this summer he’d made me his number-one target.

  “Hello, Ross, Scott.” I nodded my head. Despite my distaste for the guy, I tried to make my voice sound friendly. In her years as a pageant queen, Mom earned multiple Miss Congeniality awards. She was huge on the golden rule. My amiable personality was a result of her constant reminders to be kind and polite. It’d been engrained in me since I was little.

  Unfortunately, I’d also developed a huge guilt complex. I had a hard time brushing people off or saying no. Normally, that’s a good thing. I like that I’m known for being a nice person, but it was highly inconvenient when saying no to pushy boys. I often said yes to dates I didn’t want to go on just because I didn’t want to hurt people’s feelings.

  I’d had at least one date with every kind of boy there was: jocks, brains, Thespians, skaters, stoners, band kids. I even went out with a gay guy once because he needed a date and wasn’t ready to out himself. I blame the guilty conscience for all my failed relationships. I was always quick to say yes, even if I wasn’t sure how much I liked the guy.

  “So…” Ross put his foot up on the bleacher, then rested his arm on his knee, getting closer to my face. “I heard about you and Anderson. That’s too bad.” His words and his expression were at odds. He clearly found this information a delightful turn of events.

  My cheeks burned, but my tone remained calm. “I’m sure everyone’s heard about me and Cole. I think most of the school actually saw it happen.”

  “Anderson’s a tool. I don’t know why you were going out with him in the first place. You can do better.”

  Sadly, Ross was right. On the first two points, at least. After a good, long cry, I realized that I wasn’t as upset as I should be. The tears were more about being embarrassed than being dumped. Cole and I only dated for a few months, and we never really had that deep of a connection. I knew he wasn’t my soul mate or anything. I wouldn’t admit that, though, because it would only encourage Ross.

  “I don’t know about that,” I replied.

  “I do. You could have a real man, like me.”

  Stacie snorted. Rachel covered up a laugh by coughing into her hand. Trish and Layla were softly snickering. But good old Cassidy, she started gagging. “Oh, gross. I can’t believe you just said that. It was like a ten on the skeeze meter.”

  Ross glared at her, then pressed forward. “I was thinking we could get together this weekend. My parents are going out of town, and—”

  “Stop!” Cassidy yelled. Her face was growing red with annoyance. She stood and placed one hand on her hip. With the other, she held out a finger to scold him. “Don’t say another word. You’re such a pervert.”

  “What?” Ross’s eyes grew wide, feigning innocence. “I was going to suggest we watch a movie. I’ve got a killer sound system and a seventy-five inch flat screen in my basement.”

  “Ha! Don’t give me that wholesome bull crap,” Cass countered. “You’re suggesting a situation where it’s easy to put your grubby hands all over her. Well, sorry, you lose. Mia’s not going anywhere near your den of iniquity.” I tried not to laugh. Ross looked like he wanted to punch her. Luckily, he wasn’t that big of a creep.

  Stacie put a calming hand on Cassidy’s elbow and appealed to Ross’s sensible side. “Today’s probably not the best day to ask Mia out. You know, since the breakup is so fresh. I’m sure dating is the last thing on her mind right now.”

  He looked down at me with a soft smile. It almost felt sincere. “Stacie’s right,” he said. “I’m sorry. It was insensitive of me to ask you out today.” He took his foot off the bench and stood tall. Then he winked at me. “I’ll catch you next week.” With that, he and Scott turned around and sauntered down the bleachers.

  “What a tool.” Cassidy was seething. She turned her attention toward me. The hostility left her voice, and it became matronly. “It’s a good thing you’re with us. Admit it, you’d have said yes to him.” She bore her eyes into mine, waiting for me to deny it.

  “No, I wouldn’t have,” I argued half-heartedly. Truthfully, I’m not sure what I’d have said. She was probably right.

  “Yes, you would have. You need to grow a backbone, Mia.” Cass sat down next to me with a huff. I cast my eyes to the field, where the boys were doing blocking drills. There was a moment of silence before she added, “Are you just going to sit there and take that from me? I insulted you, and you didn’t even try to argue or defend yourself. It only proves my point.”

  “That’s enough,” Stacie warned. We all knew Cass wasn’t trying to be mean. Her rant was born of genuine concern.

  I sighed. “Okay, you’re right. I’m a pushover. Happy now?”

  Cassidy threw her arm around my shoulder. “It’s a start. Step one is honesty. Now that you’ve admitted your problem, you have to actually work on it.”

  I turned to face her and cocked an eyebrow. Rachel laughed and asked, “What? Are you her sponsor now?” The rest of the group chuckled.

  Cassidy threw her shoulders back, beaming a proud smile. “That’s exactly what I’ll be. I’m appointing myself Mia’s BA sponsor.”

  “BA?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded once. “Boyfriends Anonymous.”

  I laughed at the ridiculous statement, but Stacie agreed with Cassidy. “She’s right, Mia. You have a problem. An addiction. You get a new boyfriend every few months, purely because you’re asked. It’s not healthy or constructive.”

  Cass stood again and placed her hand over her heart. “As your sponsor, I pledge to help you overcome your weakness. Help you learn to just say no.”

  “We’ll all help,” Stacie added. She held her arm out to the rest of the girls. “Consider the cheer squad your own personal support group. We’ll get you clean by the end of football season. And I’ll personally hold you accountable.”

  I rolled my eyes, but the rest of my friends were nodding eagerly. Stacie cleared her throat. “The Ravens are a cheerocracy. As co-captain of this team, I hereby call the motion to a vote. All those in favor of keeping Mia off the boyfriend crack, raise your hand.”

  Eleven arms shot up. “You guys are taking this way too seriously,” I said.

  Stacie gave me a stern look. “Mia Ashlock, the tribe has spoken. No boyfriends for you.”

  “Or dating,” Cassidy added.

  “Or dating,” Stacie confirmed, “until you’ve proven you can abstain from the urge to say yes to everyone. Or the end of football season. Whichever comes first.”

  “Fine.” I laughed. “You win. Now can we get to the real reason we’re here? We still have official cheer business to discuss.”

  We spent the next hour discussing tryouts. Ms. Lancaster was the teacher ass
igned to be our advisor, but she didn’t know anything about cheer. She stepped up because we begged her to. Technically, there had to be an adult in charge, or we couldn’t run the program. She came to all the events and practices, but as far as running the team, she basically let us do our own thing.

  We lost four seniors last year and needed to fill their spots. There was no JV team because Ms. Lancaster didn’t have time to advise two groups, and nobody else was interested in helping. You’d think at a school where the football team was such a big deal, there would be better support for the cheerleaders.

  Tryouts were a crapshoot. We were never sure what kind of talent we’d have to pull from. The middle school had a cheer program, so the usual turnout was a bunch of freshmen. Sometimes they were decent, and sometimes they weren’t. We’d also get the random upperclassman who was looking to add extracurriculars to their college applications. But most of them didn’t realize that cheering was more than waving our poms and shaking our butts. Consequently, we always picked the freshmen.

  “All right then,” I said after we’d finished planning. “I think that should do it. All of you are expected to be there on Friday. After everyone has had their audition, you’ll get a chance to vote on who you liked. But remember, final say goes to Stacie and me.”

  “Also, don’t forget your poster tomorrow,” Stacie added. “We’ll meet at seven-thirty to hang them. Make sure you get all the correct tryout info on it.” She shot a dirty look at Cassidy. “And please, for heaven’s sake, make them cute. We actually want girls to show up.”

  Cassidy made the ugliest poster on the planet last year. She claimed lack of artistic ability, but we all knew she was being lazy. Toward the end of the season, she admitted that she paid her ten-year-old brother three dollars to make it. We definitely got the three-dollar special—pictures of stick figures and thought bubbles with misspelled words.

  I ended the meeting, and all the girls shuffled out to the parking lot. I didn’t have a car, and normally I’d have ridden home with Cole. Since that wasn’t an option, Stacie offered to drive me. But after the day I’d had, I really wanted to be alone for a while. I texted my mom, then pulled out a book while I waited.

  I couldn’t get into the story. My eyes kept drifting to the field where the boys were now running plays. Not going to lie, Cole looked amazing in his uniform. And he was so good, a natural athlete. I stopped reading to consider all the reasons why I’d started dating him in the first place.

  Partly, I’d done it because he’d asked. That’s a stupid reason to date someone, I know. But it felt like the thing to do, the expectation. I mean, cheer captain and quarterback. It was a like a high school rite of passage or something. He was handsome and talented. Everyone loved him. I felt special because Cole wasn’t the monogamous type, but somehow I’d managed to capture his undivided attention.

  It didn’t last long. I could tell he’d grown bored, especially the past month. Honestly, I should have seen it coming. He spent more and more time with his boys and less time with me. When we were together, he was distracted or only wanting to make out. When I left on vacation, he didn’t call and his text messages were short. He never once said he missed me.

  Even now, he didn’t bother to glance into the stands. All the guys knew I was sitting up here. Plenty of them had looked over and caught me watching. I could tell some of them were talking about me. But not Cole. He was focused on the game, completely oblivious. Ross was right; I deserved someone better. Someone who really cared about me.

  My phone dinged with a text from my mom saying she was out front. I gathered my things and headed down the bleachers. I had to cross the track, walking past a large group of players waiting on the sideline for their turn to be pummeled.

  A few guys turned their heads to see me pass but snapped them back when I made eye contact. A few of them leered at me. One guy whistled, and his buddy made a suggestive gesture. I shook my head, completely disgusted and resigned to the fact that high school boys were all the same: creeps with filthy minds.

  Then my eyes landed on this boy named Nick. Instead of being rude or vulgar, he offered a shy smile and a hesitant wave. I didn’t know him well, though he always seemed like a good guy. Maybe there were a few decent ones out there. I smiled back with a tiny head nod. One side of his mouth tipped up a little higher before the coach called his name and he ran onto the field.

  I opened the door to my mom’s gray sedan and plopped onto the front seat. She greeted me with enthusiasm I couldn’t return. “Hey, sweetheart! How was the first day of school?”

  I gave her a flat look. She frowned when I answered, “I got dumped.”

  “What?”

  “Cole dumped me. At lunch. In the cafeteria. While everyone watched.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together. She opened her mouth, then shut it and opened it again. I thought she might actually say something nasty about my ex-boyfriend. It seemed like she wanted to. Instead, she said, “I’m sorry, honey. Boys stink.”

  I snorted softly. “You can say that again.”

  “I was just on my way to get ice cream. Are you interested in joining me?”

  “Liar. You never eat ice cream.” I imitated her voice. “It’s too calorie rich.”

  Mom glanced at me and shrugged. “I promise that was my plan, until you asked for a ride. I was headed to the diner for a brownie sundae. All by my lonesome.”

  “Nice try. I’m not buying it.”

  She was facing the road, but I could tell she was biting back a grin. “You don’t have to. I’m buying.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “Why must you be so difficult? Do you want ice cream or not?”

  A tiny chuckle escaped. “Well, since you were going anyway. I hate to let you eat alone.”

  Mom smiled triumphantly. When we reached the diner, she bought the biggest sundae they had and insisted we split it. Of course, she only had five or six bites, leaving me to do all the heavy lifting. By the time I finished, I thought I might be sick. Strangely, I still felt better.

  We talked about boys and bashed Cole a little. It was unusual to hear my mom say something mean about someone, though her version of mean wasn’t even harsh enough to constitute a true insult. I wondered if she was thinking something worse but was just good at censoring herself. That is, after all, what a lady would do. Once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen.

  The ride home was quiet except for the soft sounds of top forty pop/rock streaming from the speakers. I wasn’t a particularly good singer, so I never really paid attention to lyrics. I was more of a bob-my-head-to-the-beat kind of girl. But a song came on that caught my attention. It was about a woman who was asserting her independence after getting her heart broken.

  The general theme was that she didn’t need a man to be happy. While I wasn’t the type of person who needed a boyfriend to feel good about herself, I wasn’t good about asserting myself over anything. As I listened to the chorus, something tugged in my gut. I wanted to blame it on the ice cream threatening to come back up. But deep down, I knew Cassidy and Stacie were right. It was time to be a tougher person.

  Chapter 3

  Sean stood over me with an outstretched hand. “That was brutal.”

  “Ugh,” I grunted while he pulled me from the ground. “I’m so tired of being the tackle dummy. I swear, sometimes the offensive line lets Dan through just to watch me get knocked on my back. I think they take pleasure in seeing me beaten to a pulp.”

  “Drama queen.”

  My face soured. “You try being tackled by a 250-pound bulldozer.”

  “I have. Plenty of times. Running back, remember?” Sean sounded annoyed. And he should. I’d been complaining all afternoon.

  Cole never had to get tackled at practice. Grandpa didn’t want him getting hurt. The defense could break the line, but they had to use a two-hand touch. When he wanted them to have practice sacking the quarterback, he sent me in.
Apparently, I was expendable. It didn’t matter if I got injured before a game, since I wasn’t going to play anyway.

  Grandpa glanced at me and noticed a slight limp—that I may or may not have been faking. He yelled, “Nick out, Anderson in.” I was the only player he ever called by their first name. I was beginning to think he was ashamed that I carried the Moody title.

  “Another bruise for the collection.” I grumbled, rubbing my butt as I walked off the field to the water station. It was more humid today than normal, and I was sweating like crazy under my pads. Beads of moisture trickled down my face and back. I grabbed my water jug and dumped some over my head before taking a long drink.

  The cheerleaders had been practicing for the last hour over on the track. They’d gone through some cheers, then turned on music and switched to dancing. Now they were working on toe touches, cartwheels, and roundoffs. As far as I knew, only one girl could do a roundoff into a back handspring. Roosevelt’s cheer squad was decent at dancing, but they sucked at tumbling.

  Sean walked up beside me. “Stop ogling.”

  “I’m not ogling. I’m observing.”

  “Technically, if you drool while you observe, it’s called ogling.”

  I smacked him on the shoulder and hit his pad. It probably hurt me worse than it hurt him. “Mia smiled at me on Monday. When she was leaving practice.”

  “Oh yeah? What did you do?” he asked.

  “I waved.”

  His helmet came off, and he gave me the look. The one that said I was being a pansy. “You waved? That’s it?”

  My body sagged. He sounded so disappointed in me. “Practice was still going. What was I supposed to do?”

  Sean took my water out of my hands and poured some into his mouth. After he swallowed, he said, “You could have talked to her on Tuesday. Or Wednesday. Or today.”

  “Tomorrow.” I cut him off. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I just need an excuse.”