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46
Taylor
While dancing with the rest of the cheerleaders, I struggled to keep a smile on my face. Everything had been made right in my life, both on the cheer team and at Utah. But on the other end of things, Brody still wasn’t being put in the game. They were using Andrew Stark at the tight end position.
To me, a bystander and Brody’s girlfriend, it felt like failure.
He wasn’t letting it get to him, though. He stalked around the sideline and cheered everyone on. His voice was loud and clear and cut through the rest of the crowd noise as he gave encouragement to his teammates—including Andrew Stark. Rather than sulking and moping around, he was doing what a leader should do.
It made him seem even sexier to me, if that was even possible.
And then, in the third quarter, I realized that he was jogging onto the field to take part in a drive. It took a few plays, but he made a big third-down catch for the team.
After that, it was like the cork had been pulled from the bottle. There was no stopping the flow of Brody’s skill on the field, and it eventually resulted in a touchdown.
He ran by our group, grinning at me like he couldn’t wait to take me home later tonight.
The best part? Isabella didn’t care. She wasn’t even suppressing her annoyance—it wasn’t there at all. The Adidas endorsement had totally placated her.
It was never about Brody. It was just about control, and about furthering her own interests.
It made me a little angry that she had used him like that, but I was more happy that we had found a way to make the situation work.
“Come on, Brody!” I shouted in between cheers.
If the rest of the cheerleaders understood why Isabella was suddenly uncaring about my relationship with the tight end, they didn’t show it. They treated me like one of the girls. One of the team.
“Do you think the coach will keep putting him in?” Kayla asked me. “Or will he go with Stark?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “But I think Brody just reminded everyone who the best tight end on the team is!”
The Broncos were unfazed by Brody’s touchdown. Their quarterback sliced apart the defense on the next drive, moving down the field as if the Stallions weren’t even there. After scoring a touchdown, the Broncos were leading 28 - 18.
The rest of the third quarter, and much of the fourth, was filled with a flurry of scores from both teams.
The Stallions kicked a field goal to make it 21 - 28.
The Broncos kicked one of their own to extend the lead, 31 - 21.
Brody caught a deep pass from Dallas Lockett, carrying it eighty-two yards for a touchdown. For a few moments, I forgot all about the dance routine we were doing and I jumped up and down and shrieked like a banshee as he glided into the end zone, politely handing the ball to a ref. The Stallions were only down 28 - 31.
On the next possession, the Broncos threw an interception which was returned for a touchdown. The Stallions had the first lead of the game, 35 - 31.
But the Broncos answered right back. They leaned on their running back on the next drive, grinding out first down after first down while the clock ticked away. When the running back rammed the ball across the line for a touchdown to take the lead, there was just under two minutes remaining in the game.
“Down 38 - 35,” I muttered to myself. All of the cheerleaders were watching now, our routine abandoned. “Come on, Stallions. Come on, Brody.”
The coach put Andrew Stark back in the game on the next play, and he caught a swift pass up the middle for a first down. The clock ticked down as they quickly lined up again and ran another play, this one a pass to the sideline. Kincaid, the wide receiver, caught the ball and slipped out of bounds to stop the clock.
Damn, I thought to myself. The first down by Stark was good for the team, but bad for Brody specifically. On the next play, Stark was back out there again. They ran a screen play, gaining another ten yards.
“What’s happening?” one of the girls asked.
“We need a field goal to tie it,” I explained. “We need to get to the forty yard line to have a chance. But more yards would be better.”
On the next play, Stark stayed on the field. But then Brody went jogging out there, too. The Stallions coach rarely ran a double tight end formation, something I knew from watching way too much ESPN. But they were trying it here.
Stark caught the pass on the next play. After that, Dallas tried a deep ball to Kincaid, but the defender knocked it away for an incompletion. On third down, I expected Brody to get the ball, but once again Dallas found Stark along the sideline instead.
