“Is that Luke Evers?” Joel asked. Luke and Dylan had once been inseparable.

“Don’t mention that name when your brother’s around,” said Paulette, still clapping. “Pity how Luke’s face turned out, no?”

Indeed. Luke had never been the cutest of boys but now his good looks started firmly below his neck. He only looked worse when Dylan finally reached the sidelines and Luke said something with a violent shake of the head like he was trying to beat an old argument back to life. Dylan waved Luke away but the muscled boy stepped forward, jabbed a finger at Dylan’s chest, scowled.

“The hell is eating him?” Joel said.

“There’s no telling.” Paulette chewed trail mix.

“They haven’t been the same since Dylan started dating Bethany Tanner,” Wesley said. He nodded at a tall blonde cheerleader who was iridescent with glitter. Joel recognized the girl from his brother’s Instagram but couldn’t place what Wesley meant. Unless Joel was much mistaken, Bethany and Dylan had been dating for years.

Joel regarded Luke and Dylan with a touch of concern: whatever they were fighting over it seemed far more dire than an old breakup.

In the end, he said nothing.

The wind held. The Cougars were beaten back again and again. After a few long plays, someone called a time-out from the sidelines and, a moment later, Beyoncé’s reliable hype belted from the speakers. Three black cheerleaders threw themselves into a hip-hop dance. Flanked by two girls, the boy in the center of the trio—the sole boy on the cheer squad, to Joel’s eye—threw his hips forward and back with a flair that made Joel smile.

Wesley itched his cheek. He said out of the side of his mouth, “We’ve had more of that the last few years.”

And just like that, all of Joel’s old anger at this place came flaming up again. His mother was wrong—things were exactly like they’d been in his day. When the cheerleaders’ routine was over, Joel realized he was the only person in the front row clapping.

Wesley flinched at the sound of Joel’s applause. People stared.

Joel clapped harder. It was going to be a long weekend.

BETHANY

At the start of the fourth quarter, the Bisonette cheerleaders piled themselves into an inverted pyramid. From her place in the pyramid’s center, Bethany Tanner—cheerleading captain, blonde darling, Homecoming Queen-to-be—scanned the faces in the stands for her father. If she didn’t see him now, then Bethany might—just might—have a chance of succeeding at the weekend plans for which she’d spent an aeon preparing.

Her father wasn’t here. All the fear floated free of her shoulders as she hit the crowd with her most radiant smile. That smile was a hundred percent genuine. Bethany was a very honest person.

“What’s that sound?” the girls shouted to the packed stands. “What’s that noise? What’s the herd with all my boys?”

The rest of the cheer went great, just great, and by the time it was through, Bethany’s head was so swollen with anticipation she almost missed her cue.