My dad abruptly joined the conversation, and his eyes sparkled with amusement. “How about you give the book to me? I’ll look through it, make some notes. See if there’s any room for improvement before you drive it back to him.”
Neither my mom or I cracked a smile. He shrugged, dug out his keys, and slid them across the table toward my mother. “You should drive her.”
She shot him a look that said, you’ve got to be joking, and passed the keys on to me. “No. Baby steps, Bob. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact our daughter loves a Wolverine.”
I looked at the playbook. I grabbed it, stuffed it in my bag, and picked up the keys. “Thank you.”
“Don’t speed,” my dad warned. “You get caught by a state trooper and they find that book? They’ll throw your ass in jail for not turning it over to Coach Vaughn.”
I was sure he wasn’t joking.
I tried not to speed, but Jay’s phone went straight to voicemail when I called him repeatedly, and he didn’t return any of my messages. It was the eve of The Game and potentially the biggest one in Michigan’s history, so he was probably shuffled from practice, to the team dinner, and to a press conference. If the coaching staff was like ours, he’d get in trouble just for looking at his phone.
When I got to the campus and parked, I scrolled through websites on my phone until I found the location of the rally. I’d have to run. I tucked the playbook under an arm, and flew—
Crap! I skidded to a stop. I was still wearing my red OSU cheerleading warm-ups. Back to the car I went, stripping down to a pair of black shorts and a plain white t-shirt. And it made me realize I wasn’t being smart about this.
I yanked my organizational binder out of my backpack—thank God it didn’t say OSU on it—and popped open the rings, pulling the papers out and chucked them in the car. Then, I closed the smaller playbook inside the binder, disguising it.
I ran fast, not only because I was in a hurry, but to avoid the frostbite. It was freezing outside. I didn’t have to use my phone long to tell me where I was going. I ended up following the mob.
A temporary stage had been erected in front of the fieldhouse. Football players, cheerleaders and coaching staff looked out onto the parking lot before them, which was packed with Michigan fans. It was a carpet of blue and yellow. I couldn’t see Jay at first, but my heart lurched when I did. He looked nervous, and it was a shock to the system to see my confident boyfriend like that. How the hell was I going to get to him?
I shivered in the cold and scanned the crowd until I spotted what I was looking for.
“Hey, you!” I yelled, overly enthusiastic.
The guy was sitting on a bench, and worked on a homemade sign that read “Hail Yes!” He turned his attention to me and stared with disbelief. He was probably trying to figure out where he knew me from as I jogged over.
“Hey . . . you,” he repeated, skeptical.
“Can I borrow that?” I gestured to his large blue marker, and didn’t wait for an answer.
I set the binder down on the empty bench and plucked the fat marker from his hand. He watched me critically as I pulled my shirt away from my body and wrote ‘Go Blue’ on the tight white cotton in big letters, two lines. It was probably lopsided since I had to scribble upside-down, but it would work.
“Thanks,” I said, capping the marker and tossing it back to him.
He was looking at me funny. Actually, he was looking at my chest funny. I glanced down and cursed. When the shirt had snapped back into place, the “G” and the “O” each circled a boob. I looked ridiculous.
The crowd was dense as I got closer to the stage, but the good thing about being petite was I could slip through tight spaces. I worked my way up to the front of the temporary railing, but I was still too far away, and there was an army of security guys between me and Jay.
To my right, a section was corded off and a line had formed at the base of the steps. These students were going up on stage? At the front of the line, a girl wearing a headset looked down at the clipboard in her hands.
“Jordan Ruttles?” she called.
A hand near me shot up and Headset Girl waved him over. The excited guy moved past security and took his place at the end of the line, high-fiving with the girl ahead of him. I inched closer, curious.
Headset Girl glanced down at her clipboard, and made an unsure face. “Uh . . . Shreevid-ee-ah Sangupta?”
I scanned the crowd just as Headset Girl did. No hands went up. No one came forward.
“Am I saying that right?” she asked the crowd. “Shreevidia?”
God hates a quitter, my father always said. It was a gamble, but how could I not take it? I flung my hand up. “Yes, that’s me.”
Headset Girl’s eyes went narrow with suspicion. “Seriously?”
I nodded and pretended not to notice the ridiculous looks I was drawing as I ducked under the tape and scurried to the back of the line. Headset Girl gave me a once-over and after a moment, seemed to decide she was okay with me. “You’re in the front, Sangupta.”
“Oh?” I squeezed the binder under my arm, trying to hold in both my nerves and the shiver from the cold. I followed the direction and went to stand at the front of the line. I peered across the stage. All the players were on the other side. I couldn’t see them past the cheerleaders.
“Okay, everyone’s here,” Headset Girl announced. A smile burst on her face. “Got your questions ready for ’em, superfans?”
Everyone else in line cheered and nodded, but I could only form two words in my head.
Oh.
Shit.
-35-
JAY
It was cold enough to see my breath on the wind. Tomorrow would be good weather for crushing Buckeyes, or so we’d been told during a post-practice speech. I’d gotten two seconds to check my phone after dinner—only enough to see I had voicemails from Kayla, but not long enough to listen to them.
The president of the boosters finished his speech at the main microphone, and the crowd ate it up, cheering loudly as he turned his attention to the far side of the stage. “And now it’s time for something new. These are your ‘Superfan’ contest winners!”
Students filed onto the stage. It was mostly guys. Some looked hammered, others just high on excitement. The group was wearing jerseys or blue shirts, all except for a girl near the front, who was wearing . . . shorts?
What. The. Shit?
Darius’ elbow dug into my side. “Is that your girl? What’s she doing?”
No idea. I stared at Kayla, wordlessly demanding she look at me, but her gaze was locked onto the crowd. This had to be her worst nightmare realized.
The booster president gestured to the group of Superfans. “Each student has a question for the team. I’m going to turn the microphone over to our first winner, Shreevidia Sangupta.”
A woman wearing a headset gave Kayla a nudge toward the mic stand.
This couldn’t be happening. I stood there dumbfounded as she put one foot in front of the other and stepped up.