The Hardest Cut by Jamie Bennett (book club recommendations .TXT) 📕

chance to make the squad, since I was already twenty-four years old.  There was no official age cutoff, but it was pretty clear from the faces around me at the audition that I had one foot in the grave already by Woodsmen cheerleader standards.

I had to make it.  Not just because I was getting old, but for me.  I needed this.

Lyle walked us past where the dance coaches and choreographers had their offices and then to the cheerleaders’ locker room.  I tried to peek in so I could picture myself changing and chatting with the other women after another fun game supporting our Woodsmen, but he closed the door too quickly for me to see much.  “You’ll get to go inside when you make the team,” he mentioned with an encouraging smile when voices asked if we could enter.  Several heads turned to look back wistfully as we continued down the hall.

“And here’s another door which you all will need to familiarize yourselves with,” Lyle called seriously to our big group.  “This separates the Dames…excuse me, the Woodsmen cheerleaders, from the forbidden zone.  On the other side of this door are the player facilities, locker and training rooms and what have you, and cheerleaders are never, in no way, ever, permitted to go past this point.  There’s no mixing between cheerleaders and players.”  He paused.  “No contact.  Never.  Ever.”

Got it.  No fraternizing with the football players.  We all nodded seriously and trooped after the security guard, the huge pack of women on his heels but me still trailing slightly behind, trying to take in everything I saw.  I paused at a drinking fountain, because all the glowing I had done throughout the day from dancing and nerves had majorly dehydrated me.  I thought about walking these halls with my cheer bag with the orange Woodsmen logo, on my way to practice or a game, surrounded by a group of friends.  It would be just like high school.  It would be amazing.

“This is our hall of fame,” Lyle was yelling to everyone when I caught up, “and I mean that literally.  It’s a hallway!”  He cracked himself up.  “These are only some of the many trophies and awards collected by the football team and players through the years, including last season’s league championship trophy.”  He swept his arm around the room.  “Go ahead!  Take a look at the hardware.”

The tight group dissolved into clumps as the would-be cheerleaders walked around to admire the many, many display cases.  It was very impressive to me, and I was already impressed by the Woodsmen.  I had been a fan since I had first come to the stadium with my dad, when I was so small that I didn’t need my own ticket and could sit on his lap.  I had been rooting for them ever since.  There wasn’t another professional sports team within a hundred miles, but it wasn’t just that.  The Woodsmen were special.  They had been around forever and they were winners.  Sure, they might have had some bumps and bruises, like some bad publicity, some bad seasons, some bad players, but they made our town special, too.  And if I were a part of that…I wanted to be a part of that.

“Can you take my picture next to Gunnar Christensen’s MVP trophy?” a woman asked me, and turned on a mega-watt smile as I held the phone for her and clicked a few.  “I’m Addison,” she said.  “I love Gunnar.  Don’t you?”

“He’s super cute,” I agreed.  “Taken, though.”  Taken by my best friend Hallie, who had married him a few months before, but I didn’t say that.

“I know.  It’s like they’re all getting snapped up!”  She started to list the remaining single players, and there were definitely a few names worth checking out, if you were on the prowl.

I wasn’t.  And anyway, it was totally forbidden, as Lyle had just pointed out.  “If you make the squad, you can’t date a player,” I mentioned as he started to usher everyone through one of the many doorways in the hallway of fame.  Everyone should have known that fact already, since there had been a big scandal a few years ago about fraternization, among some other problems with the football players and cheer squad.  “Woodsmen cheerleaders aren’t even allowed to work out in the same gym as the guys.”

“I know, but are the powers that be really going to stand in the way of true love?” Addison asked, batting her eyelashes, her voice high.  It dropped a few octaves when she continued, “Or what if I just screw a few of them?”

I felt my eyes widen.  “Um, good luck with that,” I said.

“Thanks!”  She flashed her perfect teeth in my direction.  “Good luck to you, too.  Maybe you’ll make it past preliminaries today.  You’re pretty enough, so you will if you have what it takes on the dance floor.”  She shrugged a little like she wasn’t at all sure that I did.

I caught my image in the plate glass of an awards case as I left the hallway, and I bit my lip nervously and pulled in my stomach hard.  I hoped that reflection showed what it would take, not only to make it past prelims but also onto the squad.

Lyle walked us past more offices and the head coach of the team, Jim Roberts, came out to say hello.  A couple of the women almost swooned because he was very good looking, but I knew he had a daughter about my age, so I didn’t think they stood a chance.  He was probably only thinking of them paternally, no matter how little clothing we were all currently wearing.  But it wasn’t like age was a factor in falling in love…

Stop it.  Stop it, stop it, stop it.

“Whoops,” someone said behind me, and the voice sounded familiar.  “I didn’t mean to get in the way of the tour.”

Addison, the woman I had met, turned just as I did.  She immediately smiled, because this