"What the
fuck
was that, Stephanie?" The slam of a thin steel wall locker threw an exclamation point on Amy's gripe. "You're completely out of time and you almost dropped Betty!"
"It wasn't my fault, don't blame me, Ashley's rhythm was all off!"
"Uh, excuse me, don't bring me into this, I'm perfectly fine!"
"That practice was garbage and mostly because of you." Amy deflected the conversation back onto Stephanie. "That was one of worst ones in a while, we
cannot
bring that shit to an actual game. Fuck up like that again, see how long it takes before you get benched!"
Stephanie ducked her head into her lock to block any view of both Amy and Betty with the door. She focused intently on removing her sweaty cheer uniform top and stuffing it inside.
I did fine, I
know
I did fine, I kept the beat and everything!
Her teammates' complaints fueled her perspiration further with nervous energy. She felt her snug-fitting fabric pull her boobs up and release them onto a thin line of sweat on top of her naked chest as it cleared her neck. Stephanie knew she wasn't the absolute best, or the prettiest member of the cheer team but she was certain she wasn't the worst. Was she? She slid her skirt and compression shorts down and off her legs and onto her shower shoes.
Stephanie started out solidly enough, attending every practice and learning all her squad's dance routines and choreography to the letter, with few complaints from her teammates. So what changed?
Wrapping her towel around her waist, Stephanie crossed the locker room floor to the showers in the rear. She felt the stony glares from Amy, Betty and all the rest of them without having to see their eyes. The thirty foot's distance could well have been 300.
Well, at least it was only practice,
she tried to console herself. The shower sucked and hissed as the opened the head and turned the hot water almost as high as it would go.
Not like Steven or any of the other football players saw us.
Stephanie's skin detected her favored water temperature and stepped inside the deluge. Oh, thank God Steven didn't see her performance today. She would rather her entire team berate her than the team's star quarterback say one word about it.
The steaming water streaming down Stephanie's cleavage-length black hair and down her chest immediately took the worst of their words with it, leaving room for more pleasant, comforting thoughts to flow into her mind in their place. Thoughts containing Stephen's face, his sandy-colored hair tousled and damp after removing his helmet during a game, and his rugged jaw and cheekbones with touches of boyish gentility. Granted, just about everyone she could think of on the football team was hot, but he stood out the most.
Her stomach slackened with a sigh, picturing his broad shoulders underneath his football padding. Their passing in the halls between classes wasn't too common, but she took notice every single time, whether he would swing his backpack straps off or swinging his locker door closed.
Stephanie squeezed some liquid soap and began to wash. Her legs tingled thinking about him. She scrubbed her face and blinked through the suds around the shower section. She still had a few moments of solitude before her teammates begin trickling in.
Pawing a dollop of soap onto her palm, she passed it down her neck and across her chest. Steven's hands filled her mind, how he gripped and threw a football, his deliberate way of pulling out his chair and opening/closing a door, and how he would shake the hands of his teammates and the occasional teacher. Stephanie paid extra attention to how she squeezed, pressed and massaged the soap all over her breasts, almost teasing her body in the minute released she offered herself. Oh, how she loved his hands.
"Oh, speaking of games, you better remember we got one in a week and a half." She heard Amy's voice reverberate over the white ceramic tiles.
Ah, shit.
Stephanie accidentally flung suds onto the wall behind her with the speed she threw her hands off of herself.
Here we go.
"Look Amy, I got it." she retorted, turning around to face the wall behind her. "I'll be faster, I'll do better."
"You can start by prying your eyes off the quarterback." Stephanie's mouth shrunk and she immediately blushed. She unconsciously scooted closer to the wall. "Yes, we all see you staring at him. You need to focus."
"I do
not
!" Stephanie turned her head a quarter at her. "Yeah, he's super-important to the team, but he's just a guy." Her eyes narrowed.
"That's such a fucking lie." Amy came into view. "Not like he'd ever go for you anyway, you need to chill with all that."
Well, that part wasn't,
she sadly had to agree with her. Hell, just about every other girl on the cheer squad was a more enticing proposition than Stephanie herself was. Especially Amy, only the blind could disagree. Beautiful Hispanic brown skin, firm, huge tits and a thick, heart-shaped ass, Amy was the fantasy of every straight guy in the whole school. The girl in her cheerleader uniform could be right out of a porno, especially in the "older-fashioned" style the team currently used that exposed their midriff and only came down to about four inches on their thighs.
"Besides, he's mine anyway. He's definitely going to ask me to the dance next month, so I'd start making it easier on yourself now, drop it and start caring about the team."
And here it comes, there's the punch.
Stephanie cast her eyes down to the floor. She watched the soap bubbles circle the drain between her feet.
It would hurt a fuckload less if it wasn't true.
"You can have Steven, Manuel's mine." Ashley joined the two and chose a showerhead next to Stephanie. "There's a
lot
worse things than running out of gas in the middle of the woods in that dude's car, that's for sure!"
Stephanie so desperately wanted to follow the soap trail down the drain, hearing the two talk so candidly about their crushes. She couldn't decide which was worse in all honesty. Everyone knew about Ashley's crush on Manuel, but just about everyone had something to say about everyone else. Brock the wide receiver, Adam the running back, Deshawn the running back, plus countless other names and positions, nobody on that team was safe from locker room fantasies, gossip and girl talk.
"Oh hey Steph, I'm serious about not blaming me!" Ashley threw at her as she darted out of the showers.
"Then quit doing it!" Stephanie shaped her hurt into one last barb.
Just because I wasn't super-great doesn't make me the punching bag for everyone else's problems. I just want to fucking go home.
Pulling a tank top over herself and stepping into a pair of plain red panties and blue jeans, Stephanie gathered her bookbag and exited the locker room.
Her heart couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to scream, cry or both. Not only was her position on the cheer team itself potentially jeopardized, those bitches couldn't even be content to let her have her wild, pie-in-the-sky fantasies without stomping it into the dirt,
Fuck them.
The school's hallway clock read 4 on the dot. Most of the students had made their way home with the exception of those in the athletic and music departments. The dissipation of the throngs of students previously surging up and down the halls made Stephanie's journey eerily quiet. Under ordinary conditions she could barely walk a couple of feet without brushing shoulders with a dozen other students or giving gentle pushes to clear something resembling a path forward.
The two large double doors connecting a long stretch of locker-lined hallway to the student parking lot were still propped open thankfully, at least Stephanie didn't have to use both shoulders to brace one of them open.
At least one less thing standing in my way today.
"Hey Steph, there you are!" A male voice called out to her the second she stepped into the daylight. "I just thought you guys just got out of practice, but wasn't sure."
Stephanie turned to her right to see nobody but Steven Murphy himself, quarterback of the football team, standing against the brick wall right next to the open doors. She blinked twice to make sure she wasn't seeing things, that it was actually him in a simple pair of jeans and a windbreaker instead of the recognizable, thick padding of his football uniform.
"Uh, y-yeah, we just finished", she stuttered and reflexively shifted her bookbag on her shoulder.
Oh jeez, what could he want? With me?
"Oh, sorry, hope I didn't interrupt you or anything, you seemed kinda ready to get out of here, we just wrapped up a scrimmage like a half-hour ago and we're just bullshitting." He put his hand behind his head and gave a slightly embarrassed smile. "It'll just be a minute."
Stephanie stood almost dumbfounded in the middle of the entryway.
Oooooh mygod, Steven the quarterback is talking to me! I didn't even know he thought I existed, well, outside simply just being a part of the cheer squad, I mean.
"Of...of course not, no, I'm not doing anything, I was just on my way home from cheer practice." Stephanie's gray eyes met his blues.
Oh man, I could look at those forever.
"If you want to call that a practice anyway, We, uh, I mean I, wasn't very good."
