My Quarterback Boyfriend Cheated With a Cheerleader

"Are you still staring at your screen?" Chloe kicked the edge of my mattress from her desk across the room. "Turn the brightness down, Sloane. You're lighting up the entire ceiling."

"Two minutes," I answered, keeping my thumbs moving. "Just reading."

"Reading what? Another discussion board for journalism ethics?"

"Something like that."

I rolled onto my stomach, tugging the comforter up to my chin. Chloe didn't know I ran @WestbridgeConfessions. Nobody did. To the campus, it was an all-seeing oracle of hookups, dining hall complaints, and drunken regrets. To me, it was twenty minutes of entertainment before bed.

Then a new submission hit the inbox.

*To the quarterback wearing No. 12—I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you walk off that field.*

Attached was a photo taken outside the athletic complex. The subject walked away toward the training facility, shoulders broad under a charcoal Westbridge Football hoodie, white cleats dangling by the laces from one hand. Around his right wrist was a faded navy-and-gold braided cord.

I smiled into my pillow.

I made that cord during our sophomore year of high school. Chase Bennett had worn it through sixty-two games, two state championships, and three collegiate bowl bids. He was Westbridge’s starting quarterback, team captain, and president of the Football Leadership Council.

"What's got you grinning?" Chloe asked, not looking up from her textbook.

"Nothing," I murmured. "Just a campus confession."

I hit *Approve*.

Six years together, and half the freshmen girls still looked at him like he stepped out of a movie. I felt a quiet, smug pride. Let them look. He was coming over for breakfast in seven hours.

***

"Stealing my food already?" I slid into the booth at the campus café the next morning.

Chase swallowed a forkful of my hash browns, grinning as he dropped his duffel onto the bench beside him. His hair was damp from the post-workout shower, smelling of mint soap and rain.

"You ordered the large platter," he said, catching my right hand beneath the table. His thumb traced the ridge of my knuckles. "You never finish the potatoes."

"That doesn't make them community property."

"Everything you have is mine, Carter. Thought we settled that in tenth grade." He squeezed my fingers, his expression shifting into that focused intensity he got before film review. "Coach pulled me aside after sprints. Two scouts from Chicago are coming to the rivalry game next month. Maybe a rep from New York, too."

"Chase, that's huge."

"If things break right at the draft," he leaned in, his voice dropping low, "where do you want to live? Wind and freezing winters, or tiny apartments and crowded subways?"

"You're assuming I'm following you anywhere."

"You're coming with me," he stated, entirely calm, entirely certain. "We've talked about this since junior year. We get an apartment near the facility. You find a media firm. We finally get a dog that doesn't fit in a shoe box."

The steady rhythm of his voice settled every nerve I had. We were building toward something real. It was the same promise he made on my parents' porch before we moved three states away for college.

My phone buzzed against the formica table.

I glanced down, expecting an alert from the student newspaper. Instead, an Instagram direct message notification popped onto the screen from the account that submitted the No. 12 post.

*Thank you!!! He said yes. We’re officially together now. You don’t need to post this one. ❤️*

The words sat there, blunt and clear.

"What's that face?" Chase reached across the table, picking up another scrap of bacon. "Did the department reject your pitch?"

I stared at him. His blue eyes were clear. No flinching, no guarded posture, no nervous twitch around his mouth.

"Chase," I began, my throat strangely dry. "How've you been lately?"

He blinked, stopping with his fork halfway to his mouth. "What do you mean?"

"Just... with everything. Practice, meetings, life."

A laugh broke across his mouth. He reached out and pinched my cheek lightly. "I see you almost every day, babe. What kind of question is that?"

"Just checking."

"I'm good. Better than good. Eat your toast before it gets cold."

He went back to talking about third-down conversions, tapping his fingers against the table in rhythm with some play running through his head. I watched him. This was the boy who texted me when his alarm went off at five in the morning, whose phone sat face-up on my nightstand whenever he stayed over, whose family spent Thanksgiving with mine. I edited his high school recruitment tapes in my bedroom while he fell asleep on the rug.

It was a mistake. Some freshman had tagged the wrong jersey number.

I opened the admin account under the table while Chase paid the bill.

*Who said yes?* I typed back to the anonymous sender. *Just want to make sure I update the queue properly.*

Three minutes later, as Chase kissed my forehead by the café doors and jogged toward the athletic hall, the reply came through.

*The guy from the photo, silly! No. 12.*

My fingers went cold against the glass screen. *Chase Bennett?*

*Yeah! Please don't blast his name everywhere though. He said we have to keep it quiet for now because of team focus.*

"Team focus," I whispered to the empty sidewalk.

I stood there while students brushed past me on their way to morning lectures.

*Are you on the squad?* I messaged. *Just curious how you met.*

*Cheer,* came the swift answer. *He told me not to talk about it too much until after the mid-season rankings come out. Gotta go, coach is blowing the whistle!*

The cheer team.

My stomach dropped an inch. A simple rejection was one thing; "he said we have to keep it quiet" sounded like a playbook.

By eight that evening, Chloe was out at an editorial meeting, leaving the dorm dead quiet. I sat at my desk with three browser tabs open: the official athletics roster, the Westbridge Cheer squad page, and my personal Instagram account.

I scrolled through thirty-two profiles before landing on the sophomore flyer who occupied the center of every game-day graphic: Brielle Hayes.

Nineteen. Platinum hair cropped near her collarbones, sharp hazel eyes, and a follower count higher than the university president's.

"Come on," I muttered, clicking through her tagged photos. "Show me something stupid."

Parties, tailgates, tumbling drills. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I clicked an album from late August, snapped in the campus gym locker room. Brielle stood in front of a mirror with her gym bag slung over one shoulder.

Hanging from the zipper pull was a miniature leather football with a silver number twelve stamped into the grain.

My chair creaked as I sat back.

Three weeks ago, Chase had tossed his keys onto my dresser, and I’d picked up his duffel to move it out of the doorway. The identical charm had dangled from his brass zipper.

*Where'd you get this?* I’d asked him.

*One of the equipment guys handed them out to the council,* he'd said without glancing up from his playbook. *Dumb promo gear.*

"Liar," I said into the quiet room. The word sounded small, brittle.

My finger dragged the trackpad, moving further down Brielle’s grid. If she was running around with my boyfriend, she had been leaving breadcrumbs for months.

I hit an archive from last spring.

Brielle sat on the hood of a black pickup truck, arms looped around the neck of a tall guy wearing a faded lacrosse cap. The caption read: *365 days with my favorite headache.*

The tag was linked to Noah Whitmore.

I clicked Noah’s profile. His account wasn't private. Two weeks ago, he’d posted a carousel from an off-campus lake house. The third slide was a video: Brielle sitting on Noah's lap by a bonfire, feeding him a toasted marshmallow while he kissed the side of her neck.

Brielle had commented beneath it: *Mine.*

I looked at the screen, then at the photo of Chase and me framed beside my desk lamp—taken at his twentieth birthday party, his arm tight around my waist, both of us laughing at something his brother shouted across the yard.

A short, breathless laugh escaped my throat.

Chase was sneaking around with a sophomore cheerleader. And the cheerleader had a boyfriend who was still posting videos of her on his lap fourteen days ago.

I picked up my phone and opened Chase’s contact.

*Are you at the facility late tonight?* I texted.

His reply took less than ten seconds.

*In meetings until ten, Carter. Miss you. Come over after?*

I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the keypad as a cold, sharp resolve took over.