The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 11: Chapter 11 - Captain Roxie

For one ugly second, the whole gym paused.

It was not completely silent. The music was still blasting, the speakers were still shaking, and someone in the senior section was still screaming like the whole pep rally depended on their lungs, but the crowd had that held-breath feeling now, like everyone was waiting to see if the routine would fall apart.

Roxie felt it.

The squad felt it too.

A few girls froze half a beat too long. The flyer was still trying to find her balance after landing hard into her bases. One of the girls in the back line looked like she was about to cry.

Absolutely not.

Roxie clapped once, hard enough for the sound to cut through the music.

”Five, six, seven, eight!”

Her voice snapped across the court.

Then the rest of the squad kicked back into the routine like their bodies remembered before their brains did.

Roxie turned to the bleachers and shouted the next chant louder.

”Who owns the field?”

”Ravens!”

The answer came rough at first, but loud.

Loud was enough.

The crowd caught on because Briarwick students loved nothing more than being told when to scream. The bleachers started stomping again. The football team clapped from the side of the court.

Her shoulder still stung where the flyer’s shoe had clipped her, but she kept moving. Arms sharp. Smile bright. Chin lifted like her heart had not just tried to climb out of her throat.

The squad found the beat again.

Roxie turned back into the formation, hair whipping over her shoulder as she moved into the last transition. The count was there, sharp and loud in her head, louder than the crowd, louder than the music, louder than the tiny part of her that wanted to look back and figure out who had nearly ruined everything.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Eight.

Angela and Karen dropped into place in front of her.

Roxie stepped in.

Angela’s hands locked under one foot. Karen caught the other side. The back spot moved behind her, palms ready at her waist.

For half a second, Roxie felt the whole gym watching.

The bleachers.

The football team.

Zac.

Everyone.

Then Angela dipped.

Karen dipped with her.

Up.

They threw her.

For one breathless second, Roxie was all air.

The gym blurred beneath her in black, silver, and screaming faces. Her body twisted through the toss, ponytail whipping across her cheek, one clean spin before she snapped herself back into position.

The students lost their minds.

Angela’s arms came up first.

Karen held steady beside her.

Roxie dropped clean into the cradle, back caught, legs tight, heart slamming so hard she almost missed the final count.

Almost.

They lowered her fast, and the second her sneakers hit the court, Roxie turned with the squad and hit the last pose.

The bleachers lost it.

Screams rolled over them from every side. The football team was clapping. The cheerleaders held their smiles. Someone blew that horrible plastic horn again, and Roxie hoped it snapped in half before graduation.

The music cut.

Roxie stayed frozen in the final pose for one more beat because that was what captains did. They stayed pretty until the second it was safe to breathe.

Then the squad broke formation and hurried off the court.

The second they reached the side, the flyer rushed toward her.

”Captain, I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her eyes were wide, and her hands kept opening and closing at her sides. ”I swear I counted right.”

Roxie looked at the girl’s shaking hands, then at the bases behind her with their matching guilty faces.

”You hurt?”

The flyer shook her head fast.

”Then breathe before you pass out and give them a sequel.”

The girl blinked, then nodded.

Coach Miller appeared beside them with his clipboard tucked under one arm and the expression of a man one bad stunt away from early retirement.

”What happened?” he asked.

One of the bases swallowed. ”The timing got weird.”

Coach Miller looked at her. ”Timing doesn’t get weird by itself.”

Nobody answered.

Roxie kept her mouth shut because she did not have proof. She had a feeling, a near kick to the head, and Kendall standing a few feet away with her concerned face already prepared.

”Everyone’s probably just nervous,” Kendall said softly. ”It’s been a stressful week.”

Roxie looked at her, jaw tight. She didn’t have proof, but she knew Kendall had something to do with it.

Kendall looked back, all sweet eyes and fake concern.

Karen leaned closer to Angela. ”I’m going to bite her.”

Angela grabbed Karen’s wrist. ”We talked about this.”

Coach Miller rubbed the bridge of his nose. ”We’ll deal with it after the program.”

Roxie glanced toward the bleachers, where students were already checking their phones, replaying whatever angle they had caught.

Fantastic.

Another day, another possible video of her almost getting injured in high definition.

Before she could decide whether to be angry, embarrassed, or both, a girl from the student paper came running over with a camera around her neck.

”Group photo,” she said, already waving them toward the banner. ”Cheer and football. Coach said now.”

Roxie stared at her. ”Right now?”

”Yes. Football has practice after this.”

Briarwick almost watched a flyer take Roxie’s head off, and somehow the real emergency was yearbook composition.

Coach Miller pointed toward the stage. ”Everyone under the banner. Go.”

The cheerleaders moved at once, fixing bows, smoothing skirts, and smiling like nobody had almost become a district incident report. The football team was already gathering beneath the PROTECT THE NEST sign, loud and sweaty and pleased with themselves.

The student paper girl lifted her camera. ”Captains in the middle. Roxie, Zac, center.”

Roxie’s smile almost cracked.

Across the group, Zac looked over.

Their eyes met for half a second.

Then he looked away.

That should have felt like a win.

It did not.

”Roxie,” the girl called again, waving her forward. ”Beside Zac, please. Kendall, other side.”

Kendall’s smile sharpened.

Karen leaned closer to Roxie. ”Why’d they need to call miss annoying?”

”Shhhh.” Roxie said before any of the football heard it. No matter how she hated Kendall, she wouldn’t want the world to know.

Roxie walked to the center.

Zac stood under the banner with his helmet tucked under one arm. He shifted slightly to make room for her, but he did not say anything. He just faced the camera with that public Prescott face, the one that made all the girls squeal under their breath.

Roxie stepped beside him.

Kendall took the spot on Roxie’s other side, posture perfect, smile soft, looking like the miss-innocent after nearly causing a girl to drop on her head.

The photographer frowned through the lens. ”Closer, please. You’re the captains. Make it look like school spirit.”

Kendall’s face soured.

Roxie wanted to laugh as she stepped closer.

Zac moved half a step closer too.

His arm brushed hers, nothing worth reacting to.

But Roxie sure did, which was extremely inconvenient considering she had spent the last twenty-four hours acting like she wanted him erased from her life.

”Smile,” the photographer called.

The whole group smiled.

Roxie smiled too.

Beside her, Zac kept his eyes on the camera.

He was doing exactly what she had told him to do. He was staying away, behaving, giving her nothing anyone could twist into another hallway scandal.

So naturally, it felt awful.

The camera flashed.

Then again.

”Perfect,” the photographer said, lowering the camera. ”This is going on the school page.”

Kendall muttered under her breath. ”Slut.”

Roxie kept her smile in place until the photographer turned away.

Murder was illegal.

Only when the photo was done did Roxie step back.

Zac did not stop her. He did not even look at her.

After the program ended, Coach Miller kept the squad near the bleachers while the rest of the gym emptied in loud waves. Students spilled toward the doors, still hyped from the rally, still replaying videos, still pretending they had somewhere urgent to be while slowing down near the cheerleaders.

Roxie crossed her arms.

Her shoulder hurt more now that she was standing still.

Coach Miller stood in front of the stunt group with his clipboard against his hip.

”That was a good routine,” he said. ”But you almost got one of your teammates injured.”

The girls went quiet.

The flyer bowed her head, still pale.

Coach Miller looked over the group, then toward the second line where Kendall stood with her hands folded in front of her skirt, face calm.

”The stunt group was late,” he said. ”But the count got messy before the lift.”

Kendall’s smile stayed on.

Barely.

Coach Miller tilted his head. ”Whitlock, you were counting from the front on that transition, weren’t you?”

Kendall blinked. ”Yes, Coach.”

”And was your count clean?”

Her fingers tightened against her skirt. ”I thought it was.”

”You thought?”

The gym went quiet enough for Roxie to hear Karen stop chewing her gum.

Kendall’s face softened. ”I mean, yes. It was clean.”

Coach Miller stared at her for one second longer than necessary.

Then he looked back at the stunt group. ”Tomorrow, nobody guesses. Count yourselves. Nobody follows someone else if the count is wrong. You listen to the music, you trust the practice, and you do not let one bad count take out a teammate.”

Nobody said anything.

But everyone knew who he meant.

Kendall looked down first.

Almost nothing.

Roxie saw it anyway.

Coach Miller let out a breath and tapped the clipboard against his hip. ”For now, we’re taking the flying out of the routine.”

The whole squad reacted at once.

”What?”

”No, Coach.”

”Coach, seriously?”

Even the flyer lifted her head, eyes wide.

Roxie went still.

No flying.

For a normal game, maybe they could survive that. They could polish the dance, make the chants sharp, add more motion work, and hope the crowd was loud enough to cover the missing stunts.

But the next cheer lineup was against Riverside Gale High School.

Riverside.

The girls who treated cheer like warfare and smiled through it. The squad that had been beating Briarwick in crowd work, stunts, and school-page clips for years. If Briarwick showed up without flyers, everyone would know they were scared before the first chant even started.

The girls looked at Roxie.

Roxie.

Angela’s face had gone tense. Karen was not joking now. Even the younger girls were staring at Roxie like she could somehow argue gravity into being safer.

Roxie understood them.

She hated that she did.

Coach Miller looked at her. ”Jones.”

Roxie swallowed. ”Coach.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, already tired.

She kept her voice careful. ”If we take out all the flying, we’re going to look weak.”

A few girls murmured behind her.

Roxie kept going before he could shut her down. ”I know safety comes first. I’m not saying it doesn’t. But Riverside is next. They’ll come in with full stunts, full lifts, full everything. If we strip ours down, the whole school will know why.”

Coach Miller rubbed one hand down his face.

Kendall stayed quiet.

Now that everyone actually needed a captain, she had suddenly misplaced her voice.

Coach Miller looked over the squad. ”You all understand what you’re asking for?”

The girls nodded fast.

”Yes, Coach.”

”We’ll clean it.”

”We can do it.”

The flyer stepped forward, voice small but steady. ”Coach, I can do it.”

Coach Miller looked at her, then at Roxie.

Roxie’s stomach tightened.

He sighed like the whole squad had personally added years to his life. ”Fine.”

The girls lit up immediately.

”But,” he said, louder, and everyone shut up, ”if I see one sloppy count, one rushed lift, one person following the wrong timing because they’re too busy daydreaming, the flying comes out. No argument. No second chance.”

”Yes, Coach,” the squad said together.

Roxie said it too.

Her voice came out steady.

Her stomach did not feel steady at all.

Because keeping the flyers meant keeping the risk.

And as Kendall stood there with her sweet little face and her hands folded in front of her skirt, Roxie could not stop thinking the same thing.

How were they supposed to keep the routine clean when one of their captains wanted it messy?