The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 104: Chapter 104 - Escort Line

Roxie got the Senior Night form after lunch.

Coach Miller handed them out at the start of practice with the same expression he used for late counts, crooked stunts, and girls who whispered when he was speaking.

”This is due by Friday,” he said, walking down the line with the papers. ”If you lose it, I will give you another copy, but make sure to be ready for nagging. Fill it out. Return it. Senior Night is next week, and the office wants names for the announcer.”

The paper landed in Roxie’s hand.

She looked down before she meant to.

Senior Night Recognition Form

Senior Athlete/Cheerleader Name: ____________________

Parent/Guardian/Escort Name: ____________________

Family Message: ____________________

Flower Order: Yes / No

Photo Permission: Yes / No

The words sat neatly on the page.

Clean black lines. Empty spaces. Simple instructions.

Roxie stared at the second line too long.

Parent. Guardian. Escort.

The paper wanted a person.

Around her, the other girls started talking. Pens clicked. Bags opened. Someone asked if stepdads counted. Someone else wanted to know if two escorts were allowed. Tessa said her parents were already fighting over who got to stand closer in the picture. One of the juniors laughed and said her mother would probably cry before they even called her name.

Roxie folded the paper in half.

Angela saw.

”Are you filling yours out later?” Angela asked.

”Yeah.”

Karen leaned against the wall, arms crossed. ”Is your mom coming?”

Roxie slid the form into her folder. ”Probably.”

Angela’s face softened. ”You asked her?”

”I’ll write her name.”

Karen stared at her. ”If she doesn’t come, will you cry?”

Roxie gave her a look. ”I’ll bite your head off.”

Karen shrugged.

Across the room, Kendall held her own form with two fingers like it was already part of a scrapbook.

”My mom already ordered flowers,” Kendall said to one of the girls beside her. ”She said Senior Night pictures are the ones you keep forever.”

Roxie looked toward the floor.

The girl beside Kendall sighed. ”That’s cute.”

Kendall’s eyes moved across the room, slow and casual. ”Everyone’s family is coming, right?”

The question sounded harmless.

No one ever showed up for hers. It was easy to lie. Business meeting. Too busy. Something came up. Kendall would make it her business every single time.

She looked up and smiled. ”Don’t worry, Kendall. I’m sure your parents will clap enough for themselves and half the county.”

The room went still for a second.

Kendall’s smile sharpened.

Coach Miller clapped once. ”Enough. Senior Night is still a game night. Regional prep does not pause because your families are bringing cameras. You can cry after the game. Before that, you hit your counts.”

His eyes moved to Roxie.

She lifted her chin. ”I don’t cry, Coach.”

Coach Miller looked at her for a moment. ”That was not the part I was worried about.”

A few girls looked down fast.

Roxie pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek and said nothing.

Practice started.

Coach Miller drilled them hard enough to make the room forget the forms. Counts. Motions. Formations. Jumps. Stunt timing. Regional practice was starting to feel less like something in the future and more like a wall they were running toward. Roxie welcomed the ache in her legs because it gave her somewhere to put the feeling in her chest.

The Senior Night form stayed in her folder.

It still felt heavy.

After practice, Coach Miller sent them outside for a short stadium spacing run. The football team was already on the field. The late afternoon light sat low over the bleachers, and the stadium speakers crackled while Coach Hayes shouted near the sideline.

Roxie saw Zac near the fifty-yard line.

She hated that her eyes found him so fast.

He stood with Mason, Dylan, and two other players while Coach Hayes talked to an older man in a Briarwick jacket. A school photographer hovered nearby, camera hanging around her neck. Someone handed Zac a form. He took it without looking surprised.

Senior Night for Zachary Prescott probably came with a whole committee.

Someone would stand beside him. Someone would smile. Someone would order flowers, arrange pictures, post the tribute, and make sure his name sounded perfect through the stadium speakers.

His problem looked like too many people showing up.

Roxie’s problem was one person maybe staying away.

Zac looked across the field.

Their eyes met.

Roxie looked away first because she refused to let him think he mattered.

Coach Miller’s whistle cut through the air. ”Positions.”

She moved.

By the time practice ended, the form had become impossible to ignore.

Roxie sat on the lowest bleacher while the other girls packed up around her. She took the paper from her folder and smoothed it over her knee.

Senior Athlete/Cheerleader Name: Roxxane Jones

She wrote it slowly.

Her full name always looked too formal. Like it belonged to someone with framed baby pictures and a mother who owned a good camera.

Then she moved to the second line.

Parent/Guardian/Escort Name: ____________________

The pen stopped.

She could lie about money.

She could lie about clothes.

She could lie about the dress from New York, the careless shrug, the price she never checked, the closet she never had.

But that line wanted a person.

And the only person she wanted to write was still Claire.

Roxie pressed the pen to the paper, biting her inner cheeks.

Claire Jones

The letters looked normal.

She folded the form and put it back into her folder before anyone could see.

That night, Claire was awake when Roxie got home.

That should have been a good sign.

She sat on the couch with one leg tucked under her, a cigarette unlit between her fingers, the television playing some crime show she was barely watching. Her hair was messy, and her eyes had the dull shine Roxie had learned to measure before speaking.

Roxie stood near the hallway. ”Senior Night is next week.”

Claire looked at the television. ”What time?”

”Six. Be there by five-thirty.”

”That’s early.”

”It’s before the game. They call our names on the field.”

”I heard you.”

Roxie waited.

The television filled the silence.

Claire did not ask what she should wear. She did not ask if there would be pictures. She did not smile, or tease, or say she was proud, or act like this was anything except another place she had to be.

Roxie’s fingers curled around the strap of her bag. ”I put your name on the escort form.”

Claire finally looked at her.

For one second, Roxie hated herself for wanting her mother’s face to change.

It barely did.

”Okay,” Claire said.

Okay.

That was all.

Roxie nodded once. ”Be there by five-thirty.”

”I said okay.”

The words scraped.

Roxie turned before she asked the question sitting in her mouth.

Are you really coming?

She was too old to ask like that.

Too tired.

Too scared of the answer.

”I have homework,” Roxie said.

Claire had already looked back at the television. ”Don’t stay up all night.”

Roxie went to her room and shut the door.

She stood there for a while with her hand still on the knob.

Then she changed for babysitting.

The Robinson house smelled like laundry detergent, dinner, and the kind of warmth that made Roxie feel awkward every time she stepped inside. Mrs. Robinson was in the kitchen when Roxie arrived, sleeves pushed up, talking on the phone while stirring something in a pot. Jason ran past her in socks, sliding slightly on the floor before stopping beside Roxie.

”You’re late.”

”I am three minutes early.”

”That’s not late?”

”No.”

Jason considered that. ”Feels late.”

”You are very dramatic.”

”I’m seven.”

”That explains it.”

He grinned and ran ahead of her.

Roxie dropped her bag near the couch and followed him into the living room. He had spelling homework first, then a reading log. He complained through both but finished faster than he wanted to admit. After that, he built a block tower on the carpet while Roxie sat beside him and checked her own assignments.

The Senior Night form slipped halfway out of her folder.

Jason saw the school logo before she did.

”What’s that?”

Roxie reached for it. ”Nothing.”

He grabbed the edge first. ”It has your school.”

”Nosy.”

He pulled it closer and squinted. ”Senior Night. Is that you?”

Roxie took it from him. ”It’s a school thing.”

”Are you getting announced?”

”Something like that.”

”On the field?”

”Yes.”

”With cheering?”

”That is usually what cheerleaders do.”

Jason’s face brightened. ”Can I come?”

Roxie folded the form fast. ”It’s boring.”

”You cheer. That’s not boring.”

”It’s mostly adults clapping and people taking pictures.”

”I like clapping.”

”You like yelling.”

”Same thing.”

Cynthia’s voice came from the doorway. ”What’s this?”

Roxie looked up.

Cynthia stood with a dish towel in her hands, eyes moving from Jason to the folded paper in Roxie’s lap.

Roxie slid it back toward her folder. ”School thing. Seniors. It’s nothing.”

Cynthia came into the living room slowly. ”Senior Night?”

Jason turned to her. ”Roxie gets announced on the field.”

Roxie glared at him.

He looked proud of himself.

Cynthia’s expression softened. ”That sounds like something.”

”It’s really not.”

”Things can be something even when you act like they’re nothing.”

Roxie looked away first.

The room got too warm.

Jason put another block on top of his tower. ”I want to go.”

”It’s a school night,” Roxie said.

”So?”

”So you have school.”

”I go to school every day. It’s exhausting.”

”That’s a good word.” She high fived Jason. Cynthia smiled faintly, but her eyes stayed on Roxie. ”What day is it?”

Roxie hesitated.

If she said the day, it felt like inviting them.

If she refused, it would sound strange.

”Friday,” she said.

”What time?”

”Six. They said be there before five-thirty.” Roxie closed her folder. ”But really, it’s crowded. And boring. You don’t have to.”

Cynthia did not answer that directly. ”Do you have anyone taking pictures?”

Roxie’s chest tightened.

”My mom is coming.”

The lie came out too fast.

Cynthia heard it.

Roxie saw that she did.

Still, Cynthia only nodded. ”That’s good.”

Roxie stood. ”Jason, get your reading log. We forgot the signature.”

Jason groaned. ”I hate signatures.”

”You hate everything involving pencils.”

”Because pencils make my fingers hurt.”

Roxie focused on him because it was easier than Cynthia’s face.

Later, when she got home, Claire was asleep on the couch again.

The television was on.

The room smelled like smoke and old perfume.

Roxie stood there with her folder in one hand.

She looked at Claire for a long moment, then went to her room without waking her.

The Senior Night form was still in her folder.

Roxie took it out and sat on the edge of her bed.

Claire Jones

The name stared back at her.

Roxie folded the paper carefully and put it back in her bag.

She hated how much she wanted it to mean something.