The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 324: Chapter 324 - National Entry

By the time Briarwick reached the competition hall, Roxie had stopped pretending Nationals felt anything like State.

State had seemed enormous when they were there, but standing inside the convention center now, it suddenly felt almost small. Teams packed the halls from one end to the other in matching warmups and glittering uniforms while coaches moved through the crowd with clipboards, garment bags, and rolling cases.

Music from different competition floors bled through the walls, one routine ending while another started somewhere else, and every few minutes an arena erupted so loudly that Roxie could feel it through the floor.

She kept looking around because there was too much to take in at once. Photographers stood near the barricades with lenses bigger than her forearm while reporters waited beside interview areas and camera crews moved through the crowd.

Huge screens hung overhead, showing live routines, team names, scores, and clips from other divisions.

Angela slowed beside her. ”What the fuck is this?”

Karen stared up at one of the screens. ”Why does this look televised?”

Roxie almost laughed, but another team walked past them before she could answer.

Every girl looked perfect, with high hair, sharp makeup, uniforms covered in rhinestones, and the kind of confidence that made Roxie feel like they had been coming to Nationals their entire lives. Then another team passed, followed by another, and Briarwick suddenly felt very far from home.

This was the first time any of them had made it here, and it showed. They looked like a bunch of small-town girls dropped into the middle of something much bigger than anything they had prepared themselves for.

Coach Miller glanced over his shoulder. ”Stay together.”

For once, nobody complained.

They eventually found seats inside the arena while they waited for their division, and that was when Roxie made the mistake of watching.

The first team hit everything. Their opening stunt went up so cleanly that Roxie barely saw the bases adjust, and their tumbling came one after another without hesitation. When the music cut, the entire arena exploded.

Roxie stared at the floor.

Then the next team came out.

They were even better.

Angela leaned forward with her elbows on her knees while Karen went completely quiet. Roxie glanced toward Kendall and found her staring at the floor too, which somehow made the knot in Roxie’s stomach tighten even more.

Another flyer went into the air and hit perfectly.

Roxie swallowed.

They had practiced until their bodies were almost worn down. For the past weeks, they had spent every available hour cleaning counts, fixing grips, repeating transitions, and running the routine until there was almost nothing left for Coach Miller to correct. Roxie had believed they were ready.

Watching the teams here made her wonder whether ready was enough.

Their flyers suddenly did not seem high enough. Their bases did not seem steady enough. Even the blinged cropped Briarwick uniforms made especially for Nationals looked plain compared with the rhinestones, crystals, and custom designs filling the arena.

Then Roxie looked toward the judges.

That made it worse.

They sat behind the long table with serious expressions, writing constantly. A team could hit a stunt that sent the whole arena screaming, and some of them barely reacted.

Karen finally exhaled. ”We’re fucked.”

Angela turned toward her. ”Thank God you said it first.”

Roxie kept watching the floor for another few seconds. Part of her wanted to agree because every team seemed stronger than the last, and she could almost feel her confidence slipping away with every cheer from the crowd.

Then she forced herself to sit straighter.

”No.”

Angela looked at her.

Roxie rubbed her damp palms against her thighs. ”We can do it.”

She was saying it for herself as much as anyone else.

These teams had won their states too. Every one of them had traveled here for the same reason Briarwick had, and every one of them looked like they belonged.

Roxie wanted Briarwick to look like that too.

She was still staring toward the floor when she felt someone watching her.

Roxie turned and found Chloe standing across the aisle with her team.

Their eyes met and stayed there.

There was no smirk this time and no insult waiting behind Chloe’s smile. She simply looked at Roxie while another team ran onto the floor and the crowd started screaming around them.

Then Chloe glanced toward the arena and back at her.

Something shifted in Roxie’s chest.

Chloe had been here before. Her team had reached the Nationals semifinals last year, and Briarwick had still beaten them at State.

That mattered.

Roxie lifted her chin.

Chloe did the same.

Neither of them smiled, but Roxie understood the look anyway. State was behind them now. They were both here for something bigger, and in the end they wanted the same thing.

They wanted Virginia wearing the crown.

Coach Miller appeared at the end of their row.

”Ravens. Warmup.”

Every girl stood.

Roxie looked toward the competition floor one more time before following the team.

Nationals was terrifying, but they were already here.

Warmups moved faster than Roxie expected. One station led into the next with barely enough time to think between them. Tumbling, stunts, transitions, quick corrections from Coach Miller, then suddenly they were standing behind the curtain waiting for the team ahead of them to finish.

The crowd roared from the other side.

Roxie’s stomach tightened again.

Karen reached for her hand, and Roxie took it. Angela grabbed hers from the other side, and within seconds the whole team had closed into a circle.

Roxie looked around at them.

Everyone looked scared.

They were trying to hide it, but she knew them well enough to see it anyway.

”If we don’t make it past preliminaries, we go home today.”

A few faces tightened.

Roxie drew in a breath.

”But we did everything we could to get here. We practiced until we could barely move. We fixed everything Coach Miller told us to fix, and we won State.”

Her voice steadied as she looked around the circle.

”Whatever happens out there, nobody can take that away from us. So let’s go out there and give them everything we have.”

The fear was still there, but the girls were standing straighter now.

Kendall raised her brows at all of them. ”Let’s go home with our heads high.”

The team cheered.

Coach Miller stepped closer and looked around at all of them. ”You know the routine. Trust it.”

Then Briarwick was called.

They ran onto the floor.

The lights hit Roxie first, followed by the noise, and for half a second the size of the arena almost overwhelmed her. Then the music started and everything they had practiced for weeks came back at once.

Her body knew what to do.

The opening sequence hit cleanly, and the first stunts rose without trouble. The crowd became one continuous sound beneath the music while Roxie moved through counts she no longer needed to think about. Their tumbling landed, their transitions stayed tight, and even when one stunt shifted enough to send panic through her stomach, the bases corrected before it became anything more.

After that, the routine seemed to disappear underneath them.

Weeks of practice collapsed into two minutes and thirty seconds.

The final stunt went up.

They hit.

The last count came, and the entire team snapped into position as the music cut.

The arena erupted.

Roxie stayed frozen until they were released, and the second they cleared the floor, the whole team broke into shouting and laughter. Angela screamed, Karen grabbed Roxie around the shoulders, and someone behind them had already started crying.

Coach Miller met them backstage.

Everyone immediately looked at him.

He studied the team for several seconds before nodding.

”Good job.”

Karen stared at him. ”That’s it?”

Coach Miller raised an eyebrow. ”You want the corrections?”

Ava’s eyes widened. ”Oh God. We have corrections?”

Coach Miller laughed. ”Relax. You did everything right.”

The relief that moved through the team was immediate.

Roxie finally breathed.

The waiting afterward was almost worse than the performance. More teams competed, scores shifted, names moved across the screens, and every time someone refreshed the rankings, half the team crowded around the phone.

Roxie eventually stopped looking because she could feel herself getting sick every time the page loaded.

When the preliminary results finally appeared on the main screen, the entire team went quiet.

Angela grabbed Roxie’s arm.

”Rox.”

Roxie looked up.

Briarwick was there.

They had advanced.

For a second, she only stared at their name before Karen screamed beside her. Angela threw both arms around her, someone behind them started jumping, and Kendall covered her mouth as the team dissolved into noise.

Coach Miller stood nearby, trying to look calmer than everyone else, but even he was smiling.

They had made it through preliminaries.

Roxie looked back at their name on the screen and felt something inside her finally loosen. The corners of her eyes burned.

God.

If they had been eliminated today, she had no idea how she would have taken it after everything they had put into getting here.

There were still stronger teams ahead of them and more rounds to survive, but Briarwick was still here.

For now, their name on the board is enough.