The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 310: Chapter 310 - Buy Two

Karen stiffened beside Roxie, and Angela stopped opening the money envelope.

Roxie stared at Bianca. She tried to control her face, but God, Bianca always knew how to reach the worst parts of her. One smile, one tilted head, one careless little comment, and suddenly Roxie could feel every ugly instinct inside her waking up.

"Nobody asked you."

Bianca smiled like that was exactly what she wanted to hear.

"I’m helping."

"With what?"

Bianca glanced around the cafeteria first, making sure enough people had noticed the conversation before she looked back at Roxie. That was the part Roxie hated most. Bianca never only wanted to hurt her. She wanted witnesses. She wanted the room quiet enough for everyone to hear the hit land.

"Everybody wants to know the same thing anyway."

Someone from the next table looked over. "Know what?"

Bianca’s smile widened.

Roxie’s fingers tightened around the ticket stack. This bitch wanted a spectacle again. After everything she had already taken, after every whisper Roxie had dragged herself through that week, Bianca still wanted more. She wanted Roxie cornered in the middle of the cafeteria with tickets in her hand and Claire’s name waiting in her mouth.

"Everything everybody’s been whispering about all week," Bianca said, her voice carrying just enough for the closest tables to quiet down. "Your mom. The motel. The men."

The cafeteria seemed to pull tighter around Roxie.

Karen moved first. "Shut the fuck up, Bianca."

Bianca barely glanced at her. "Why? I’m advertising. I’m helping the cheer team."

"You’re being a bitch."

"I know."

Angela stepped closer to Roxie’s side. "Back off."

Bianca’s eyes stayed on Roxie.

"You’re performing tomorrow, right?"

Roxie said nothing.

Bianca looked at the tickets in her hand, then dragged her gaze over Roxie from head to toe. Slowly. Like Roxie had become something on display before she had even stepped onto the Sweetheart floor.

"Twenty dollars to watch Claire Woods’s daughter dance." Her mouth curved. "That’s cheap."

The words hit so hard Roxie forgot how to breathe.

Cheap.

Dance.

Claire.

For one horrible second, the cafeteria disappeared. Roxie heard only that word and everything it dragged behind it. Cheap. The house. The men. Claire coming home with smeared makeup and dead eyes.

She had spent years trying to make sure Briarwick never put Claire’s shame on her body.

Now Bianca had done it with one sentence.

Karen’s voice cut through the ringing in Roxie’s ears. "You fucking bitch."

Bianca leaned back, pleased now because she had seen it land.

"What?" she asked sweetly. "I’m saying she should charge more. Her mom probably would have."

The cafeteria went quiet.

Roxie felt Angela inhale beside her. She felt Karen shift forward, ready to cross the space between them and do what Roxie’s whole body wanted to do.

For a second, Roxie almost let her. It would have been easy to stand back and let Karen explode, easy to let someone else punish Bianca because Roxie was too busy trying to keep herself from shaking.

But that was what Bianca wanted.

A fight. Tears. A scene.

She wanted Roxie to become exactly what she had been calling her all week. Trash. Angry. Out of control. Claire’s daughter in the ugliest way possible.

Roxie caught Karen’s wrist before she moved any farther.

Karen looked at her like she had lost her mind. "Roxie."

Roxie still couldn’t answer.

Her fingers were tight around the tickets. So tight the edges cut into her palm. The pain helped. It gave her something small and sharp to focus on while the rest of her tried to fall apart.

Bianca waited.

The cafeteria waited.

Roxie looked down at the tickets.

Twenty dollars.

A cheap ticket.

A number Bianca had turned into a knife.

Kendall’s voice came back to her, sharp and cruel and somehow useful.

Make them fucking pay.

Roxie swallowed through the burn in her throat.

Then she looked back at Bianca.

"She’s right."

Karen froze. "What?"

Bianca’s smile faltered.

Roxie lifted the stack of tickets and turned toward the cafeteria before her courage could break. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her fingers, but her voice came out louder than she expected.

"She’s right. Twenty dollars is cheap."

A few people shifted in their seats.

Roxie smiled even though her chest still hurt.

"So buy two."

Someone near the center table laughed.

Roxie pointed at him. "See? He gets it."

The laugh spread.

Bianca’s face tightened.

That tiny change fed Roxie enough to keep going.

She walked to the nearest table and held out the tickets. "You want to watch me tomorrow? Twenty dollars. You want to bring somebody so you can whisper about me together? Forty."

A girl covered her mouth, laughing.

The boy beside her pulled out his wallet. "I’ll take two."

"Smart man."

Angela blinked once, then immediately opened the envelope.

Karen stared at Roxie for another second. Roxie could feel her anger still burning beside her, but something proud moved through it too. Then Karen grabbed several tickets from the stack.

"Fine," Karen said, turning toward the next table. "Who else wants to pay for the privilege of being nosy?"

The cafeteria came alive again.

Someone asked if the ticket came with answers.

Roxie handed over a ticket and smiled. "No. Just me in a cute outfit."

The girl laughed and paid.

Another student bought one and asked if the rumor was true.

For half a second, Roxie’s smile almost slipped.

There it was. The difference between laughing with her and trying to dig into her. The whole cafeteria could buy tickets. They could watch her perform. They could talk about the dance, the outfit, the music, whatever version of Roxie she chose to put in front of them tomorrow.

But Claire was hers.

The motel was hers.

The grief was hers.

Twenty dollars gave them a seat. It gave them nothing else.

Roxie held out the ticket. "Thanks for supporting Nationals."

"That’s it?"

"That’s all twenty dollars gets you."

Karen slid beside her with the envelope. "Questions cost extra."

Roxie looked at her.

Karen smiled sweetly at the student. "And you can’t afford them."

The people nearby laughed, and the student backed off with his ticket.

More hands lifted.

More phones came out.

More tickets disappeared.

Roxie moved from table to table, smiling until her cheeks hurt. She complimented outfits. She remembered names. She teased the boys who complained about the price. Every laugh made the room feel less like Bianca’s. Every payment took the attention Bianca had tried to poison and turned it into something Roxie could hold in her hand.

Twenty dollars.

Twenty dollars.

Twenty dollars.

If they wanted to stare at Roxie Jones, fine.

They could help send her team to Nationals while they did it.

By the time Roxie finally looked back, her stack had been cut almost in half.

Bianca was still sitting there. Her smile had tightened so much it barely looked like one anymore.

Roxie lifted the tickets slightly. "Thanks for the promo."

Bianca’s eyes hardened.

And Roxie turned away, feeling more confident, even if her heart was thudding hard in her chest..

"Enjoy tomorrow." Something about the way Bianca said it made Roxie stop.

She looked back.

Bianca’s smile had changed. It was almost challenging.

The satisfaction Roxie had been holding onto shifted uneasily in her stomach.

Enjoy tomorrow.

The words sounded less like another insult and more like a promise. Roxie stared at Bianca, trying to read what was hiding behind that smile, but Bianca only tilted her head slightly before turning back toward Lily.

Angela called her because somebody needed change.

Roxie forced herself to look away.

Bianca was always a bitch.

That part was familiar.

Still, the words stayed in the back of her mind as she kept selling.

Across the cafeteria, Zac was still watching.

The jealousy had disappeared from his face. His eyes moved briefly toward Bianca before returning to Roxie, eyebrows lifting slightly.

Roxie knew the question.

Are you okay?

She gave him the smallest nod.

Zac held her gaze for another second before nodding back.

He did not rush over. He did not make a scene. He did not turn her fight into his.

He trusted her.

That helped more than Roxie wanted the whole cafeteria to see.

She smiled faintly and turned back toward Karen and Angela.

By the time lunch was almost over, their stack was nearly gone.

Kendall appeared beside them with Tori, her eyes immediately dropping toward Roxie’s remaining tickets and then toward the thick envelope Angela was holding.

"What the fuck happened?"

Roxie smiled sweetly. "Talent."

"I heard Bianca advertised for you."

"Sounds like good management."

"That’s bullshit."

"Jealous?"

"No."

"You look jealous."

Kendall’s eyes narrowed. "She sold half those tickets for you."

"And yet the money is in our envelope."

Kendall looked like she wanted to strangle her.

Roxie smiled wider.

"Keep up, Whitlock."

Kendall walked away muttering something under her breath.

Karen watched her go. "That was satisfying."

Angela looked at the envelope. "Very."

The afternoon moved slower, but the sales kept coming.

Some students bought because they genuinely wanted to support Nationals. Some wanted to watch their friends perform. Some wanted to see Mason embarrass himself. Others had heard about Roxie’s dance.

And some still bought because of Claire.

Those were easy to recognize because they lingered after paying.

"Is what they’re saying about your mom true?"

Roxie handed over the ticket. "Thanks for supporting Nationals."

That was all they got.

Another student asked whether Claire had really been found in a motel.

Roxie looked at the ticket already in his hand. "You paid?"

"Yeah."

"Then we’re done."

She walked away.

Claire stayed off limits.

Later, near the stairs, Roxie heard something uglier.

Two students were talking behind them, their voices low enough that they probably thought she couldn’t hear.

"She had guys coming in all the time."

"Because she was selling herself."

Roxie stopped.

Angela almost walked into her.

Karen’s head turned immediately.

The students went quiet.

Roxie stared ahead for several seconds while the words settled somewhere ugly inside her.

Men.

Selling herself.

Claire.

Then she caught her own name in another whisper, and for one awful moment the line Bianca had drawn between mother and daughter tightened around her again.

Her fingers closed around the tickets.

Karen moved closer. "Roxie."

Roxie swallowed, anger burning through the exhaustion.

She wanted to turn around. She wanted whoever had said her name to repeat whatever came after it while looking directly at her. She wanted to ask them what they knew about Claire besides the ugliest parts people passed around because cruelty was easier than truth.

But if she turned around, she would give them another story.

If she screamed, they would talk about that too.

If she cried, Bianca would win from wherever she was.

Roxie looked down at the tickets instead.

Nationals.

Coach Miller.

The team.

Everything they had done to earn this.

Roxie lifted her head. "Come on."

Karen studied her face. "You okay?"

"No. But I’ll live."

Angela’s expression softened. "You need rest? We can take it from here."

Roxie started walking. "No. We still have tickets. I want our names together."

Karen sighed and squeezed her arm.

Near the end of the day, a freshman approached while Roxie only had a few left.

The girl looked nervous enough that Roxie immediately expected another question about Claire.

Instead, she pointed toward the tickets.

"Can I buy one?"

Roxie blinked. "Yeah."

The girl handed over twenty dollars.

Roxie gave her the ticket.

"I saw State."

Roxie paused.

"You guys were really good."

No Claire.

No motel.

No gossip.

Just cheer.

Something in Roxie’s chest loosened.

"Thank you."

The girl smiled. "I hope you win Nationals too."

Roxie’s smile came easier. "Me too."

By the time every group returned to the gym, the cheerleaders were exhausted, loud and talking over each other while Noah and Coach Miller emptied envelopes across the scorer’s table.

Roxie dropped onto the lowest bleacher between Karen and Angela.

Kendall stood across the gym with Tori.

Every few seconds Kendall looked toward Noah’s clipboard.

Roxie did exactly the same thing.

Karen noticed. "You both look insane."

"I want the number."

"You’ll survive."

"No."

Angela leaned briefly against Roxie’s shoulder. "How much do you think we made?"

"A lot."

"Helpful."

Noah kept counting.

Kendall eventually called from across the gym, "Are you done yet?"

Coach Miller looked up. "Whitlock, ask me again and I’m subtracting ten from your individual total."

Kendall immediately shut her mouth.

Roxie laughed.

Coach pointed at her. "That applies to you too, Jones."

Roxie looked away while Karen laughed beside her.

Eventually Noah handed the clipboard over.

Coach Miller looked down.

The gym quieted.

Roxie sat straighter.

Coach raised his head.

"Three hundred fifty-eight."

For a second, Roxie only stared.

Then the gym exploded.

Angela grabbed her from one side while Karen shouted directly beside her ear. Girls jumped from the bleachers. Somebody screamed behind them. Tori nearly tackled Kendall while Coach Miller tried getting everyone to settle and failed.

Three hundred fifty-eight.

They had fucking done it.

Roxie laughed while Karen squeezed her, but her eyes moved toward Coach Miller.

He was still standing beside the scorer’s table. His shoulders had dropped, and the tension that had been sitting in his face all morning was gone.

Relief.

Real relief.

Roxie stared at him, and suddenly the number meant more than money.

Tomorrow the gym would be full. Some people were coming for their friends. Some were coming for football players. Some were coming for Roxie. Some were coming because of gossip.

But they were coming.

Coach Miller had spent years building this team, pushing them through every shitty practice and every competition until they finally won State. He had fought for cheer long before Briarwick cared whether they ever reached Nationals.

Roxie had wanted to give him this.

People showing up.

People actually supporting his team.

Coach Miller caught her looking and gave her a small nod.

Roxie smiled and nodded back.

That meant more than she expected.

Naturally, Kendall ruined it.

"What are the individual totals?"

Roxie’s head snapped toward her.

Coach Miller stared. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

Roxie stood. "Actually, I want to know too."

Karen groaned behind her.

Coach looked between Roxie and Kendall like he regretted announcing the achievement board entirely.

"Top Fundraiser stays open through Sweetheart. Door sales and performer votes still count."

Kendall looked at Roxie.

Roxie looked back.

"Tomorrow," Kendall said.

Roxie lifted her chin. "Can’t wait."

Kendall walked away with Tori.

Roxie sat back down between Karen and Angela, still smiling while the team celebrated around them.

They had done it.

Nationals felt closer now.

Real.

When Roxie finally left the gym, exhaustion had settled back into her body, but she did not mind it as much. Karen and Angela were a few steps ahead, arguing about where they wanted to eat, when Bianca’s voice came back into Roxie’s head.

Enjoy tomorrow.

Roxie’s pace slowed slightly.

Something about Bianca’s face when she said it still bothered her. The small smile. The private tone. The way it had sounded like Bianca knew something Roxie did not.

She glanced back toward the school.

For a second, the good feeling from the gym thinned.

Then Karen called her name.

Roxie turned back and caught up with them.

Bianca was being Bianca.

Tomorrow was Sweetheart.

Roxie was going to enjoy it anyway.

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