The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

Chapter 315: Chapter 315 - Watch Me

Zac’s POV

The first beat hit, and Roxie moved.

Whatever Mason had been saying beside him disappeared from Zac’s attention almost immediately.

Roxie stepped into the opening counts with controlled choreography, crossing the floor with the music before planting both hands and flowing through a front walkover. She came up without pausing, turned straight into the next sequence and lifted one leg high enough to make the cheer section scream before lowering it with the same control.

Zac smiled.

He had watched Roxie cheer more times than he could count. He had seen her tumble during games, watched her push through practices until her legs shook and sat through enough competitions to know what she could do, but seeing her alone in the middle of the floor was different. There was no team moving around her and no formation pulling his attention somewhere else. Every skill belonged to her.

She moved through a few more counts, turned and went straight into an aerial before spinning out of the landing and continuing as if she had barely done anything.

The noise around the gym grew.

Mason leaned closer. "Where’s the chair? I thought she was gonna try to beat me."

Zac glanced at him. "Dude, nobody can beat your crazy performance."

Kyle’s mouth twitched beside them. "How you got Alden and the others to join you is still a mystery."

Mason grinned. "My friends wanted to do that cringey song, so I used Benjamin to pull the heartthrobs."

Zac laughed, but Mason’s comment about the chair stayed in his head.

Apparently, Roxie had sold that fake routine to more people than he realized.

He knew exactly where the lie had come from too, and the memory made heat crawl up the back of his neck. Roxie dancing for him in the living room, messing with him because she knew exactly what it did to him, had been something between the two of them.

Now half their friends apparently knew some version of it.

That irritated him more than it probably should have.

"She really sold that story, huh?" Dylan muttered.

"Apparently."

Zac turned back toward the floor in time to see Roxie take two quick steps and lift one leg into a controlled standing split. She held it long enough for several cheerleaders to lose their minds before lowering smoothly into the next count.

Kyle’s eyebrows rose.

Dylan laughed. "Never mind."

Zac’s mouth curved.

Yeah.

That’s his girl.

Roxie transitioned into a back walkover and came up facing another side of the gym. The screaming followed her, but for a second Zac noticed something tighten in her expression.

Her smile disappeared.

Her shoulders changed just slightly, and her eyes swept across the bleachers before returning to the choreography.

Zac leaned forward.

He knew that look now.

After everything people had been saying about Claire, after Bianca had spent Friday practically advertising Roxie’s private life with the tickets, there was no way she could stand in front of hundreds of people without wondering why at least some of them had come.

For a second he wanted to get down there and pull her out of her own head.

Then Roxie’s chin lifted.

She hit the next count harder.

Zac relaxed slightly.

Come on, Rox.

The music picked up, and Roxie ran across the open section of floor before snapping into a roundoff and back handspring. She landed and used the momentum to turn immediately into the next section instead of stopping to wait for the reaction.

That was when Zac started realizing what made the whole thing look so fucking good.

She never stopped.

One skill carried into another until the crowd barely had enough time to react before she was already moving again. The tricks looked less like separate things she wanted everyone to clap for and more like part of the choreography itself.

Roxie turned, went through another aerial and transitioned into a flexibility hold that made Kyle lean forward slightly.

"Can she always do that?"

"Yeah."

Roxie released the hold and immediately threw another aerial.

Kyle glanced at him. "Damn. Zac must be happy."

Zac grinned. "Shut up."

Yesterday she had spent the entire day selling tickets while people whispered about her mother. She had turned Bianca trying to embarrass her into more money for Nationals, trained until after nine and then came back today to perform in front of the same school that had spent the week tearing apart pieces of her life.

Now half of Briarwick was screaming because she had just done another skill Zac couldn’t even name.

That felt fucking good.

Roxie moved toward the open corner of the court, and the crowd started getting louder before she even ran.

Zac smiled when he realized what had happened.

They had learned her.

Every time Roxie gave herself that much space, something bigger followed.

She took off, hit another roundoff and back handspring, but her landing shifted slightly when her foot touched the floor.

Zac saw it.

His stomach tightened.

Roxie saw it too. He caught the tiny flash across her face before she turned the extra step into the beginning of the next movement and kept going like nothing had happened.

Dylan nodded. "Nice save."

Zac looked at him. "You saw that?"

"I have eyes."

Kyle glanced at Mason.

Mason frowned. "What?"

Kyle said nothing, but the slight movement at the corner of his mouth made Zac laugh before turning back toward Roxie.

Something had changed in her.

This time, it was good.

She smiled.

A real smile.

Roxie turned toward one side of the bleachers during the next sequence, and the section screamed for her. She shifted toward the other side a few counts later and got an even louder reaction.

Her smile widened.

Zac knew that expression too.

She was finally having fun.

Once that happened, the nervous part of Roxie disappeared and the competitive one took over.

Everybody else was fucked.

She dropped into a split, rolled through the movement and pushed herself back up into another walkover while Angela screamed from near the curtain.

Karen lifted her clipboard over her head.

"COME ON, BITCH!"

Zac laughed along with everyone around him.

Someone beside Karen tried asking her something, but she raised one finger without taking her eyes off Roxie.

Coach Miller glanced toward her with the expression of someone remembering Karen was supposed to be helping run the event before turning right back toward the court.

Even he looked pleased.

Roxie came out of another sequence and finally looked toward the football section.

Her eyes moved across the row once before finding Zac.

The smile on his face faded for a completely different reason this time.

She was looking directly at him.

Roxie smiled.

His chest tightened in a way he refused to think about while Dylan sat right fucking beside him.

Dylan noticed anyway but didn’t say anything.

Zac understood why. Roxie was his girlfriend, but talking about her around Dylan still felt awkward in a way neither of them had fully learned how to move past.

Roxie turned away and ran into another tumbling pass. Roxie landed cleanly, and Zac realized he had already started rising from his seat.

The people around him got louder as the music shifted again.

Roxie moved toward the far side of the court.

This time, the crowd reacted before she even started running.

Zac leaned forward.

Something bigger was coming.

Roxie took one breath, then ran.

Roundoff.

Back handspring.

Layout.

For one second, Zac stopped breathing.

Her body lifted completely off the floor before turning through the air, and then her feet hit cleanly beneath her.

The entire gym fucking exploded.

Zac shouted with everybody else.

Roxie barely gave the crowd time to react before turning out of the landing, taking another step and throwing herself into an aerial that carried her into a controlled split.

"Holy shit," Jace said beside him.

Zac laughed. "Yeah."

Roxie pushed herself back onto her feet.

Her breathing was heavier now. Zac could see strands of hair sticking near her face and the effort starting to show in her legs, but she was still smiling.

That was what mattered.

Near the curtain, Kendall stood watching with her towel still around her shoulders. Her expression made Zac almost laugh because she didn’t exactly look pissed, but she definitely looked like Roxie had made the competition harder.

He would probably tell Roxie Kendall looked jealous.

Roxie finished the hardest part of the routine and moved into the final section with fewer acrobatics, letting the choreography carry her while she caught enough air to finish cleanly.

Someone in the bleachers started chanting her name.

Another section joined.

Then more.

"ROXIE! ROXIE! ROXIE!"

Zac’s chest tightened.

After the entire fucking week she had just survived, she deserved to hear her name like this. The final counts approached, and even though Zac had no idea what they were, he could tell by the way she moved.

Then Roxie hit her ending exactly when the music stopped.

The gym went still for half a second.

She held the position, chest rising hard while she caught her breath.

Then Briarwick lost its fucking mind.

Zac stood with everyone else.

Dylan was yelling beside him, Jace clapped hard enough to make Zac hear it through the noise, and Mason had both hands around his mouth while shouting something nobody could understand. Kyle only gave one small nod, but the look on his face said enough.

Zac barely paid attention to any of them.

He was watching Roxie.

She lifted her head slowly, and the expression that crossed her face hit him harder than the routine had.

Relief came first.

Then pride.

Then that smile.

Zac smiled back even though he had no idea if she could actually see him from the court.

Her eyes moved toward Kendall.

Kendall was clapping slowly now, and after a moment she gave Roxie a small nod.

Roxie smiled wider.

Zac understood enough about the weird relationship between those two to know what that meant. Kendall had basically admitted Roxie had been fucking good, which from her might as well have been a love confession.

Sometimes, he hate how Kendall’s opinion weighed so much.

Then Roxie looked toward Coach Miller.

Zac followed her gaze and understood that too.

The bleachers were packed.

People were still coming in from the booths outside, the entrance had continued selling tickets, and everything Roxie had talked about the night before had actually happened.

People had shown up for cheer.

For Coach Miller.

For Nationals.

All those tickets Roxie had spent Friday forcing into people’s hands had turned into an actual crowd.

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

Roxie’s smile widened again.

Noah walked onto the court while people were still cheering.

"Okay, apparently Roxie Jones has supporters."

The noise got even louder.

Roxie laughed and bent forward slightly, resting her hands on her thighs while trying to catch her breath and Zac couldn’t stop smiling.

Noah waited until the gym settled enough to speak again.

"Sweetheart tickets are still available at the entrance, and the club booths outside are still open, so please keep spending money before cheer finds another way to harass all of us."

The crowd laughed.

Roxie straightened and started searching the bleachers.

Zac already knew who she was looking for.

Her eyes found him.

He mouthed, "Told you."

Roxie rolled her eyes.

Then she smiled.

Zac grinned back.

He wanted to get down there.

He wanted to kiss her.

Later, probably.

Then something white floated past Roxie’s shoulder.

Zac frowned.

Roxie flinched and looked down as another white rectangle drifted several feet away from her.

A third followed.

At first Zac thought somebody had thrown confetti or decorations from above, but people near the court started looking upward and Noah slowly lowered the microphone.

Karen stopped waving her clipboard.

Coach Miller turned toward the second floor.

Zac’s smile disappeared.

"What is that?" Jace asked.

Nobody answered.

A white rectangle floated toward the football section, and a guy several seats down reached up and caught it.

The expression on his face changed almost immediately.

Zac’s stomach tightened.

He looked toward the upper railing.

Movement caught his eye.

Someone stepped backward before he could make out who it was.

Then an entire stack came over the edge.

"What the fuck?"

The pictures separated in the air.

Dozens of them spun and fluttered downward, spreading across the court and bleachers while people reached up to catch them.

The cheering died.

Zac looked back toward Roxie.

She stood in the middle of the court, still breathing hard from the routine while photographs fell around her.

One landed directly in front of her.

Face up.

Roxie looked down.

Then she stopped moving.

Zac knew.

He couldn’t see the picture from where he was, but he knew from her face.

His stomach dropped.

"No."

He was already moving before Dylan said his name.

"Zac?"

Zac pushed past the people in front of him and headed for the aisle as more photographs landed across the court.

Students were picking them up now.

Whispers started spreading through the gym.

Zac took the bleacher steps two at a time.

By the time he reached the bottom, he could finally see one of the photographs lying several feet from Roxie.

Claire.

His chest went cold.

The picture showed her looking rough, exactly the kind of image Roxie would never have wanted anybody at Briarwick to see.

Another photograph landed nearby.

Claire again.

Zac looked at Roxie.

Her face had gone blank.

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