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Joanna called shotgun, and so Rosalie hopped into the backseat of a black Taurus. The seats were sleek leather, and so Rosalie slid on her silky Adidas sweatpants and tipped a bit too far for comfort. There was a duffle sitting on the seat beside her. She weaseled herself up into a sitting position, and realized that Joanna's father was staring right at her.

    And that Joanna's father... looked a lot like a woman.

    Lieutenant Colonel Spencer had a sharp-looking crewcut and perfectly manicured, thick brows that arched in Joanna's direction as she lowered her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose. Her eyes were the same caramel brown as Joanna's.

    "What?" Joanna said.

    "You gonna introduce me or do I have to do all the work myself?" Lieutenant Spencer said. Yes, definitely a woman, Rosalie said, sinking in her chair. She wondered why Joanna never bothered to correct her.

    "Lieutenant, Rosalie Mason. Rosie, this is my mom," Joanna said with a vague gesture between them. She snapped her seatbelt out and buckled it.

    "How was the dance?" Lieutenant asked, putting the car back in drive. She pulled out onto the boulevard.

    "It was good. I was Homecoming King," Joanna said.

    Her mom barked out a laugh, sunglasses back in place. "Nice one, Killer."

    "I'm serious. Rosie, back me up," Joanna said.

    "Oh! Um, yeah, she danced to Waterloo down the auditorium aisle," she said. Her mom laughed again, and so Joanna twisted around in her seat to look at Rosalie with a dull stare.

    "Ya see? She doesn't believe half the shit I spew even when I have evidence," she said. Rosalie laughed. Joanna slumped back in her seat and said, "Makes parent teacher conferences interesting 'cause you don't believe them either."

    "I've only ever trusted one man, and that man's dead, so you know what?" her mom said. Rosalie stared wide-eyed out the window.

    "Jesus Christ here we go," Joanna said, crossing her arms.

    Lieutenant Spencer looked at Rosalie through the rearview mirror. "His name was Sir Harold and I loved him very much. He was a bright orange tomcat. He could open doors and all that shit," her mom said, gesturing sharply with one hand and driving with the other.

    "Get another cat if you love them so much," Joanna said.

    "You're allergic."

    "I like to suffer," Joanna said, nose in the air. "Rosalie's got a demon cat."

    "No shit? What's its name?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Rosalie.

    "Khoshekh," she answered. "He has a white patch on his forehead that makes it look like he has three eyes."

    "That's stunning," Lieutenant Spencer said, turning back to the windshield. "I've never heard of such a gorgeous cat before. Sir Harold doesn't even compare."

    They arrived at the gym parking lot before long, but not until after Joanna hooked up her phone and started playing ABBA in low volumes. Her mother shook her head with a sigh and said, quietly, "That's so nice. I love that." Rosalie grinned from the backseat and looked between Joanna's headrest and the doorframe where she could see Joanna wiggling her eyebrows at her through the side mirror.

    Once the car was in park, Lieutenant Spencer swiped her keys up along with her phone, and tossed a plastic bag at Joanna as Joanna was leaving. "Clothes, missy," she said.

    "Alright, alright," Joanna said, digging her hand into the bag. She started unbuttoning her shirt in the middle of the parking lot—in broad daylight in the middle of October.

    The car beeped behind them as Lieutenant locked the doors and said, "Alright, girls, go-time. I have a meeting at noon and I'm not about to miss it."

    "I saw your duffle in the back," Joanna commented.

    "Yeah, I'll be gone until Thursday," she said, and all that gave Rosalie so much whiplash she didn't expect to hear any more news until post-workout. Yet, there the Lieutenant was, filling Joanna in on something Rosalie's mother would have underlined in bold red marker on the calendar weeks ago. "I'm leaving the car with you. You shouldn't be driving that vespa out in this weather."

    "It's not even that cold," Joanna said, shirt completely unbuttoned. She slipped it off her shoulders and stuffed it into the bag. Thankfully, she was wearing a sports bra—bright, electric blue. Rosalie turned back around, eyes forward, and worked on tying her hair up in the meantime.

    "I'm just sayin'," she said. "Now how do you two know each other?"

    "Lot of the same classes," Joanna said before Rosalie could even open her mouth.

    Rosalie reached forward for the door handle and held it open for Joanna and the Lieutenant. Joanna's mom gave her a pat on the shoulder as she said, "Good. I see you're wearing a Knights soccer sweatshirt."

    "Oh, yeah—" Rosalie started.

    "She's the soccer captain," Joanna said.

    "I thought you were done with soccer snobs," her mom said. "Did you ever pick an extracurricular?"

    "Yeah, woodworking," Joanna lied. Rosalie opened her mouth to object, but Joanna jabbed her elbow into her ribcage. Rosalie coughed and hid it behind her wrist when the Lieutenant looked back at them.

    "Good. No offense to you, Rosalie, but soccer girls are the scum of the earth. I've never seen so many two-faced bitches and I work for the government," she said. Rosalie would have laughed, but she was still trying to get over the fact that Joanna never told her mom what sport she was playing, or that she was even playing a sport.

    Didn't parents have to sign a form for their kids to play sports?

    They swiped their cards at the front desk and went to the locker room. Rosalie was already changed and so she waited on the bench for them. She wondered whether or not she could approach Joanna about the lie. Were they on that page? Granted, Rosalie was certain no one else at Bradshaw had ever met Joanna's mother, so that gave her some leverage.

    She reassured herself that it wasn't out of line. She just had to wait until it was just the two of them.

    Though, the instant Joanna was dressed, the Lieutenant was with them again, listing off their regimen for that morning. Joanna followed after her towards the weights, and Rosalie trailed behind, picking at her nails and letting her mind wander to far-off conclusions.

    Something must have happened in Germany to cause Joanna to quit, her mind offered.

    Rosalie cycled through her music on shuffle until she came to a song she liked. She stretched out on the rubber mats and, in the process of bending forward to touch her toes, she thought, Well, Joanna did mention something about her previous team being like Adams. Militant, and all that.

    Though, Lieutenant Colonel was in the military. Wouldn't the Lieutenant see that as a good discipline study? Joanna needs a little discipline anyways, Rosalie countered, so that couldn't be the answer.

    Rosalie couldn't deny the Lieutenant's opinion of soccer girls. She'd been playing soccer all her life and had come across more than one satanic team in her lifetime. From her Club teams, she knew of several girls who quit soccer entirely because of the abuse from alpha teammates.

    Joanna doesn't seem like the kind of girl to give in to gossip and verbal abuse, she thought, setting the speed on her treadmill. But then again, I guess I don't know her as well as I sometimes think.

    Rosalie's mind tended to spread and conquer during runs. She no longer focused on one minute detail, but instead entertained dozens that made it impossible for her nerves to fixate. Where were her priorities? She had a test this week—granted, it wasn't until Thursday, but it should have been on her mind all this morning. After clearing her head with a long run, though, studying definitely came easier to her.

    But then again, Joanna was on her mind again, and to her surprise, as was Jamie. Wasn't Homecoming supposed to banish all possibilities of a crush forming? She supposed she expected him to make a fool of himself—which... he did, for Blake Miles, anyways. Maybe that's why Lennie's so harsh on Jamie-Lee for talking about Blake Miles, she realized, shocked that she didn't realize it sooner. Des Lennie even know that Jamie-Lee's bisexual?

    The prospect of having Lennie in the dark swelled her own sense of pride. Jamie-Lee felt comfortable enough around her to mention it, as they shared this small yet prominent aspect of life together.

    Is sexuality a small topic though? she wondered. She hadn't given it much thought until now, so it didn't seem as big of an issue. But then again, she rarely crushed on people, and therefore didn't realize its importance until she sat with Joanna Spencer outside of an average Baskin Robins.

    You've got to stop thinking about this. What happened to soccer and grades being your biggest deal? her mind cried, slamming itself against the inside of her skull like her head against the wall. It wouldn't be long before she lost her mind more than she already had.

    She opened her phone and went to the app she kept her digital notecards on. Since all of her classes slacked off last week in preparation for Homecoming, they'd be in for another rude awakening this coming week. Though, thinking about it just reminded her that Sami wouldn't be sitting at the lunch table anymore, which meant that he'd be far, far from Bradshaw.

    She wondered what Sami and Isaiah were doing now...

    Okay, gross, no, don't think about that.

    Sami spent all four years of high school—and, maybe, all of middle school—hiding this fact about himself. She couldn't imagine the sexual frustration...

    You're one to talk, her mind said, but it sounded a lot like Joanna singing in her head.

    She made the mistake of looking down the row of treadmills, and found Joanna heading her way. The clock on the wall said that she'd been running for half an hour. Joanna looked far more exhausted than any soccer practice, and Rosalie figured it had something to do with the time they finally went to bed the night before.

    Joanna had most of her bangs pushed back by a headband, though the curled, fair-colored baby hairs were still there on her forehead, dampened with sweat. She clapped her hand onto the console of Rosalie's treadmill as she slowed the pace to a walk.

    "You look like you've seen a ghost," Joanna commented.

    "More like running from it," she sighed, lungs burning. She put her hands over her head and huffed. "I'm convinced Sami and Isaiah are getting busy somewhere in my house and I just want to know where so I can avoid that spot of the house for my entire senior year."

    Joanna stared at her before snorting, bending forward laughing. She put her forehead to Rosalie's console before popping back up with a smile. "God, you've got an imagination."

    "Well, I mean, we left them alone at the house!" she cried thrashing her arms around. "Who knows what they're doing!"

    "Yeah, that's a fair judgement," she said. "Is this you asking me to convince that they aren't getting busy?"

    "Yeah, maybe a little," Rosalie admitted. Joanna rolled her eyes and pretended as though she wasn't amused. She looked out down the line of treadmills to the bikes and watched a guy struggle on an elliptical. Rosalie watched her profile, from the delicate arc of her button nose, to the firm, straight-set brow. Joanna's eyebrows, while expressive, were faint in color and almost blended with the color of her skin in certain lighting—florescent, more like, which was exactly the type of paneled lighting they stood under now.

    Rosalie's treadmill whirred beneath her as she continued to walk through her cool-down. "Why is it that you never corrected me about your mom's gender?" she asked.

    "Because I didn't see the point," she said, turning back to Rosalie. She tipped her head to the side. "If I'm being entirely honest, I didn't think you'd meet her. And honestly she doesn't care. Being mistaken as one gender or the other isn't a consequence."

    "It sort of seems like one."

    "To you, maybe," Joanna said. "The only reason I care about my own gender is because I'm gay and love my body."

    Rosalie laughed. "Words to live by."

    "Damn straight," she said with an ironic wink.

***

    Rosalie flicked her foot over the ball and hooked it with the tip of her cleat. She volleyed it from her laces to the inner material of her cleats before swapping feet. She gained height with each kick, aware that Ray was at the ready, braced for the pass. The other girls were gathered around—early arrivals at practice that day—as Rosalie shot the ball straight up, far over her head.

    She ducked forward and kicked her heel back, just barely catching the ball with it. It popped up and arced, off-center, but in Ray's general direction.

    The girls all leapt in excitement, clapping their hands as Rosalie bowed and Ray continued to volley the ball on the laces of her cleats.

    "I take it you two have been practicing that before I show up," Maguire's voice sounded up the hill to the side fields. The boys team had the soccer stadium that day. Maguire had her bag slung over one shoulder as she mounted the grassy hill and arrived at the sidelines where a plethora of water bottles sat, nestled in the grasses.

    "Don't distract me!" Ray demanded, holding a hand out as a gesture for everyone to stay where they were.

    "Yikes, you'd think it was life or death," Maguire laughed. She approached the circle after dropping off her things and came to stand with Rosalie. Juliana was getting ready for the backwards-pass.

    "Mind if I steal you for a minute?" Maguire asked Rosalie, gesturing to the sideline.

    "Sure," Rosalie said, following after her.

    She passed Rosalie the roster for the next game. They were getting close to the end of the conference—over halfway through with just two more games left—which meant they'd be doubling back and going against Adams again. Since the Adams game, they'd had more practice time with drills (grudgingly) supplied by Joanna from her days in Kaiserslautern. Not having Joanna over the summer meant having to change tactics at the same time gaming season started.

    Though, all our new tactics were a surprise to our opponents that way, she thought, skimming down the list of eleven girls for the game. The end of August comprised of practice games with schools in their county.

    Taft was next, but since their last encounter, Taft had stepped up their game. Coach Maguire had their record in front of Rosalie now, as if Rosalie hadn't been keeping track already.

    "Their last two games were luck," Rosalie said. "They went into overtime with Stone Ridge and Gregory, and Stone Ridge was lucky just to tie at the end of their match with Taft."

    She knew Maguire had already considered this, so her coach simply nodded and asked, "So what do you think?"

    "I wanted to save Kim Simons for Stone Ridge, but I also don't want to risk an injury with her."

    "I wouldn't put it past Stone Ridge, not after the last match," she said. "We'll put Simons in for Taft then with Sakamoto. We'll keep them out of Stone Ridge and put Sakamoto and Alyssa in for Adams next week."

    Hearing the timeline out loud had Rosalie's skin crawling. Their last game with Adams had been close, and that was with an advantage. It'd be worse this time around, now that they knew about Joanna Spencer. So far, the Lions' only fall was that one game against the Bradshaw Knights. Rosalie worried what tying with Adams would mean. She didn't want to deal with them longer than necessary.

    Being flattened by Adams meant two things: Having to go up against them again to break the conference tie on top of completely flattening the girls' morales.

    "That sounds good to me," she said, voice thick. She cleared her throat. "Don't bother putting Joanna in for the game against Taft or Gregory. I think she'd be better off with Stone Ridge for at least half the game."

    "Why Stone Ridge?" Maguire asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

    Rosalie shrugged. "I think she'd find it interesting. She'd be bored with the others—not including Adams."

    Maguire didn't question it, and Rosalie convinced herself that it was the best route. By the time this was decided, the rest of the team was gathered on the court trying their hand at backwards-volleying. Maguire came back to reality with a shrill whistle, snapping her fingers at all of the dilly dallying.

    Brynn stuttered to a halt, the ball in the process of popping up over her head. It hit her in the back of the head as Maguire said, "Stretches, ladies! Circle up!"

    The group of girls erupted into giggles. Maguire dropped her arms in annoyance as Brynn caught her balance and rubbed the back of her head. Brynn smiled sheepishly at Coach, and Rosalie offered a reassuring smile since Maguire didn't seem to be in the mood for it.

n/a: I think I'm gonna have a chapter in Jamie-Lee's point of view :O What do you guys think?