Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved.

It was nearing midnight when Rosalie typed in the code on the Maple Grove gate and hopped onto the back of Joanna's vespa for the last leg of their journey. She perched her hands behind her, leaning back from Joanna's backpack as they sped for the Mason residence. Joanna had her curls tied over one shoulder to keep it out of Rosalie's face, and when they pulled to a slow stop in her driveway, Joanna began undoing the tie.

Rosalie stepped off the vespa. She opened her mouth to say goodbye, but instead, she said, "I'm sorry to hear about... what happened in Kaiserslautern."

Joanna's fingers paused over the braid, and Rosalie expected to get a warning look, but instead, Joanna kept her eyes on the handlebars. Rosalie swallowed hard, but all her feelings were lodged in her throat. She didn't want something like that to happen to anyone, let alone Joanna and Lennie.

"I just want you to know that... well, you probably already know, but I would never do that. To you," Rosalie said, only to roll her eyes with a nervous laugh. "Or anyone, really."

Joanna laughed, but it was one of her sarcastic laughs she used with Jamie and Dylan in French class. "Yeah, sure Killer," she said. "I never pegged you as the type."

Rosalie nodded, turning her eyes down to her sneakers. She twisted the sole of her left foot around on the concrete. She wanted to fill the silence, but had nothing equipped to do so, so instead she stood and wondered if she should just walk away. The silence stretched, though, and she knew Joanna was watching her.

Thankfully, Joanna came to her rescue. "Tell Khoshekh I say hey."

"Yeah, okay, will do."

"I'll see you on Monday?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. See you then," Rosalie said, and with that, she turned and hurried to the front door.

She squeaked inside, narrowly avoiding Khoshekh's angry paw trying to hold the door open. She listened to Joanna's vespa peel away onto the street before moving from the foyer. She scooped up Khoshekh on her way to the stairs, and hugged him to her chest. She collapsed into her bed like this, with Khoshekh begrudgingly curled up against her stomach. It took a few minutes of this for her heart to finally calm, and for her to realize that she chewed a hangnail right off. The blood collected on her lips before drying on her nail.

She sighed at the sight. Sami was on her mind again, and the five-day-old timestamp on their last text conversation. By now, Sami would have known all about it, but now?

Well, so much for a no-drama year, she mused.

***

Since the battle against the Adam High Lions was an away game for girls, it meant their final match with Adams was home, and the stadium was filled with Knights' blue—bundled up in scarves and hats, clutching hot chocolates in their mittens.

But before all of Bradshaw geared up in their best school spirit winter apparel, there was a Monday. And before that, a Friday. Fridays were designated laundry days for a lot of the girls, simply because weekend practice was few and far between. With the Adams match coming up, though, they scheduled a late morning practice (for which Rosalie got the brunt of the annoyed groans for since she was the one to suggest it).

And this was precisely where Rosalie went wrong.

On Fridays, she often prioritized getting her laundry done for the sake of having her duffle ready the following Monday, but after spending Friday night at Jamie's, she completely forgot about laundry. Her school uniform didn't smell too bad on Friday, so they could go for another week of use if she rotated them properly with her new dress pants. Just thinking about her new dress pants reminded her of shopping at Kohl's with Sami, though, and so she just didn't think about them.

And, so, in went all of her practice clothes, jersey, and socks to the hamper where they sat in the dark of her closet until Monday when she completely forgot that they did not reside in her zipped up duffle. All that existed in her duffle then happened to be a spare uniform, shinguards, and her soccer ball. Her cleats were airing out in the mudroom.

She dropped into the passenger's seat of Ray's vehicle and tossed her duffle into the backseat.

"Ready for Hell Part Two?" Ray asked.

Rosalie slapped her hands onto her thighs and said, "You know I am always ready."

"Right, because you summon it," Ray said with a roll of her eyes. She turned the wheel around, backing out of Rosalie's driveway. As they went forward, they passed the Griffin residence where Sami's car had already vanished. They both stared until it was out of sight over Rosalie's shoulder. She turned to look at Ray, who pursed her lips and looked back at the road.

Rosalie knew that face. She knew something Rosalie didn't, and it was obvious enough that meant she wanted Rosalie to ask. She sighed, rubbing a finger to her temple. "What do you know."

"Nothing in particular."

"Then what was that look?"

"What look?" Ray said, grinning. She bit her lip and glanced sideways at Rosalie. "You read into it too much."

"Yeah, what else is new," Rosalie groaned, kicking a foot up on her seat. She slouched against the door with a groan. "Sami and I haven't been talking. Have you talked to him at all?"

"A little. I think Blake, like, adopted him or something," she said, and Rosalie gasped, straightening instantly. She nearly kicked her knee into the dash.

"You're kidding! That's great—right? I mean, Blake's a good guy."

"I don't know—you tell me," Ray said with a devious laugh and a wiggle of her eyebrows. Rosalie slapped her in the arm hard enough to bruise. Ray jerked the wheel with a shriek, and thankfully, the boulevard wasn't busy. Rosalie yelped, hand on the dash as Ray straightened the car out.

As they pulled into Bradshaw's parking lot, Ray said, "How much you wanna bet Blake's takin' your spot?"

Rosalie scoffed. "No more than five. I'm not that replaceable."

"So you think you're better than Blake, huh?"

"That's not what I'm saying," she laughed, hand to her face. She giggled as Ray gawked at her.

"Then what are you saying?" Ray said, throwing the gear stick into park before dropping back into her seat, eyebrows raised at Rosalie. Rosalie couldn't stop giggling.

She dropped her hands down, palms out. "Look, Blake just isn't Sami's best friend material. Blake's more like, 'best friends within minutes' and then 'dating the next day'."

"Yeah, that makes a lot of sense."

"So my best friend status still stands. Even... if we haven't talked in five days..." Rosalie said with a hum, hand clasped to her chin. She frowned out the window until Ray kicked her back into focus, swinging the driver's door open.

School went as per usual, aside from the state of their lunch table that day. With Sami gone, Joanna grabbed his seat, but that Monday, she had to fight for seat property with Jamie-Lee.

Alyssa grimaced as Jamie-Lee shouldered his way between her and Joanna before settling in with a massive smile. Alyssa rolled her eyes and took a bite out of her carrot as Juliana narrowed her eyes at him from across the table.

"Why are you so happy," she said with a glum frown. She picked at her salad as she added with extra hostility, "I swear every meal before Adams is the last one."

"Dude, we've still got two more meals after this," Joanna said. She turned to Jamie. "Also, why are you here?"

"I think we're gonna win tomorrow. Because I have a secret weapon," he declared, chin in the air, hand on his hip. Juliana snorted and Alyssa rolled her eyes again, harder this time.

"Oh yeah, and what's that?" Rosalie said.

"My body," Jamie said. He smoothed his hand down the length of his body before settling at his thigh. Juliana spat out a leaf of lettuce and covered her mouth. Alyssa looked like she was about to take her food and move elsewhere.

Joanna laughed and shook her head. "Yeah, no, that's not gonna work."

"Why shouldn't it? I have a rocking bod," Jamie said.

"You might, but you're going against a closeted team," Joanna said. "Regardless of how Blake acts, no one on that team is about to explain to his bud that he just honed in on that junk and missed a shot."

Jamie opened his mouth to argue when a tray slammed onto the table beside Rosalie. She jumped and Ray leant over the table to point a finger at Jamie-Lee and Joanna. "This table was perfectly fine before the two of you showed up. Now who's honing in on who's junk, I gotta know."

"No one is honing in on anyone's junk," Rosalie said. "Now can we please stop talking about it?"

"But my secret weapon," Jamie whined.

"Jamie, no. And I mean it," Rosalie said.

She did mean it, but then again, she had no say in what Jamie did. She could tell exactly how much her words impacted him, and it was more like her argument was a feather landing on his hand. He brushed it off, and so after sixth period, she caught up with Lennie in the halls to say, "I think Jamie's gonna try and seduce Blake during the game tomorrow."

Lennie sighed. "Yeah, he already told me. I wish I could make coach just take him out for this game but Jamie's the fastest player on our team."

"I'm sure if you put Blake on one end of the field, he'll run twice as fast."

"That isn't funny," he said, but when Rosalie cracked a devious smile, Lennie gave in. He laughed and said, "Fine, okay. But I still don't trust either of them. How much do you want to bet that by the end of tomorrow, everyone's gonna know about them?"

"I'm not betting on that."

"Just figuratively speaking."

"Maybe twenty."

"You can go higher than that."

"I can, but I won't. I have college to pay for. But we all know half the class is paying for college via gambling, and the other half is being paid for by their parents," Rosalie said.

Lennie laughed. "I can't argue with that."

They split away to head to their designated lunch tables for study hall. Rosalie glanced back to where Lennie dropped his backpack off at his and Jamie's table before looking over at her. She twisted back around, horrified by the way her heart sped up. She clutched at her chest and cleared her throat as she dropped into the seat beside Juliana.

She barely unzipped her backpack before she got to thinking about practice—again. It was the tragic pre-Adam's Game practice and Rosalie knew that coach wouldn't tear them apart in fear of breaking them before the game, but she also knew just how tough it would be given that scrimmages put Joanna on the opposite team. She'd be playing a full game tomorrow on Rosalie's side of the field, but... after Friday, Rosalie felt a gnawing sensation at the thought of trying to score goals on Joanna. Perhaps it had something to do with the sound of Lieutenant Spencer's voice in the back of her head calling soccer girls two-faced bitches.

"What, did you forget something?" Juliana said from across the table. Rosalie realized she'd been staring into her backpack for the past few seconds.

"No, I—" The image of her cleats in the mudroom came to mind. "Shit. I forgot my cleats at home."

Ray snorted a little and said, "You did what?"

Rosalie slapped a hand to her ponytail, distress etching a line across her forehead. "Coach is gonna kill me. My gym sneakers have no traction on grass."

"That's how you get a sprained ankle," Juliana said.

"We got, like, forty minutes, fifty if you dress fast for practice—no horsing around," Ray said, and Rosalie nodded. "Because I know you've been horsing around lately."

"I haven't," she said, only to seethe at the cheeky grin on Ray's face. "I'm serious. I was late those times because of hanging up posters!"

"Sure girl. Let's go. Julie—watch our stuff and move it into the locker room if we're not back in time," Ray said, snapping her fingers at Juliana. Juliana nodded fervently, and watched as Rosalie and Ray bounded off to the courtyard doors. They walked as calmly as they could past the art department windows before making a getaway across the parking lot to Ray's car.

Ray shook her keys out of her blazer pocket. Rosalie was jumping on her feet on the passenger's side so that when the car unlocked, she was inside and buckled up before Ray so much as opened her door. She was at the ready for the Maple Grove gate, and as they pulled up to her driveway, she bolted across the driveway and leapt over the shrub at the corner of the walkway to shave a solid .2 seconds off of her run to the front door.

She unlocked the front door and flew threw, to the right, and into the mudroom where her cleats sat on the linoleum. She'd save laundry for that night, knowing that tomorrow would likely be a jersey day at school.

After swiping her cleats off the ground, she skidded back into the foyer, only to halt at the sight of the front door open just a crack.

She stared at it, wondering why that felt odd. She lowered the cleats to her side and stepped up to the door, pulled it open, and crossed the threshold. There, she stood on the welcome mat, and stared out at the yard.

Ray leant her head out the window and said, "What're you waiting for, girl! Get in!"

Rosalie turned back to the door and shut it before slowly making her way down the stone walkway and to the concrete drive where Ray stared at her through the passenger window. Rosalie leant over and said, "Did you... see Khoshekh escape?"

Ray's expression went blank. She glanced around Rosalie at the door and gave an uncertain shrug. "I... don't think so? Shit, Rosalie—"

"I gotta make sure he's inside," she said.

"Okay, but—hurry! Hurry!" Ray cried, flinging her hand out to shoo Rosalie back to the door.

She jogged back to the door and made absolute certain that the door closed behind her before sprinting up the stairs to her bedroom, her mother's bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, under the couches, and the litter box in the mudroom.

No Khoshekh sighting.

Rosalie stopped in the foyer, panting, face red. She put a hand to her forehead where the tension in her brow manifested into a full-blown headache before she even set foot out the door once more to deliver the news.

She tossed her cleats onto the porch and walked up to Ray's car. Ray dropped her head to her car horn and let it blare until Rosalie leant against the passenger window and said, "Just go back to school. I'll find Koshekh and run to practice."

"It'll be faster if I help you—"

"No, Ray," she said. Ray frowned at her from the driver's seat, devastated. It would take more than two hours to find a goddamn black cat that ran at the speed of light. "You have to be at practice. I'll be there."

"You fucking better," she said. "I'm not going against Adams without you."

Rosalie agreed and stepped away from the car. Ray pulled out of the driveway and, after pausing on the side of the road, headed back to the gates.