Mark My Words

22 | Romance Professional

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Ray knew more than anyone on the team, and it took far less than a jump and a leap to come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be long before they were all on the same page. Rosalie realized her mistake the following day when Joanna dropped into the seat beside Rosalie during lunch, and Ray was there to stare suggestively at them for the rest of the table to see. Rosalie shook her head discretely at Ray, the horror making it feel like her tongue was swelling like a balloon in the back of her throat. The team didn't need to know the specifics of how Rosalie made Joanna complacent.

Joanna rose an eyebrow at Ray, who wiggled her eyebrows back. Ray, the one who Rosalie could never be sure where she got her gossip, was just now wondering if she and Joanna were about to succumb to that sentence. They'd be gossip before Rosalie could even blink.

Joanna leaned towards Rosalie. "Why's Ray staring at me like that?" she whispered, not as discretely as she likely assumed. Rosalie closed her eyes and willed her desire to scream to fade.

"It's nothing," Rosalie insisted, taking the bun off her sandwich. She tore her lettuce into shreds and busied herself with devouring every last bite. She couldn't talk if she was eating.

Joanna perched a foot up on the bench and wrapped an arm around it. She dunked a chicken nugget in barbecue sauce. The cafeteria was covered in posters for Homecoming, and as she looked around at them all, coloring the otherwise pale white concrete bricks, Rosalie made a cutting gesture at Ray to silently plead that she cut it out. Ray stuck her tongue out in response.

Practice was only worse.

As co-captain, Ray was eager to partner everyone up before Rosalie could even open her mouth to argue. As such, Rosalie wound up partnered with Joanna for stretching and passing practice. Rosalie glowered at Ray from over Joanna's back. Ray winked at her as Joanna reached for her toes and Rosalie pushed her forward. When it was Rosalie's turn, she folded forward and draped her hands over her ankles, only to be shoved from behind by Joanna.

"C'mon, Killer, you can do better than that," Joanna said.

"I'm not flexible," Rosalie insisted with a groan, forehead pressed to her knees. "Consequences of having tight muscles."

"Let's do the thing where we hold hands," Joanna said, and Rosalie nearly squeaked. Instead, she choked on her saliva as Joanna crawled through the grass in front of her and plopped down so that the flats of her feet pressed up against Rosalie's. "Let's go, Killer," she said, waving her hands at Rosalie.

Rosalie stared at her in alarm before reluctantly slapping her hands over Joanna's and letting her pull every goddamn muscle in Rosalie's arms forward over their joined shoes. Rosalie's spine popped, and after the stretch was over, she flopped back into the grass all loosey-goosey and vividly aware that she had just held hands with Joanna. Granted it was for a stretch, but still!

Scrimmages went better than expected that day, if... Ray shooting Rosalie suggestive grins was considered "better than expected." Rosalie couldn't remember the last time Ray teased her over a guy before—Sami was always there for that.

At the end of practice, Joanna left the field with Brynn at her side. Brynn slung an arm around Joanna's shoulders, tugging at a strand of her blue hair and Joanna's red hair. She asked what Joanna would think if she died her hair orange, but Rosalie's mind faded out of focus around then. There was a notification on her phone when she arrived at her locker, from Jamie, asking if she'd want to stop by his house to try the dress on.

She texted back her affirmation and took her sweet time changing into proper clothes. The boys tended to get off practice before them since they started slightly later in the stadium field that day, so she had some time to kill. Maybe she'd work on Anatomy while she waited—