ROSHELLE

Roshelle sighed at the back of Phaedra Barlow's Webber High jersey as it disappeared out the stadium. She had her arms thrown around her girlfriend and the libero from her team. They were thick as thieves, just like the Thunderbirds used to be. Roshelle missed those days.

Calisto and Ursula Ziegler approached her from behind. "You gotta get better taste, sis."

Roshelle ignored Ursula's jibe in favor of getting to the bottom of her best friend's little outburst. "Aight, Callie. What's your problem with cutie over there?"

Calisto bristled. "Cutie? She's not that cute."

Roshelle shot a look at Ursula and got a shrug in return. She didn't know what had crawled up the girl's ass and died either. "Uh huh."

"Come on, you can do better."

"Why do you care?"

"I don't." She crossed her arms and then uncrossed them to throw her braids over her shoulder. They all wore their hair in matching French braids for the game—team spirit and all that—but Calisto took it to extremes. Hers reached down to her belly button and were intertwined with rose gold ribbons. Though not Roshelle's style, it was definitely a Look.

"That's a lie and you know it. You hate her for real. What's up?"

Calisto started to look uncomfortable the longer the two girls stared at her. She fidgeted with the end of her braids. "Don't worry about it."

"If it gets you worked up like this, Imma worry about it as much as I need to. I'm the captain, worrying's my job."

Ursula tapped her sneakers on the polished floor impatiently. "We ain't got all day."

"Then don't worry about me. I told you it's my business."

The ref on the sidelines blew his whistle and tapped his watch. The stadium needed to be spiffed up for another game in a couple of hours. Roshelle rubbed her brows. She was going to have to text her mom about this loss; that wasn't going to be fun.

"Whatever the deal is—and I'll find out, you best believe that—we've got work to do. Losers clean up." She led the way back to the court where the middle hitters were pretending to take down the net and count the gear they'd need to get back to school for storage on Monday.

Middle hitters did a lot of the work during the game and would do their damnedest to keep from cleaning up. Roshelle wasn't having it. This might be her first season as captain, but she wasn't born yesterday.

She tucked two fingers between her lips and let out a shrill whistle to round up her players. "Y'all know losing team cleans but I don't see any cleaning."

"We're tired," sniped her backrow #2, Maggie Roux, who was only distinguishable from Susie Walsh, backrow #1, by the tattoos that were visible now that ze'd taken off zir long-sleeve undershirt in favor of wearing just a jersey. Roshelle couldn't wait to get out of her own undershirt. She was soaked through. It wasn't anything but a Look on her.

"And I'm tired of losing, but I still do my job. Maybe we wouldn't lose if y'all did yours." She threw up her hands, cutting off their brewing complaints. She didn't want to hear arguments, she wanted to see action. This was so much easier when I was the co-captain. "I've got something for you, a proposition."

Maggie, Susie, and even Ursula perked up with interest. Calisto examined her nails. No backup there. She was on Callie's shit list, again, someplace annoyingly easy to end up. Whatever.

"Get it together, and I'll let you drive the Fury." That got their attention. Roshelle loved her car like she loved to play; she never let anybody drive her baby. Candy apple red, tail fins, original cloth top with the original interior. Mint condition. She'd found her in a junkyard; she'd defend the Fury with her life. It wasn't an idle promise. "Any takers?"

Susie thumbed her chin. "Get it together like what?"

"Clean up after yourself, come to practice on time and ready to play, play like you mean it, and play fair." It was Roshelle's captaincy on the line every time they got dinged for a foul serve or triple-touched the ball on a single volley. The Wild Girls weren't the only team with a growing reputation for cutting corners and Roshelle was sick of it. Her sister never had trouble like this. "Do all that and we can go on a trip to the Coast. We'll take turns driving the Fury. But we can start tonight. MVP drives to Good Eats." Good Eats was their favorite post-game destination for eating, drinking, and bitching about the opposition. "Don't sit here looking simple, y'all in or what?"

Ursula growled at the other players' gobsmacked looks. "I'll take down the net and count the shin and elbow guards." She pointed at Roshelle as she went. "You'd better be serious or dinner's on you."

Dinner was always on her anyway, perk of being team captain. Besides the exhaustion and the late hours and the snark from underperforming team players and...Why did she want this job again? Leadership positions looked good on her college application, right. That and making her mom happy to see her following her in college V-ball footsteps. It was barely worth it when it wasn't even her dream.

The team fell out of formation on Ursula's direction. Because Ursula should have been captain after Roshelle's sister...passed on, not Roshelle. Everybody thought so, even the newbies to the team.

A tattooed figure skittering toward the exit caught her eyes. "Susie, if you sneak out of here without helping us pick up the trash I'll make you run twenty laps first thing Monday!"

Susie stomped back to the court past an overflowing trashcan. "As if!"

"Karma got its kiss for you," Maggie snickered at the other back rower, a plastic bag already in hand, though suspiciously empty despite all the trash littering the stadium floor.

"Unless that bag's got something in it in the next five minutes, you'll be running with her."

Suddenly not so funny.

Roshelle Dumas low-key hated being captain, but it was the Dumas way. She'd get her delinquent team into shape before graduation or get suspended trying.

And if she saw Phaedra Barlowe again here and there? Icing on the shitty senior year cake.