Chapter 27

Chapter 27
Amelia's POV

The girls behind me had already started talking.

"Is Joseph really not going to come to the field anymore once the season officially starts?"

"That's what I heard."

"That's such a shame..."

"You should see the new captain, what's his name again?"

"Samuel. Honestly, he's pretty good too... I'd join the cheer squad for him! If he'd have a drink with me..."

Evelyn turned to me, puzzled. "He wasn't there. When that group passed by, why wasn't Samuel with them?"

"If he had been—" She didn't finish.

I exhaled through my nose. Right, thank god. The last thing that hallway needed was Samuel happening to arrive just in time to personally hear Joseph announce we barely knew each other, along with everyone else's doubts about me—that kind of trouble would be enough to last an entire semester.

"He's probably giving himself extra training again," I said.

Evelyn made an expression somewhere between confusion and admiration. "He trains harder than anyone on the team, but he's already captain. I really don't understand this guy."

"He's competitive," I said, "just not about most things."

This was what people most often got wrong about Samuel.

He didn't care about grades like I did, didn't care about social status like Joseph did, and walking into any room, he had little interest in proving himself to anyone.

But the moment you put him on the court, something changed—that easy, golden retriever-like temperament would suddenly tighten into something almost unrecognizable. He wanted to win. Badly.

I understood this more than I was willing to admit.

I should check on him. The thought emerged before I could stop it. Extra training, late-night practice, the way he gritted his teeth and pushed through without mentioning a word—I knew what state his body was in after a week of hard training, and I also knew he wouldn't hit the brakes himself.

Then I remembered: I couldn't call a doctor for him anymore.

I let that thought go.

He's an adult, I told myself. He could take care of himself.

I sighed anyway.

The afternoon classes were easy. I finished a paper before dinner, so easily it felt almost unreal. Cassidy's message came shortly after six.

Tomorrow afternoon 4 to 6. Field behind the athletics building. Wear something you can move in. I'll take you through basic positions and chants.

I read it twice, calculated the timing in my head, and felt the first clean, straightforward relief I'd experienced in days.

Four to six was fine. By seven, seven-fifteen at the latest, I could get to the pub. Ray wouldn't be thrilled, but he'd seen enough students with various schedules—getting through one slightly late shift wouldn't be a problem.

I put on makeup in the bathroom mirror, then went to the pub.

The mysterious regular was back.

This time with a different book—thicker, darker spine, the cover revealing nothing.

He looked more cheerful than last time.

I didn't wait for him to speak before setting down the Tipperary. He looked up.

"You remembered."

"Not hard to remember."

He smiled briefly, then lowered his head back to his book.

In that instant when he looked down, I suddenly felt the outline before me was somehow familiar.

I felt like I'd seen someone similar somewhere.

But closer observation yielded nothing.

His scarf and hat blocked all inquiring gazes.

I gave up investigating.

During a quiet stretch between orders, I caught Ray.

"Boss, small request," I said. "Tomorrow I have practice until six. Can I come in a bit late?"

He barely looked up from the register. "How late."

"Thirty minutes. Maybe forty."

He grunted. "You clean up the tables properly before closing every time?"

"Every night."

"Then don't be forty minutes late." He turned back to the register. That was that.

I worked until my heels ached dully, and the last few late-night customers gradually dispersed. At some point it had started raining—I could hear the rain hitting the awning.

I was mentally calculating how long it would take to walk back when Ray appeared at the end of the bar. He stood for a second, then fished out a set of keys from under the counter and tossed them to me.

I caught them.

"Too late," he said. "Weather like this, a girl shouldn't walk back alone."

I looked at the keys, then at him. "Car keys?"

"Sharp observation. My car's parked at the back door. Just return it before noon."

"Ray—"

"Don't thank me." He'd already turned away, leaving behind a strange statement.

"Nothing to do with me."

I tried to find some logic in that statement.

But Ray had already hurried upstairs—he lived above the pub.

No one answered my confusion. All the customers were gone, including the most mysterious one.

In the end, I could only drive away with this puzzlement.

Time quickly arrived at the next afternoon.

At four o'clock, the practice field smelled of wet grass and chalk lines.

I stood in formation and found there were ten of us total.

Some faces were familiar, seen during tryouts, but I didn't know their names.

Cassidy walked in front of us with the unhurried authority of someone who'd run this same class countless times.

"We start from zero," she said. "Whatever you think you know, I don't care. With me, you'd better forget it all and then, listen to me."

Starting with arm positions. High V, Low V, T position, diagonal position. Clean angles, hard stops—no flow, no softness. Cassidy called out each position, walked through the formation, correcting without extra pleasantries. A drooping elbow here, a loose wrist there.

I tightened my focus. Shoulders down, arms fully extended, hands sharp as blades. The movements themselves weren't complex; the difficulty was discipline. Every position had to be executed with the whole body, landing precisely, no "close enough."

After positions came footwork. Step-touch, grapevine, pivot. She strung them into short combinations and had us follow the count.

I learned quickly. I knew I learned fast—it was an ability I'd traded other things for, with focus ranking first. By the third run-through, I could already land cleanly on the beat.

So I noticed the frown.

Cassidy walked through the formation, and every time she passed me, something crossed her expression. Not a correction—she hadn't corrected me once. Not dissatisfaction. Something else. The kind of look someone has when trying to match up something they can't quite articulate.

I'm not doing anything wrong, I thought, running through the combination again to confirm. Clean landings, correct positions, on the beat.

Still that frown.

The fourth time she walked by, I stopped second-guessing myself and started observing her instead. The way her eyes swept over me was no different from the others, but they lingered half a second longer on me. As if waiting for something.

Then she stopped.

"Amelia."