Mark My Words

37 | What's The Plan?

a/n:

Hey! Lovely to see that you're back after ALL THIS TIME! If you need a quick catch-up, check the PART TWO title chapter for details.

— — — — —

It would take more than just a handful of days to destroy Rosalie's motivation, but it took precisely fifty-six freshly-printed posters to make a sizable dent in her confidence in finding Khoshekh. Khoshekh, her somewhat problematic black cat—perhaps it was true that black cats did bring bad luck, but she didn't want to blame anything on that feral fiend of a cat. She appreciated Jamie-Lee's commentary, though.

"You know, maybe there's something to be said about banishing a black cat," Jamie-Lee said. He leant his shoulder against the post behind the printing machines, and when Rosalie looked up to scowl at him, he offered a shrug and looked away. "I mean, you did beat Adams without the black cat."

"Yeah, and we beat them twice—once with Khoshekh, and once without," she said. She snatched up the last of the posters and stacked them neatly into a pile. "Consider your argument annihilated."

"I'm just saying," Jamie-Lee said with a long, drawn-out groan. He followed after Rosalie, stomping his feet on the way. "You know, it's not the end of the world. Think about it—no more kitty litter, no more water bowl, feeding the little sucker. You have enough to worry about as it is. Unlike me—wait, that's a lie. Now I have to deal with Lennie being all depressed. You know he spent all weekend in a little blanket cocoon, licking his wounds?"

Rosalie rolled her eyes as turned the corner outside of the printing lab. Her heels clicked and echoed down the Bradshaw corridor with Jamie hurrying to match her pace. She looked sparingly at him as she said, smiling almost guiltily, "I bet he's just shocked that your one score against Adams was because you're a tease."

Jamie stuck his chin in the air with a proud smile. Rosalie saw videos of him on social media, recorded from the stands at the Lions' stadium, when Blake checked Jamie at the Lions' goal. Of course, Joanna found it hilarious and so Brynn showed the entire lunch table the video of Jamie shoving his ass into Blake's crotch during their battle over the ball. It gave him just enough time to push around Blake and score on the infuriated goalkeeper.

Suffice to say that just about every Lion on Blake's team loathed Jamie-Lee. Joanna claimed it was because they were all jealous of Jamie for "scoring such a catch."

Rosalie paused in the hallway and put a hand to her chin, her mind going back to the fact that Lennie Pittmen was crushed from their defeat against Adams' Lions. She wondered just how much of Lennie wanted to clobber Jamie-Lee upside the head for dating a Lion. Given what Rosalie saw from Blake Miles' horde of loyal followers, she imagined not a mean word was said about Jamie-Lee amongst them within hearing distance from Blake. If Blake's teammates confessed their hatred towards Jamie, Rosalie could only imagine the possibilities. Her mind automatically went to an image of Blake turning puppy-eyed and tearing up until his teammates apologized for their transgressions and begging forgiveness.

She looked down at the stack of papers in her arms and sifted through them. Jamie took one off of the stack, and when she prepared to kick him for it, he had already run off, folded it, and slipped it into the nearest locker.

"Jamie!" she cried, chasing after him. She stopped at the locker, hoping it wasn't gone for good, but it was too late. She groaned at the sound of Jamie's maniacal laughter disappearing around the corner. "I have a limited number of those, you know!" she shouted after him.

Now alone, Rosalie sighed and it trembled through her like a cold shiver. The energy from making it through the conference on top would never fade, but the fact that it was over and they had their last game just the day before was... a relief. Of course, there was so much more to do, and the stress of realizing that practice would go on despite the end of the conference was on her mind day in and day out.