Team Captain’s Bet

"Gray mouse doesn't belong at a lacrosse party."

Madison Cole's voice cut through the bass and chatter, and half the kitchen turned before Mia could reach the sliding glass door. Shoulder to shoulder bodies blocked the path, jerseys crowding the island, plastic cups sloshing over polished counters. She had clocked the exit the second she'd come in. Too late now.

Madison stepped closer with two girls at her sides, all glossy hair and game-day confidence. The crowd shifted with them. Phones came up so fast it looked practiced.

"Did you seriously think you could just slip in here?" Madison's gaze ran over Mia's thrift-store dress. Navy cotton. Soft from too many washes. Damp now where somebody had already bumped a drink against her hip. "That's adorable."

The brunette beside her laughed. That was enough.

The third girl tipped her red cup, and cold beer splashed over Mia's chest before she could turn. Sticky liquid soaked through the cotton and slid down to her sneakers.

A burst of laughter rolled around her. Somebody near the fridge said, "Oh, d*mn," and somebody else got closer for a better angle.

Madison smiled. "Oops. Guess that dress wasn't party-ready after all."

The screens around Mia glowed blue-white. If she bolted, they'd have that. If she snapped, they'd have that too. So she held still, fingers digging into her own palms hard enough to keep her face blank.

"Back off her."

The words cracked the room open.

Jace Mercer came through the ring of people without slowing. He planted himself between Mia and Madison just as Madison lifted her own cup, and his hand closed around Madison's wrist.

Nobody dropped their phone. Nobody laughed either. The music still pounded from speakers somewhere deeper in the house, but around them the room stalled.

"What the hell, Jace?" Madison stared at him, all polish stripped off the question.

"I said back off." He released her wrist and shifted half a step, still blocking Mia. "Party's over for this."

A nervous laugh came from the edge of the crowd. Someone whispered Jace's name like they didn't trust what they'd just seen.

Madison blinked once, then her whole face sharpened. "Are you serious right now?"

Jace looked at Mia instead. Hazel eyes. Steady. Impossible to read.

"You good?"

No. She was drenched in beer, penned in by cameras, and standing behind Madison's boyfriend while the entire lacrosse bloc watched.

Still, Mia gave him one quick nod. Anything longer might crack.

"Come on." His hand hovered near her elbow without landing there. "Let's get you out of here."

Madison's voice chased after them. "Jace, what are you doing?"

He ignored her, and the crowd opened in jagged pieces. Mia moved because the room had turned into a trap with walls made of shoulders and lenses. Her wet sneakers stuck on the hardwood as she followed him through the packed entryway, past a staircase lined with grinning players, and out onto the porch.

Cool air hit her skin. The bass dropped behind them as the front door swung shut, muffled but still there, and the lawn spread ahead under a streetlamp with cars parked in crooked rows along the curb and half on the grass.

She stopped at the edge of the steps. "Why did you do that?"

Jace shoved his hands into his jeans. Outside, without the crowd pressing in, he looked less untouchable and more like a guy who'd stepped on a land mine and heard the click.

"Because they were out of line," he said.

"They've been out of line for three years." The beer-cooled dress clung to her ribs when she folded her arms. "You never cared before."

His mouth opened, then shut again.

The front lawn wasn't empty. Two girls from psych class stood by a Jeep pretending not to stare. A cluster of lacrosse guys occupied the walkway, loud a minute ago, quieter now.

Porch light spilled over dropped cans in the flower bed, a cooler tipped on its side near the rail, tire tracks cutting through the damp edge of the yard. This house had probably hosted half the team's wins and half the campus gossip. Tonight it had swallowed her whole in under ten minutes.

Jace glanced past her shoulder.

Mia turned and saw Tyler Boone near the bottom of the porch steps, broad shoulders filling out his jersey, phone held up at chest height. The bright screen showed a replay in sharp little movements.

Her. Madison's cup. Jace's hand on Madison's wrist.

Boone grinned. "Dude, this is already everywhere."

Jace's jaw set.

Mia stared at the phone, trying to think ahead and failing. By morning the clip would be on every campus feed that mattered, reposted by girls who'd never said a word to her and guys who would act like they'd discovered a new sport. She could already hear the questions under tomorrow's stares.

Why her? What did she do? What did he mean by it?

Boone tipped the screen toward Jace again. "Captain going white knight now? That's bold."

"Shut up, Boone," Jace said.

Boone only smiled wider. "Madison looked ready to kill somebody. You really picked a fun night to start this."

Start what?

The thought landed hard enough that Mia almost said it out loud. Jace hadn't even denied the line. He just watched Boone like one wrong word would make this worse, which told her it could get worse fast.

From inside the house came a fresh swell of noise, the kind that meant the story had already changed shape and grown legs. A girl stepped onto the porch, aimed her phone at the lawn, then thought better of coming closer.

Mia wiped beer from the base of her throat with the heel of her hand and hated that even the movement felt public. Lena was still somewhere inside. Her bag was still inside too. Leaving now meant going back through that house or walking off half-soaked with nothing but her keys in her dress pocket.

Jace looked at her. "Do you need your stuff?"

"I need to know why you did that." She heard how flat her voice had gone and didn't care. "Don't tell me they were out of line. I saw that part."

Boone let out a low laugh. "D*mn. Gray mouse has claws after all."

Mia turned on him before she could stop herself. "Don't call me that."

His brows lifted, amused, and for one second she regretted giving him anything. Then she didn't. Let him know she could still answer for herself.

Jace stepped slightly into Boone's line of sight. Small movement. Clear point.

Boone rocked back on his heels. "Relax. Everybody's filming, man. I'm just appreciating the entertainment."

That word scraped. Entertainment. As if the beer on her dress and Madison's smile and Jace's hand grabbing a wrist had all happened for people leaning over screens.

Mia looked at Jace again. If this was some joke, if he had pulled her out only to make the whole thing bigger, she needed to see it now. Something smug. Something careless. Some crack in the careful face he wore for everyone.

What she got was strain. Real or practiced, she couldn't tell.

The front door banged open hard enough to rattle the porch rail.

Madison stood there in the flood of house light, blonde hair perfect, expression colder than it had been inside. A couple girls hovered behind her, waiting to see which way she'd turn this.

Her gaze went to Jace first, then Mia, then Boone's phone.

"This isn't over," she said.

Nobody answered.

Madison's smile came slow and thin. A promise for later, when there would be classrooms and hallways and a whole campus to work with. Then she stepped back inside, and the girls followed her.

Mia looked at Boone's screen one more time. The replay started again. Beer. Wrist. Back off her.

She turned to Jace. "What just happened?"

He glanced at Boone's phone, then back at her.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Mia crossed the quad with her head down, but the eyes still found her.

She kept her pace steady, backpack strap pulled tight against her shoulder, gaze locked on the concrete path cutting between stretches of grass where clusters of students sat with their phones. She didn't need to look up to know what they were watching. The laughter carried.

"Did you see his face?"

"Madison was so done."

She should have skipped. Stayed in her dorm. Let Lena bring her notes later. But hiding would only feed the story, give it teeth. So she walked.

Her sneakers scuffed the pavement. The morning air was cool. Coffee drifted over from the cart by the library, burnt and sweet at once. She kept her head down and counted the seams in the walkway.

A shadow fell into step beside her.

She glanced up. Jace.

He didn't say anything at first, just matched her stride, hands shoved into the pockets of his lacrosse warm-up jacket. His expression was neutral, but the