Chapter Text
“...and, as part of your contract, you shall not maintain any contact, whatsoever, with any of the players.” At that, a lot of eye exchanges happened, so quickly one could almost miss it, but their manager Mrs. Amilyn Holdo surely did. “ Yes , I know, it’s frustrating, we all love the Knights so much, but it’s important we keep a professional environment and focus on our work instead of their good physique.”
A few giggles here and there warm the awkward conversation. The topic is promptly shifted, focusing on other details from their upcoming first performance in ten days and, once the girls are dismissed, Rey Johnson looks around in search of one of the friends she made along the way, Rose Tico, and they walk arm in arm behind all the other girls, chatting about anything and everything as they make their way to the parking lot.
Thirty girls have been just admitted to one of the best cheerleader teams in the galaxy. If not the best, at least the most popular and desired: The Coruscant Knights Cheerleaders. After a few months of solid stress and anxiety levels skyrocketing, they have gone through hours of auditions and weeks of training camp, seeing recently-made friends being dismissed as they stayed, praying to be selected for the full 40 team.
Rey, a young girl that had just turned nineteen, applied for the first time, not expecting to be chosen in the middle of hundreds of very talented women. When the last few cuts were made and her name was called in the field to be part of the final team cut, her heart skipped a beat and she threw a little jump in the air that gathered a few applauses and whistles around. Her freckled face colored pink with embarrassment, but the joy was so monumental that she couldn’t seem to care any longer as she made her way into the line of girls waiting for their uniforms.
After almost a year of preparation, long nights being barely able to sleep and second-guessing every choice she had ever made in life, Rey finally achieved her goal. She is now one of 40 of The Coruscant Knights Cheerleaders and she could not be feeling more triumphant.
🏈
Reading her contract turns out to be the before bed activity that night, sitting comfortably in her brand-new apartment beige couch, wearing a sheer lilac camisole, slippers and a face mask while having the last great win of the team playing as background on the TV.
She used to watch the games all her childhood with her grandparents, her grandfather being a massive fan of the original team. After they passed away, Rey found herself wanting to be part of that legacy that mattered so much to her family. It is a comfortable environment for her, the music echoing in her ears as the cheerleaders hop in a single line, throwing their legs in front of their faces with the biggest smiles that tell her there is no such joy as performing for a team that brings so much happiness for so many people every year. She smiles with the memories she has made before and longs for the ones she is about to make from now on.
Skimming the contract, Rey flips a few pages until she finds the section she has been the most interested in reading.
- Rules Of Conduct by the Coruscant Knights Cheerleaders™
Upon signing the contract, each and every one of the Coruscant Knights Cheerleaders™ agree:
5.1. To not fraternize with any of the players before, during and/or after the games;
5.2. To not engage in conversations with the players in person or online;
5.3. To not engage in any type of relationship with the players, that being fraternal, conversational, casual, familiar or even sexual;
5.4. To not directly refer to any of the players in the stadium or outside of it, that being in locker area, common areas or to the public;
5.5. To not glance, gaze, stare or scan at any of the players when the chance of being near them makes present, or when the proximity is more than what normally is on the field.
In doing so they, both The Coruscant Knights Players™ and The Coruscant Knights Cheerleaders™ understand the possibility of oral and/or written reprimand, suspension or full termination from their contract.
Rey runs a fingertip over the words, sighing in frustration as her mind takes her to all the things they could have if that section was not part of the contract. She remembers her previous contracts. The first in the High School she attended, being part of their Cheerleader Football Team. Then the short period before moving to the big city where she worked in the basketball team cheerleading squad of the small town she called home for years. All the fun she has had with boys that shared the same environment as her. The endless nights partying, drinking and fooling around until the time she lost her virginity to her crush and captain of the basketball team at 17.
Biting her lower lip and crossing her legs to contain the sudden desire that crept inside her, Rey tries to forget about the boys in her youth and think about the men in her present, longing for everything she will never have with them but hoping that it can just be forgotten as she distracts herself with work, practice and living the life of her dreams.