Chapter Text
It starts on the court, like most things do at St. Augustine’s.
The fall air is filled with everything their trio loves—crisp mornings and the sound of sneakers on clay. Girls in Marston-blue warmups line the benches, watching as the match unfolds—eyes flicking from racket to racket, shoulder to shoulder. Lottie stands near the net, her gaze unreadable. Jackie waits at the baseline, eyes narrowed, perfectly still except for the slow roll of her shoulder as she twirls her racket once, twice, like it’s a part of her. If you asked any of the girls on the bench, they'd probably tell you it is a part of her.
On the other side, their opponents—two seniors from Emma Willard—are already sweating through their uniforms.
Mari sits on the sidelines with a towel around her neck, leg bouncing. “If they lose this,” she says under her breath to no one in particular, “I’m transferring to the fencing team full-time.”
“You are the fencing team full-time,” says Sebastián, her brother, from two rows behind her. She doesn’t have to turn to know he’s grinning. “Also, they’re not going to lose. I doubt either one of us will live long enough to see the day Jacqueline Taylor and Charlotte Matthews lose a doubles match.”
“Shut up,” Mari mutters, but she doesn’t stop watching the match as she says it. Besides, she can’t argue with that—not that she would. Seb is right. She’s basically the face of the fencing team. Seb always leaves Jackie out of that equation, but Mari's the fencing freak of the Ibarra family, though no one’s quite sure why. Where her father excelled in lacrosse and her brother followed suit, Mari took an interest in the sport when she was eight. She qualified for the Super Youth Circuit by 13, and when she was 15, she was already ranked top ten in U17 in the nation. The Ibarra curse—freakish athleticism in niche sports—caught up to her last summer, when she won the U17 national championship.
Across the court, Lottie turns her head just slightly, meets Jackie’s eyes, and smiles. It’s barely perceptible. Most people wouldn’t catch it. But the girls in the stands hold their breath like something about this moment was different.
A girl from the Reed division of St. Augustine leans toward her friend. “Are they, like... dating?”
Her friend shrugs. “Isn’t she with Mari?”
“No, I thought Mari and Lottie—”
“Maybe it’s all three of them.”
From the bench, Mari snorts without looking back. “I can hear you, you know.”
“You’re all obsessed,” A certain redhead says, desperation written on her face. Van doesn't even look away from the match as she says it, scrunching her nose as Lottie misses an angle and costs Jackie and her a point. “They’re just better than you.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then laughter. But the rumors won’t stop. They never do.
On court, Jackie tosses the ball high, and serves. Clean, brutal. Lottie doesn’t turn around, but she knows—somehow—that it’s an ace before it even crosses the net.
The match ends the way everyone expected: with Jackie and Lottie looking bored and everyone else pretending to be surprised.
Jackie and Lottie don’t celebrate. They never do. They walk off the court in sync, rackets in hand. It doesn’t surprise anyone—both girls are great tennis players, and they’re even better together.
Mari’s already waiting by the bench, towel slung over her shoulders, half a bottle of water gone. She doesn’t say anything as they approach, just raises an eyebrow. Jackie meets her eyes briefly, then looks away.
“You dropped a point in the second set,” Mari says eventually.
Jackie exhales through her nose. “I know.”
“I missed the angle,” Lottie says.
Jackie glances at her. Lottie’s not smiling, but something in her tone makes Mari snort.
They don’t talk about the match beyond that. No one ever does—not really.
Seb appears a minute later, peeling the corner of a granola bar wrapper, an eyebrow raised toward the trio. The looks from the other girls don’t stop. Not when Jackie wipes sweat from her collarbone. Not when Lottie adjusts Mari’s ponytail. Not when the three of them fall into step, heading back toward the locker room like they’re tied together.
The showers hiss in the background, but none of them are in a rush to get under one.
Jackie sits on the bench, towel over her shoulders, unwrapping the tape from her fingers. Lottie is perched on the counter near the sinks, combing through her damp hair with a comb and checking her phone with the other. Mari leans against the locker door, still in her uniform, scrolling on her phone.
No one speaks for a while. It's the kind of silence someone could die in.
Then: “We’re being called upstairs,” Mari says, eyes still on her phone. “Coach wants to see us. All three.”
Jackie doesn’t react. Lottie lowers her phone.
“Why?” she asks, brows lifting.
Mari shrugs. “No idea. But she said now.”
Jackie stands without a word. Lottie moves off the counter and falls in step behind her. Mari gives it two seconds, then she ultimately follows.
She always does.
The office is too clean. Trophies line the far wall, all polished like someone dusted them this morning. The overhead lights hum faintly. No one sits. Coach Adair doesn’t offer chairs.
Jackie stands with her arms folded. Lottie rests a hand on the back of the nearest chair but doesn’t pull it out. Mari leans against the wall, jaw set.
Frankly, she doesn’t even know why she’s been summoned along with her two friends. She hadn’t even played today—and she’d played the perfect teammate part often enough to know that this time had been no different.
Coach Adair looks up from her clipboard, expression unreadable. “You won.”
No one responds.
“Good,” she says. “You made it look easy. I’m hearing from Emma Willard’s coaching staff that it was—quote—‘humiliating.’”
Still, none of the girls speak. This isn’t new.
She flips a page. “There’ll be recruitment eyes on campus next month. Stanford, Columbia, a few Ivies. I’m assuming you’re aware.”
Jackie nods once.
Coach Adair looks at each of them in turn. “You three are excellent. But lately, excellence isn’t what everyone’s talking about.”
Mari raises an eyebrow. “What are they talking about?”
“Each other. You. The way you move on court. The way you don’t move off it. The way the entire school seems convinced you’re in some sort of—” She waves a hand vaguely. “Arrangement.”
Jackie doesn’t flinch. Lottie blinks once. Mari crosses her arms tighter.
“I don’t care what you are,” Coach Adair says, voice like glass. “I care about perception. And perception is a distraction. Distractions don’t win scholarships.”
There’s a pause.
“We’re not distracted,” Jackie says, her back straightening like the captain she is.
“No,” Coach says, closing the clipboard. “But everyone else is.”
She steps around the desk, her expression softening by half a degree. “As long as you keep winning, I don’t care about perception. But if you start losing—”
She shrugs. “That’s when this all gets messy.”
No one says a word. But Lottie’s hand slides off the chair. Jackie’s jaw tightens.
It’s pressure. Every girl at St. Augustine is used to pressure. But even now, this kind lands differently over the three of them.
Mari settles on a nod. “Understood.”
Coach Adair opens the door without another word. Her actions say everything she doesn’t.
The meeting is over.
They don’t talk on the walk back.
The sun’s gone low behind the athletic center, casting long shadows across the lawn. Their sneakers crunch over the gravel path that cuts between Marston Hall and the athletic center. Jackie walks in the middle, Lottie on her left, Mari trailing slightly behind.
It’s the kind of silence that feels like it might last forever.
Then Mari says, loud enough to cut through it:
“So which one of you is in love with me?”
Jackie doesn’t look over, but the corner of her mouth tics—just barely. Lottie turns her head, eyes soft, unreadable. Mari loves that about her, the way you can never tell what she's thinking.
“I’m serious,” Mari adds, eyes on the path. “Everyone seems to have their theories. Figured I might as well get ahead of it.”
It’s very clearly a joke—one of those weird ones only Mari seems to know how to land. But still, no one answers.
Jackie keeps walking. Lottie shifts her grip on her racket bag.
Mari exhales, rolling her eyes. “Cool. Love that for me.”
A breeze kicks up. The leaves overhead rustle. The Axis loves fall evenings. Jackie glances over, just once.
“You forgot the real question,” she says.
Mari raises an eyebrow. “Which is?”
Jackie doesn’t break stride. “Which one of us you’re in love with.”
Lottie doesn’t laugh, but she does smile, glancing towards Mari, as if pretending she even believes there's going to be an answer to Jackie's counter.