“Good. Did you watch it?”

  “I did, yeah. You were quiet at first, but you got better as the night went on.”

  “I think I had some bad food at lunch or something. I didn’t feel well. But I took some medicine and felt better by the third set.”

  “You didn’t look sick,” Aspen noted.

  “Look?”

  “You were on camera twice, Kendra. I saw you. I just meant that you… didn’t look unwell or anything. You looked fine. Good, I mean.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “I can let you get back to practice. I just thought I’d say hello.”

  “I was done,” she replied. “Just wrapping up.”

  “Oh,” Kendra uttered. “Good. I can have my coffee in peace, then.”

  “Yeah,” Aspen let out softly, silently wishing that Kendra would invite her over to have coffee with her.

  “Okay. Well, good night, I guess,” Kendra added.

  “Good night,” she replied, knowing that she sounded disappointed.

  She watched as Kendra walked back toward her house before she turned to go inside her own, wondering what she was going to do with the rest of her night.

  “Hey, Aspen?”

  Aspen turned and said, “Yeah?”

  “Do you… I have decaf, if you want it.”

  Aspen smiled and said, “Regular is fine.”

  “Use the gate, at least?”

  “Nah.” Aspen dropped the ball in her yard and jumped the fence, which she really shouldn’t be doing because it was too tall, and she risked hurting herself, but she did it anyway.

  “The gate is ten feet away.” Kendra chuckled.

  “I’m impatient and impulsive. I thought you knew that about me by now.” She walked up to the sliding glass door and waited for Kendra to walk in first.

  “I have milk but not half and half. Is that okay?”

  “I’m not picky,” she revealed.

  “I’ll start it. You can sit in the living room, if you want.”

  “Okay.”

  Aspen walked through the kitchen into the living room and sat on the sofa, feeling like she was on a first date right now. Somehow, it really felt like they’d gone back to that date’s house, and after the goodnight kiss at the front door that had turned into an invitation inside, that date was now making her coffee because they were going to do that awkward thing where they sipped coffee and talked while they both wondered if they were going to go any further.

  “Here you go.” Kendra carried a tray out and set it on the table in front of Aspen. “I just brought everything. Add what you want.”

  Aspen picked up the mug in front of her and added some of the milk from the regular-looking glass.

  “I’m not really that fancy in general, but I still haven’t unpacked everything. Do other adults have a creamer pourer thing? Is that what they’re called?” Kendra asked.

  “I have no idea. I’ll tell you when I finally feel like I’m a real adult, and that knowledge naturally gets instilled in me. I think that’s what I imagine will happen, anyway.”

  Kendra laughed and dressed her coffee.

  “So, how was your practice today?” she asked.

  “Good. We’re still without a coach, which is proving to be a problem, but we’re doing our best.” Aspen leaned back and brought her coffee with her.

  “Not all teams have coaches, though, right?”

  “No, but the best ones do. It’s not always possible for teams who aren’t winning to afford a top coach, but it’s also not always possible to win without one. When I first started out, I didn’t have one, but we had some good wins and got some attention, so I decided it was worth the investment, even though I couldn’t really afford it. My parents helped me pay for my first coach, and I told them I’d pay them back when I started making money. I did, by the way. And here I am now, so it’s worked so far.”

  “I’d say it has. You just won another tournament and will probably win the rest this season.”

  “Don’t put that out there. You’ll jinx us,” Aspen said with a laugh. “We go into every match believing we can win, yeah, but we’re never overconfident.”

  “Probably a good philosophy,” Kendra replied and sipped her coffee. “So, how did you and DJ end up partnering together?”

  “I knew her from my college days. She was at UCLA and had had some success on the beach in the league, but not much yet, and I had, so I asked her if she wanted to leave her current partner and join me instead. You know how hard it is to find a good partner. First, there’s the physical stuff. Some teams can go with the whole same height, same kind of skill thing, and it works for them when they have good communication and chemistry, but most teams go with a taller and a shorter player; one to focus on defense and passing and the other to handle the blocking and the hitting. DJ is taller than me and is a great blocker. She has an amazing hitting percentage, and she’s a good server. But on top of the physical thing, you have to get along. You don’t have to be best friends or even a couple, like Monica and Selena, but you need to have trust and solid communication. You have to know that the person you’re out there with is going to be with you every step of the way. And if you don’t have that trust, it’s not going to work.”

  “You have that with DJ?”

  “Yes, we’ve got that. She knows I’m always going to have her back. I know she’ll always have mine. In private, I might tell her that she played like crap because she needs to hear it and responds well to it, but I’d never do that in public. She does the same for me. We balance each other well out on the court, too.”

  Kendra took another drink of her coffee, but her eyes remained on Aspen.

  “Did you not have that with your first partner?” she asked. “I don’t remember her name.”

  Aspen took a drink of her own coffee to stall because she hadn’t planned on talking about that tonight.

  “Alex. Hard to forget that, huh? Aspen and Alex.”

  “Right. Alex Bartell. I remember now. She’s on Team USA, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, she switched back to indoor years ago. I always suspected she liked playing indoor more than beach, but a few of her friends from college had decided to try their luck on the beach, so she’d joined them. We met, became partners, and now, we’re not. She’s hoping to make the team for their World Cup and the Olympics for the first time.”

  “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Is this an interview or something?”

  “No,” Kendra replied. “It’s just me trying to get to know you a little bit better.”

  “You’re a reporter. I was told I have to specifically state that something’s off the record. I didn’t before, but you said it was fine. Do I now?”

  “Aspen, if we’re sitting in my house, everything is off the record by default. If I wanted something to be on the record, I’d just ask or tell you. I’m not a sideline reporter right now, and I’m not writing an article for the New York Times on pro beach volleyball or something.”

  Aspen nodded and said, “Alex and I were good. We were really good, actually; about to qualify for the Games as the second US team, potentially. I couldn’t believe it was happening much earlier than I’d expected it to, but we were good together out there.”

  “Then?”

  “Then, well– Please don’t say anything. I don’t mean as a reporter, either; just as a person. Can you not say anything?”

  “I won’t say a word,” Kendra confirmed.

  “I didn’t know that Alex was bi. We’d never really talked about that stuff,” Aspen shared. “I went on dates. She did, too. The only dates I’d ever known her to have had been with men, and she’d also had a boyfriend when we first started partnering together, so it had never dawned on me that she was interested in women. Anyway, we were playing well together and hanging out sometimes, but I was single. She was single, too, at this point, and one night, she just told me.”

  “Told you?”

  “That she was interested in me. She said she couldn’t keep it in anymore and needed to tell me that she was in love with me, and I didn’t know what to do. I liked Alex – I really did – but as a friend and partner, not as someone I wanted to date. I decided to just be honest with her and told her that, and she said we’d be fine. So, we played on. Like most partners, we used to room together when we traveled because it’s cheaper and you end up in each other’s rooms anyway, talking about the next match or whatever, but we stopped that when she told me. It was her request. Then, at one tournament, not all that long after, I ran into someone I’d known from before. She was someone I’d dated briefly in school. We started talking. One thing led to another, and she slept over. When we left the next morning, Alex had been leaving at the same time. I couldn’t stop the woman from kissing me in time, and Alex saw us. She looked devastated. I felt like an asshole, too, and the worst kind at that. That woman and I went nowhere. I haven’t seen her since. And Alex said she couldn’t do this anymore not long after that. I understood. I’d hurt her unintentionally. But I don’t regret telling her that I didn’t feel that way about her.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Kendra replied. “It’s awful, yeah, but you shouldn’t regret it. I mean, what would’ve happened otherwise? You could’ve gone out, maybe slept with her – that would’ve been worse.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you talk to her at all?”

  “On social media. I like some of her posts, but only the volleyball-related ones. She has a girlfriend now. They’ve been together for two years, and they look happy, so I think it all worked out for the best. She found her, and I have DJ now. She’s the partner who can get me to the Games, which is my dream.”

  “What about the other stuff, though?”

  “Other stuff?” Aspen asked before she sipped on her coffee.

  “The personal stuff. DJ’s not into women, right?”

  “No, she’s straight. I wouldn’t date a partner anyway. If I had feelings for Alex, I would’ve told her we could only date or be partners, not both. I hope it works out for Monica and Selena, but that isn’t for me.”

  “Well, those two aren’t going to qualify for the Olympics, and they’re retiring after another season or two, so even if it doesn’t work, they’ll be fine. I have a feeling, they’ll put their relationship over their partnership on the beach, which is a good thing, I think.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really? That surprises me.”

  “Why?” Aspen asked.

  “Because it’s volleyball over everything else for you, right?”

  “Yes, but only because I don’t have anything else competing with it. I’ve never met anyone I’ve wanted to put above it,” Aspen revealed. “But if and when I do – I love my sport, but I want to love someone so much that they’re the most important thing to me.”

  Kendra nodded slowly and said, “That’s nice, Aspen.”

  “Is it? Doesn’t everyone feel that way? Don’t you?” Aspen found that she really wanted to know the answer to that question.

  “I hope that happens for me one day, yes,” Kendra replied.

  CHAPTER 14

  Kendra had covered at least one game or match in every professional sports league and some tournaments like the US Open in both tennis and golf throughout her career, but her favorite sports to cover were volleyball, obviously, and women’s basketball. She loved going to a WNBA game. She’d never been a big basketball fan growing up, putting most of her interest into volleyball back then, but since she’d been asked to be the sideline reporter at her first college basketball game years ago, she’d enjoyed it.

  After a season covering the Women’s NCAA Tournament, she’d been asked to cover the WNBA, too, and she’d been doing a little bit of both ever since. She couldn’t say that she’d formed long-lasting friendships with many of the players, but they’d all be nice to her and had welcomed her into their locker rooms, practice gyms, and sometimes, into their celebrations after big wins. Kendra had watched many women go from college ball to the draft to then playing professionally. Some of them got married and later had kids, so she got to see them return to the court after their maternity leave and still kick ass on the court as if there had ever been any doubt that they would.

  “Aisha, how are you feeling about the win tonight?” she asked, holding her microphone to the team’s shooting guard.

  “It was a team win, you know? Della went out early with that ankle, so everyone just stepped up and stepped in, and we showed that we know how to get it done no matter who’s on the court.”

  “Any concerns about Della’s ankle?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Coach that. She’s strong, though. And I know she wants to get back on the court, so she’ll be working hard to do that.”

  “And this was a big win tonight. You scored eighteen and had a double-double. That’s your third of the season.” Kendra moved the microphone back over to her interviewee’s mouth.

  “Yeah, you know, it’s just about who’s next up, who’s got the open shot, who can make the best pass. We got it done tonight. That’s what matters.”

  No matter who she interviewed, every woman she spoke to talked about the team’s performance, shying away from taking credit for their own, even when their own was a big part of why they’d won. Kendra loved that part of interviewing female athletes. It could be so different from talking to some of their male counterparts.

  After she wrapped up her interviews and the follow-up work she had to do, Kendra returned to her hotel room and sat on the bed, exhausted and starving. Unfortunately for her, it was after eleven, so the hotel’s restaurant was closed. She supposed most other restaurants would be closed by now, too, but it was a Saturday night; she could probably find one in the city that was still open. She just didn’t have the energy to go back out and decided that she’d wait for breakfast the following morning.

  Kendra dug into her bag and found a granola bar, which she’d packed for a plane as a snack that she hadn’t ended up eating. She bit into it as she checked in for her flight the next day, which wouldn’t take her home but to another location of the game she’d be covering tomorrow night. Her phone dinged with a notification just as she’d hit the check-in button.

  Aspen Ashley: Nice game.

  Kendra smiled and decided that her initial concerns over giving Aspen her number were now assuaged solely because of this text message and the winking emoji Aspen had added to it.

  Kendra Bowie: You act like I was the one playing.

  The three typing bubbles appeared immediately, so Kendra chewed and leaned back on the bed, waiting for another message.

  Aspen Ashley: That wasn’t you hitting all those threes in the fourth quarter?

  Kendra laughed, and a chocolate chip flew out of her mouth, landing on the white, cheap hotel comforter. She quickly picked it up so it wouldn’t stain and set it on the bedside table to deal with later.

  Kendra Bowie: No, that wasn’t me. I was the one standing next to her when it was all over.

  Aspen Ashley: My bad. I must have gotten confused.

  Kendra laughed.

  Aspen Ashley: What are you up to?

  Kendra Bowie: Eating a granola bar that I’m glad I saved because I’m starving, and the hotel restaurant is closed. And I still need to shower before I go to sleep. I have a flight tomorrow morning to New York.

  Aspen Ashley: You’re in Seattle. They don’t have food delivery there?

  Kendra Bowie: They do, but I’m lazy.

  Aspen Ashley: Where are you staying?

  Kendra glared at the phone, wondering why she was being asked that question. She sent Aspen the name of the hotel anyway, though, and waited to see what the woman would message her next. It took longer than Kendra thought it would for the text to appear.

  Aspen Ashley: I remember you say you liked pepperoni pizza. One should be there in about thirty minutes. I got you breadsticks and a drink, too. I’m sure you’re tired and don’t want to go grab it from the desk, so I also just called your hotel’s front desk and asked them to take it to your room. I might have lied and told them you’re injured and can’t walk because you hurt your knee, so maybe act injured or something when you check out tomorrow. The app delivery guys wouldn’t be allowed to go up to your room anyway, but if you don’t want the food I ordered, I can call the hotel back and tell them that they can keep it.

  Kendra read the message a couple of times to make sure she’d gotten that all right. Aspen had ordered her dinner. No, first, Aspen had remembered that Kendra liked pepperoni pizza, which Kendra had mentioned the other night at coffee, when they’d talked about maybe ordering something in for dinner and sharing it. That plan hadn’t come to fruition that night because Aspen’s mom had called and needed to talk to her about something, but Aspen had remembered. She’d remembered, and she’d ordered Kendra dinner.

  Kendra Bowie: Aspen, you didn’t have to do that. I would’ve been fine.

  Aspen Ashley: I don’t like the idea of you only having a granola bar for dinner. I’m tracking it on my phone, and they’re currently making your pizza. I doubt it’ll be the best pizza of your life, but it’ll at least be better than a granola bar.

  Kendra Bowie: What do you have against granola bars?

  Aspen Ashley: Nothing. But they’re not dinner.

  Kendra Bowie: They are sometimes. I get back to my rooms late, and not every hotel even has a restaurant, so I got in the habit of packing a few. This time, I forgot to refill before I left, so I only had one.

  Aspen Ashley: We should work on that, then. You can do better than granola bars for snacks. I’ve got some great travel snack recommendations I can tell you all about the next time I see you.

  Kendra loved Aspen’s use of the word we. In fact, their coffee together the other night had been an eye-opener for her. Wyatt had been right about Aspen’s ex-partner. And Kendra had, of course, remembered Alex’s name, but for some reason, asking Aspen about her in that moment, she hadn’t wanted to use it. It was petty, and Kendra knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. She wished Aspen could’ve stayed for dinner because she could’ve gotten to know the woman even more, but it was probably best that she left because Kendra liked watching her sip coffee. The simplest of things, taking a drink out of a mug, had her swooning, which was ridiculous, but it was true all the same.