Chapter 18
Serve receive: How you receive the serve. Duh.
Game in hand: As playoffs approach, and every win counts, a team that has one more game left to play than another has an extra opportunity to climb the rankings with a win.
“Here’s to hitting five hundred!” Tania cried, with an inebriated softening to her consonants. “I can taste it!”
“What you’ve been tasting is tequila,” Jess reminded her, dodging the amber liquid that sloshed from Tania’s shot glass.
Tania was doing a solid job celebrating her birthday and their four-game winning streak—that brought them to within one game of five hundred—in equal measure.
“I taste victory, Jess! I taste a championship!” Tania crowed before downing her next shot.
Jess gave George a pointed look, motioning at Tania’s empty water glass. George nodded resignedly and went to find a fresh pitcher.
Chrissy swallowed her own shot with equal gusto. “Come dance with me!” she cried, grabbing Tania’s hand and pulling her onto the dance floor.
“Jess! Come on!” Tania lunged for Jess’s hand on her way by, but missed.
“Just getting another drink,” Jess called after them. “I’ll be right there.”
She headed over to the bar for a Corona, then was threading through the crowd trying to get back to their table when a loud voice and a familiar name cut through the bar noise.
“Ugh, I hate Vivienne. She’s such a bitch.”
Jess lurched to a halt, scanning for the source. She discovered, unsurprisingly, Tweedledum, one of the complainers from Horny Beach, drunk and talking way too loud to her partner.
“Right?” Tweedledee replied. “She thinks she’s hot shit and I’m over it.”
Jess smirked, trying to fight off a full-blown laugh. Vivienne and Lee had spanked the Tweedles hard today, 21–6 and 21–9.
Tweedledum made eye contact with Jess. Her face soured further at Jess’s grin. “What?”
Jess blinked innocently. “What?”
“Why are you standing there staring at us?”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
Dee chimed in. “Don’t be shy, Jess. What’s on your mind?”
Jess mulled for a second if it was worth getting into it. She decided it was. “I’d be bitter too, if Vivienne and Lee had just kicked my ass like that.”
Dee and Dum’s jaws dropped in unison.
Dum recovered first. She laughed and picked up her cocktail. “I’m trying to remember the last time you beat her.”
Jess shrugged and took a slow drink of her beer, then swallowed and wiped her lip with her wrist. “It’s true, I haven’t, but … I’m not a little bitch when I lose.”
Dee’s lips flapped while she tried to swim through the indignation and find a retort, but then she noticed Jess’s forearm. Her eyes widened. “Wait … do you have the same tattoo as Vivienne?”
“Oh my God, she does!” Dum crowed.
“What, are you trying to be like her? That’s sad.”
Jess laughed. Oh, those fuckers did not just go after her perfect tattoo. “Actually, I watched your match today, and what’s sad is your serve receive.” She lifted her beer in a mocking toast and took another drink.
Their expressions morphed from derision into outrage.
Dee sneered. “Whatever, Jess. Have fun being Vivienne’s little wannabe.”
Tania materialized at Jess’s elbow and hurled an insult in Spanish at the Horny Beach team.
“Whoa, girl,” Jess said, putting an arm around Tania before she could lunge toward them. “It’s fine.”
Tania continued to rant at them in Spanish from the safety of Jess’s grip.
“I know,” Jess soothed. “They’re not worth it. It’s okay.”
Dee stood, collecting her purse. “Let’s get out of this shithole.” Dum followed. They glared at Jess and Tania and retreated through the crowd toward the door.
“Yeah, you’d better leave!” Tania called after them. “Horny beaches.”
Lee pulled up, eyebrow raised, with Vivienne right behind her. “Jesus, what was that about?” Lee asked.
“Nothing,” Jess tried to say as Tania started babbling.
“They were talking shit about Vivienne, but Jess told them to fuck off.”
Vivienne fluttered her eyelashes up at Jess. “You did?”
“I mean…” Jess swallowed hard, her cheeks heating. “Not in so many words.”
“She shut them down so hard, it was incredible!” Tania gave a gleeful blow-by-blow recount of the events, with only slight drunken embellishments.
Vivienne’s face glowed in the last light from the sunset spilling in the windows, half in shadow, half Aphrodite. “Thanks for having my back, Jess.”
“I mean … of course—”
Tania threw her arms around Jess and Vivienne. “Sunside has to stick together!”
“Yeah, we do,” Vivienne agreed quietly, not taking her eyes off of Jess.
Jess’s stomach swooped. The way Vivienne was looking at her.… There was something soft and unguarded there instead of the usual glint and polish.
“Let’s drink on it,” Tania whooped. “Also, did someone mention cake?”
How are you feeling? Jess texted Tania the next morning. Well, late morning. She was making a bagel melt for lunch.
Ugh, Tania replied. You should have made me drink water.
Babe. George and I tried.
That’s what he said, too. Thanks, though. I had so much fun.
You’re welcome. Hope 27 is good to you.
So far 27 wants me to go back to bed.
Get some more sleep, T. See you tomorrow.
Jess ate her lunch, took Fleming for a walk, then headed into work.
It was a busy Sunday along the boardwalk. Roller skaters weaved through the tourists posing for photos, the last hurrah of summer before the crowds thinned as October approached. Jess changed into her hideous uniform shirt and made her way to ring toss.
In a lull near the end of her shift, she put her hands in her pockets and leaned against the counter.
Her gaze drifted along the beach to the lifeguard chair.
There was Vivienne. It was hard to really see her, given the sun hat, sunglasses, and distance, but there was no mistaking her posture and golden skin, swimsuit a red blip against the blue, blue sky.
“Hi, Jess.”
Jess jolted out of her thoughts to see Troy standing at the counter. “Oh, hey, Troy! You’re back from vacation?”
“Yup. Family reunion in Atlanta. We had a great time. But how about you? I see you’ve been tearing it up out there.”
Jess had to grin. “Yeah, we’re on a bit of a roll.”
Troy studied her for a moment, eyes narrowed. “I have to say … your energy is different.”
Jess smoothed her hair self-consciously. “It is?”
“Yes.” He rubbed his chin. “You’ve got this confidence.…”
A patch of warmth grew in Jess’s chest. She’d definitely been feeling more confident, and if Troy noticed … “Tania and I figured some stuff out, and we’ve been winning a lot more. We have eleven games left, and if we win eight of them, we should make playoffs.”
Troy nodded and placed his five dollars on the counter. “You can do it. I have no doubt.”
Jess smiled and handed him his rings. Once his tosses were taken care of—twenty-five points—he tucked his ticket away. “Keep doing whatever it is you’re doing, Jess. It’s working for you.”
As soon as he turned to leave, a flash of red on the edge of her vision caught Jess’s attention.
It was Vivienne, sprinting toward the ocean.
A small crowd had gathered at the water’s edge, and Jess lost Vivienne once she dove into the surf.
Jess stood on tiptoe, as if that would help, watching the onlookers point and gesticulate.
A pack of teenagers arrived at her counter, quickly followed by a family with four kids, so even though she tried to steal a glance every couple of minutes, she missed what happened. The crowd at the shore grew, then dissipated, and Jess didn’t get any more glimpses of the red swimsuit.
She texted Vivienne from the locker room as soon as her shift ended, just to check on her. Hey, I saw you dash toward the water today. Everyone okay?
Vivienne replied by the time Jess had changed out of her uniform. Yeah, just some women got in over their heads and needed help.
Glad it was nothing too serious. A question floated through her mind. She decided to ask. Do you ever get scared when you’re running into the ocean?
Scared that I’m too late, maybe.
Jess shivered. I couldn’t imagine being responsible for someone’s life like that.
I try not to think of it like that … or I’m not sure I could do it either.
What was the scariest save you’ve ever had to make?
They chatted about lifeguarding Jess’s whole walk home, even when she almost tripped over a dog leash and nearly got clipped by a wobbly roller skater.
She turned on one of Bianca’s matches when she got home and they watched that together too, swapping volleyball stories from earlier in their careers and oohing and aahing over a commercial for Bianca’s new athletic wear clothing line.
Each time Jess’s phone lit up with a notification, her heart skipped a beat.
I’d better get to bed, she finally said, well after the match had ended and her eyes had grown heavy. I work opening tomorrow.
Yeah, I should get some sleep, too. Good luck on Wednesday if I don’t see you before then. I know you guys are going to hit 500.
Thanks. I hope so! Jess fell asleep smiling, muscled bodies in red swimsuits dancing through her dreams.
Vivienne was right. They won their next game and hit five hundred, bringing their win streak to five. The playoff push was official now. Playoff Math consumed Jess, much to Tania’s dismay.
Leg day firmly on the back burner, Jess hunched over her phone and frowned at the standings. “Ten games left. Do you think we can win all ten? If we do, we’ll make playoffs for sure … probably.”
But then they lost the next game against a Horny Beach team.
Tania’s shoulder seemed sore, and the bounces weren’t going their way.
“It’s fine,” Jess said after, checking the day’s results on their way into the locker room.
“Nine games left, and Sonja and Jonesy lost today too, so even if we win eight out of nine we should be safe.”