Chapter 3
Shank: When the pass goes horribly, horribly wrong.
“Jess!” Chrissy jumped up from the sand and gave her a hug. “You look so cute!” Ice-cold liquid sloshed from her plastic tumbler onto Jess’s bare back.
“Not really, I— Ooh!” Jess squeaked. “You got me … What is that, margarita?”
“Oh, absolutely not!” Chrissy turned Jess around and wiped at the spill with a warm hand. “I would never consume alcohol on a public beach. It’s just water with lime.” Her loose limbs and wide smile said otherwise.
“Well, happy birthday.” Jess hugged her again. “Let me buy you a drink later.”
“Imma hold you to that.” Chrissy kissed her cheek, windblown hair tickling Jess’s skin.
Jess said hi to the others—Tania, Lee, Chrissy’s teammate, Shay …
no Vivienne—and laid out her towel. An emergency bikini lived in her locker for occasions such as these, and as her tan deepened with the season, she looked even better in forest green.
Still, she always lathered on the sunscreen, Nelson’s skin-care admonishments loud in her head.
Tania propped herself up on an elbow and looked at Jess with a squint in the sun. “How was work?”
“Oh, you know…” Jess settled on her towel. “You’ve seen one kid miss all his rings and throw a tantrum, you’ve seen them all. At least no one dumped their slushie on the counter today.”
She sank into the sand, tension draining out of her as the sun kissed her bare skin. A draft of warm air tickled loose strands of hair while ranchera music blared from a tent down the way. With a wiggle of her toes, a happy sigh slipped out.
“You want a drink, Jess?”
Jess cracked open an eye. The red halo of Chrissy’s hair framed the shadowed face hovering over her. “Sure, thanks.”
Chrissy handed her a “water with lime.”
“Cheers.” Jess bumped their cups together.
The other girls chatted idly about their lives—one of Tania’s cousins was having trouble at school, Chrissy’s mom had a new biker boyfriend—until Lee sat up straight and pushed her short, spiky hair back off her forehead.
“So … I actually have some news that I’ve been dying to share.
…” She was nearly vibrating with excitement.
“Toni and I are expecting! We’re due the beginning of December. ”
“That’s amazing!” Chrissy squealed, tackling Lee for a hug. “You guys have been saving up for IVF for so long!”
Everyone else crowded around to hug Lee too, so Jess joined in, even though it felt weird hugging Vivienne’s partner.
Lee had never bothered to say much to Jess, and seemed to think Vivienne’s snarky comments were highly amusing.
But Jess mentally declared a brief Lee truce for this occasion. For the baby’s sake.
The chatter resumed, words pooling around her as the sun dipped toward the horizon, until Lee spoke again, a wave of cold water shattering Jess’s tranquility.
“Here comes Viv!” she chirped.
Jess looked up, the tension that had drained into the sand flooding back in an instant.
There she was in her red lifeguard one-piece, long, tanned legs gleaming in the low-angled light. Somehow she seemed to be walking in slo-mo, like a character on Baywatch, hair down, black tendrils dancing around her face in the ocean breeze.
Jess’s stomach clenched. Why did she have to show up and ruin everything?
“Hey, Viv,” Chrissy called. “You made it!”
Vivienne stopped and posed like a beauty pageant contestant. “Ugh, I just had the most heinous day at work,” she announced.
Jess was not able to contain her eye roll. “Tough day of tanning, was it? Did you run out of sunscreen?”
An awkward silence fell over the group.
Jess pressed her lips together, trying not to look chagrined. Okay, that was a little mean.
But Vivienne didn’t look upset. In fact, her eyes glittered with triumph.
That was not good.
“No,” Vivienne said in a low, measured tone, waiting before she delivered the death blow. “But I did have to reapply after I dragged a kid out of a riptide.”
“What? You did? What happened?” The other girls burst into a flurry of exclamations and questions while Jess sat there, a huge asshole.
Vivienne raked her hair back and told the story with plenty of dramatic pauses and a false modesty that made Jess’s skin itch. And, please, it wasn’t even a riptide. The kid just swam a bit too far out and his dad wasn’t paying attention.
“Wow,” Chrissy breathed when Vivienne had completed her tale. “I can’t believe you saved a child’s life today and I … only sat here drinking.”
Vivienne brushed nonexistent sand from her suit. “It’s all part of the job.” Her gaze flicked over to Jess for a split second. “Usually I just work on my tan, of course.”
Jess pressed her lips together, fuming.
Chrissy popped up. “Well, I’m going for a swim! Promise you’ll save me too, Viv?”
The other girls laughed and stood to join her. Jess did not.
“You’re not coming, Jess?” Chrissy asked.
Jess gripped her drink, feeling the need to have about twelve more of them. “No, thanks.”
“Oh, come on!” Chrissy held out her hand, pleading.
“Jess is afraid of the ocean,” Tania reminded them.
Jess sighed. Apparently, she had to explain it every time. “It’s not that I’m afraid of the ocean, it’s that I … don’t feel comfortable in it.”
“‘Don’t feel comfortable’?” Lee raised an eyebrow. “What, like you’re socially awkward around kelp or something?”
Chrissy patted Jess’s head. “Don’t be afraid, Jess. Viv would rescue you, too.”
Jess looked at Vivienne without meaning to. Oh … God. “No, I, er…”
Vivienne’s dark eyes met hers. She raised her eyebrow in challenge.
Jess stammered. “I—I doubt you could haul me out of the water.”
Vivienne put her hands on her hips. “What are you saying? That I’m not a good lifeguard?”
“No.” Jess’s cheeks flushed. “It’s just that I have, like, six inches on you and probably a hundred pounds.”
Vivienne leaned back and slowly dragged her eyes up and down Jess’s body. “First of all, not even close. Try four inches and maybe twenty pounds.”
Jess scoffed, alarmed to feel her face heating further. The way Vivienne’s eyes explored her body … It made her feel … exposed.
“Second, I’ve pulled huge, fully grown men out of there. I’m properly trained and all muscle.”
Jess’s eyes flicked over those muscles—the curve of her biceps, the ridges of her calves.… “I’m sure you’re fully qualified.…” Her face burned in irritation. “I just … I prefer the sand, thanks.”
“Okay, well,” Vivienne said, snapping her strap into place, “if you need me to rescue you later, you let me know.” She winked before turning to stroll down to the water. The others followed her, laughing and leaping toward the waves.
Jess bit back what she wanted to say as Vivienne retreated—something about Hope your huge head doesn’t drag you under.
Tania sighed. “You’re missing out. The water feels so nice.”
Jess raised her cup. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will.” Tania turned, chuckling, to join the others.
Jess glowered at the group splashing in the surf. Vivienne dove under a breaking wave, her sleek black head emerging on the other side, powerful strokes pulling her deeper into the rolling gray swells.
“Show-off,” Jess muttered. She reached for Chrissy’s cooler to refill her drink.
They came back from the water glistening like mermaids, ocean drops on their skin, hair wet and slicked back, giggling at something Vivienne said. Jess brushed the sand from her towel, determined not to let Vivienne’s dark cloud hang over the rest of the day.
Vivienne flipped her head over, rubbing a towel in her hair, then tossed her mane back again like she was in a fucking shampoo commercial.
Another drink might help.
Once they had dried off and the sun dipped below the horizon, they hit Maggie’s, just adding shorts to their bikinis and striding into the place like they owned it.
Men and women alike stopped and stared at the pack of tall, fit, tanned volleyball players.
Jess always found the attention amusing, even though she knew she was not nearly as pretty as the others and only adjacent to the admiration.
Another handful of people from their league were waiting at a group of tables near the stage and they whooped at their arrival. The pack scattered from there—bathroom, dance floor, bar, a flock of exotic birds fluttering off into the jungle.
Jess followed Tania to the table.
“You want a Corona?” Tania asked her as she signaled to the server.
Jess nodded, wiping some clinging sand off her thigh. Tania placed their order with April, working her regular Monday night shift, who returned with their beers only a minute later.
“How you ladies doing?” April asked. April was the best server—she’d played volleyball back in her day, knew all their names, and even came to their games sometimes.
She was in her forties and powered around Maggie’s like a bulldozer, but was known to offer hugs and tissues, and, if it was really bad, a free beer when her girls needed some comfort.
“We’re good, thanks,” Tania replied. “How are you?”
“Oh, better without any bachelorette parties! Let me know when you need your next one.”
“Thanks, April.”
Jess’s gaze wandered around the bar as they sipped and chatted, drifting over the VL athletes and a few other faces she recognized, friends and partners, mixed with tourists and other random locals. Her eyes stopped when they landed on Vivienne.