Chapter 24
Wins: I slept with Vivienne.
Losses: But does she want to sleep with me again? How am I supposed to forget about that? What if she wants to pretend it never happened? Oh God, how am I supposed to play volleyball with her now?
Free ball: Sending an easy ball over the net instead of an attack. A gift from your opponents. A chance to shape the next play however you want.
Jess got to the pavilion early Saturday, when it was still deserted, aside from Winston and the custodian tasked with opening up the building.
She was a disaster.
She’d barely slept the night before, Vivienne invading her every thought.
“Until after the game” Vivienne had said. “After the game” was only a few hours away. What would Vivienne say after the game? We should kiss some more? We should never have kissed? Maybe she wouldn’t say anything at all. Maybe she hoped Jess had forgotten all about it.
As if she could.
As if the night with Vivienne wasn’t burned into her brain for the rest of her life, on permanent display behind her eyes, complete with floodlights and red velvet ropes.
“Jess!”
Jess screeched to a halt. She had almost crashed headlong into Troy on her way into the locker room. “Shit, sorry. Hi, Troy.”
Troy shifted his armload of binders. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah, fine. I’m fine. Just … you know. Nervous.”
Troy nodded and looked like he was debating saying something. “I saw you guys training yesterday. Everything going okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong, you guys looked great, I just felt like … you looked a bit uncomfortable at times, and I was worried about you and Vivienne together.”
Jess tried to keep from laughing. I’m worried about me and Vivienne together too, Troy, she wanted to say. Instead she shrugged. “You know, it’s hard to play with someone for years and then suddenly have a new partner for such a huge match. But it’s fine. We’re fine.”
The binders started to slide. Troy bobbled the stack. “All right, then. Good luck, Jess. You know we’ll all be pulling for you.”
“Thanks.” Jess watched him walk away, rolling the lie around in her head. Because it wasn’t fine at all.
She had never been so un-fine before a match in her life.
By the time she had changed into Lee’s uniform—it was a little small but there wasn’t time to order her a new one—and pulled her hair up, she had decided to say something to Vivienne.
She had to let out the turmoil in her head.
It was the only option. Maybe Vivienne would be horrified, maybe she would be angry, but Jess just could not play in a match this huge with an entire section of her brain dedicated to the sounds Vivienne made as she came undone.
She had to tell her—I can’t stop thinking about you.
I really hope you want to kiss me again. Can I kiss you right now?
When Jess heard rapid footsteps approaching, she turned to face Vivienne, heart in her throat.
Vivienne rounded the corner at full speed, beaming, eyes bright. “Jess! Guess what! Toni and Lee had their baby!”
Jess gasped. “What! That’s amazing! Everyone’s doing okay?”
Vivienne squished her in a celebratory hug. “Yeah, the baby’s pretty small but she’s okay. She’ll be in the NICU for a bit.”
“Oh, that’s such great news.”
“Look at her…” Vivienne dug her phone out of her bag and showed Jess a photo of an itsy-bitsy bright pink baby with wide black eyes and a look of bewilderment.
“Aw, she’s precious. Do they have a name yet?”
“Yeah, it’s…” Vivienne choked up, tears filling her eyes. “It’s Vivienne.”
Jess’s jaw dropped. “Oh my God, that’s … that’s the sweetest.”
“I know.” Vivienne put a hand over her mouth, crying in earnest now. “I can’t believe it.”
“Well … they couldn’t have picked a better person to name her after.”
Before Jess knew it, she was hugging Vivienne again, Vivienne’s tears wet on Jess’s shoulder. So … now was not the time to ask for another kiss, probably.
Vivienne sniffled. “I just can’t wait to cuddle that little baby.”
“I’ll bet.” Jess squeezed Vivienne’s arms and went to find her a tissue.
“Fuck … Okay. Enough of that. I have to focus.” Vivienne dabbed her tears away. “We need to focus.”
“Yeah.” Jess smiled and handed her another tissue. Vivienne was so fucking cute. Just a big mushball under her cool exterior. “You want to review our match plan?”
“Yes.” Vivienne’s game face switched on. “Let’s do that.”
Vivienne got ready quickly, then they sat down cross-legged facing each other on the benches, notebooks in hand, reviewing what they had planned.
Jess glanced at the time when they were done. “We should head out th—” She stopped and cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” But then Vivienne picked up on it, too.
As they walked out of the locker room, it grew—a rumble, like the surf rolling in.
They stepped out into the pavilion lights, and the rumble turned into a roar. The stands were packed. Vivienne and Jess turned in a slow circle, taking in the sea of cheering faces surrounding them.
Chrissy, Shay, Locke, Billi, Raya, even Skye, the whole VL crew, shaking pom-poms and screaming their names.
There was Tania and George, Tía Diana and Tania’s entire extended family, plus … yup, Marco with a sign—I LOVE YOU, JESS! and in smaller letters underneath, RESPECTFULLY AND PLATONICALLY. He beamed when Jess waved at him. Tania rolled her eyes.
Nelson was there with Ramón, waving a dachshund stuffie and a GO JESS! sign in the air.
Aunt Veronica, Uncle Milton, and Uncle Lane were at the front of a group cheering in “Team Vivienne” shirts, and even Scarlett showed up with her family. Vivienne’s eyes widened in shock, but a smile crept over her face as she waved at them.
April and a bunch of the staff from Maggie’s whistled and hooted from the very front row.
A wave of goose bumps swept over Jess’s skin as her eyes prickled. Looking at all the faces, it hit her hard—the realization that all those people were there for her, to support her, to cheer for her … and she was a hot mess, teetering on the brink of total collapse.
Vivienne took Jess’s hand and squeezed it. “Wow.”
Jess’s heart clenched. No matter what she was feeling, she had a job to do. A job for Vivienne, but also, a job for herself. She squeezed back.
The first step was warming up. Their opponents were already at it—Faith and Athena, the NorCal team that beat Vivienne and Lee in the final in Vancouver.
They were much scarier when they were right there across the net.
Faith was almost Jess’s height, Puerto Rican, muscular, and tough.
Athena, a little bit shorter but not much, had shining umber skin, razor-sharp cheekbones, and hit the ball harder than anyone Jess had ever played against.
Jess tried to ignore them and turn her attention to Vivienne.… The way she was so locked in. The way her eyes smoked with intensity, with determination and focus, the set of her jaw and shoulders … and muscular arms and … fuck.
Jess shook her head. She was running out of places to look. Volleyball, Jessica.
It was hard to settle into a groove for warm-up with her thoughts doing their best to escape their constraints. By the time they lined up for the match, Jess was vibrating with the effort of keeping them contained.
“And now,” the announcer boomed, after introducing the officials, “representing the Southern California Beach Volleyball League, wearing number one, Vivienne Morris.”
Vivienne jogged to the end line, waving as the crowd cheered.
“And number two,” the announcer continued, “Jessica McLaughlin.”
Jess took a deep breath and joined her. They high-fived.
Jess shifted her weight from foot to foot as the announcer introduced Athena and Faith.
There were some cheers for them, and polite applause, but they definitely had home court advantage.
Jess was happy it was SoCal’s turn to host the state final this year.
After the anthem, they shook hands, then, having lost the coin toss, readied themselves to receive the serve.
Athena was up first.
It was a tough one, as expected, but Jess made a good pass and took a quick look at the other side waiting for Vivienne’s set.
Jess got a kill with a shot over Faith’s block to the back corner. The crowd roared.
Vivienne slapped her hands. “Fuck, yes, Jess. Do that again.”
She had said those exact words in the sapphire room.
Jess tried to shake that thought out of her head on her way back to serve. Her toss was too far behind her and she had to lob an easy serve over. Athena cranked it back at them for a point of their own. Tied at one.
When she should have been noticing where Faith’s eyes went before her serve, Jess noticed the way Vivienne adjusted her bikini bottom to loosen the sand trapped there. Faith scored an ace on the seam between them.
The set continued that way. They scored a point, but then Vivienne ran her fingernail along her browline to scoop back a stray hair and Jess missed the next block—small mental mistakes that made her half a second too slow.
The crowd’s energy started to fade. They gave up the next point, and then another.
They lost the first set 14–21.
Vivienne cracked a Gatorade. “Not the start we wanted, but we’re okay. We’re fine. Right?”
“Right,” Jess lied, when what she wanted to say was, I’m the reason we’re losing this match.
Jess’s focus continued to splinter. What if Vivienne decided she did want to be with her, but then a week later realized she was way out of Jess’s league?
What if they both got a circuit invite and they had to play together as exes?
They lost the second set 13–21 and the energy in the pavilion had flattened.
Down two sets to none, they sat on their bench in silence, punctuated by the squirt of water bottles.