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***

The next day, at the volleyball club, Ainsley held the ball and surveyed the opposing team, which this time included Rachel and Krissy. It was her serve again. She had already scored three straight aces, which was a good thing because those points had brought her team back from the brink of losing to within one point of the other team. Another ace and the set would be tied. Lose this point and they’d lose the set.

There was no way she was going to serve to Rachel’s zone, not with the game on the line. But Andrea seemed tired. Ainsley had noticed Andrea wiping her brow twice in less than thirty seconds and she just seemed listless. Okay. That was her target.

She spun the ball a couple of times in her hands and then tossed it up. Timing her jump perfectly, she delivered another cannon shot, this time straight at Andrea. But remarkably, Andrea dug it out, preventing the ace. However, though Andrea had managed to keep the ball alive, she shanked the pass. The ball bounced off her hands high and heading backwards. All it needed to do was fall out of bounds and the game would be tied.

But then…

Ainsley, who was watching the flight of the ball while getting into her defensive position, caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eyes. As a quick as a rabbit, Rachel was chasing after the ball, keeping her head turned up and her eyes on it as it started arcing downwards and then, at the last possible moment, Rachel slid with her feet forward, stuck out her right foot and kicked the ball back toward her teammates a half second before it fell out of bounds!

“What the fuck!” Charlotte, on Ainsley’s team exclaimed.

Even Ainsley was stunned.

Rachel’s foot save pass was intercepted by Lucinda who then whacked the ball over the net. It wasn’t even a particularly hard shot. It should have been easily handled by anyone on Ainsley’s team. But after witnessing Rachel’s miraculous play just moments ago, her teammates—and herself—had been ill-prepared. The shock of what they had just seen had forced all of them to drop their defensive stances, lose their concentration and basically just be spectators to Lucinda’s shot. Only Wendy made a feeble attempt at getting to the ball but it fell to the sand.

The set was over.

“New girl rocks!” Krissy exclaimed, both fists in the air. All of Rachel’s teammates crowded around her to congratulate her on the play. Even Ainsley’s team crossed over to that side of the net to give Rachel kudos.

“That was fucking amazing!” Charlotte declared and Ainsley had to laugh because Charlotte, uncharacteristically, was acting like a starstruck teenager, even though she had been on the losing side.

“Thanks,” Rachel said, blushing from all the attention, which only made her hotter in Ainsley’s eyes. “It might have been a low-percentage maneuver but I had to try something.”

“I saw a player for Brazil do that once in an indoor match,” Becca said.

“I saw one from Peru do it too,” Lucinda added.

“Yeah, but no one from fucking Solana Beach!” Ainsley said, making them all laugh.

In the locker room, as they prepared for their showers, Rachel said to Ainsley, “That may have been a sweet move I made but it’s going to take me a week to get all of the sand out of my cootch.”

Ainsley laughed.

“Ah, the perils of being an superstar athlete!”

“Bar again afterwards?” Rachel asked, gathering up her shower supplies.

Or my place?

Ainsley had to admit that she was extremely turned on. Rachel just being Rachel was hot. Rachel being superhero volleyball player, however, was inferno hot and if Ainsley was able to, she’d lie Rachel down on one of the benches that were in front of the lockers and clean all that sand out of her cootch…with her tongue.

***

“No way!” Ainsley exclaimed thirty minutes later in the same bar she had taken Rachel to last week.

“Yes way!” Rachel insisted. “How can you not think that?”

Ainsley rolled her eyes and then took a sip of her margarita. This time, she had chosen a strawberry-basil one while Rachel had the coconut-flavored one. Both of the flavors were so good that the two women were practically sharing their drinks, with one taking sips from the other’s whenever.

“You’re wrong,” Ainsley stated.

“I am so right!” Rachel insisted. “Ask anybody!”

Ainsley shook her head.

“Nope, because I don’t want people thinking I’m the type of person who goes about asking stupid questions.”