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Aspen nodded slowly.

“I showed you, and I honestly don’t know why, but I did. I don’t want anyone else to see it, though, so I’m going to wear a T-shirt. Can you and DJ not make a big deal out of that?”

“I honestly didn’t see much of it, if that makes you feel any better. It was more like I knew it was probably there because you were trying to show me something. And if DJ says anything, I’ll tell her to stop.”

“Okay. Thank you,” Kendra replied.

“But, Kendra?”

“Yeah?”

“Scars are part of us, like anything else. They’re not the whole thing, you know?”

Kendra seemed a little surprised at the comment but didn’t say anything. She did nod before she headed down the hall to her bedroom. Aspen looked around and saw the couch behind her, so she sat down to wait. She didn’t know what it meant that Kendra had shown her the scar that she showed no one else, but she felt honored, even though she had been the one to put the woman into that situation, and she shouldn’t have.

A few minutes later, Kendra came back down the hallway carrying a bag and wearing a different shirt but the same pants.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Yeah, ready.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They got to the beach fifteen minutes later and found DJ already on the sand, taking off her shirt and tossing it on top of her bag.

“Hey, DJ?” Aspen spoke. “Kendra’s going to hang with us today. Is that cool?”

“You didn’t text her?” Kendra asked, sounding worried.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Hey, Kendra,” DJ greeted.

“It was a rhetorical question,” Aspen shared with Kendra. “DJ doesn’t care about much other than volleyball.”

“And chocolate,” DJ revealed. “It’s my one vice.”

“It’s one of her vices,” Aspen countered.

“Shut up.” DJ laughed. “Warm-up?”

“Yeah. Give me a second to change.” She turned to Kendra. “We usually just pepper to warm up on our chill days. Want to join us?”

“I haven’t done that in years,” Kendra said with a little laugh, referring to the common drill volleyball players used for their warm-ups, where they would find a partner, one of them would toss the ball to the other, that partner would pass back to them so they’d set it back, and then there would be a spike and, hopefully, a pass back.

“So, no?” Aspen checked.

“Can I try it, but if I’m terrible now, I’ll leave it to you two?”

“Yeah,” Aspen said.

She then went to pull off her shirt, tossed it into her bag, and looked at Kendra, catching her staring. Neither of them said anything else as Aspen looked down to pull off her leggings. Having discarded those, too, Aspen looked up to see Kendra look off at the ocean, trying to pretend like she hadn’t just been ogling Aspen’s legs.

“Come on.” Aspen chuckled. “You wearing those?” she asked, pointing to Kendra’s sweats.

“Yeah. Is that not okay?”

“It’s fine. You’re just going to get hot.”

“I wear jeans and blazers on the beach to do my job. This is fine.”