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“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I guess I did just invite myself here, huh? I’ll be in the room.”

“Okay,” Aspen said.

“Night, Kendra.”

“Good night, DJ,” Kendra replied and smiled as she watched her walk away. “You need to tell me something?” she asked Aspen then.

“No, I just wanted to hang out alone. I love DJ, but we spend all day, every day together. Sometimes, I could use a break. Just like, I’m sure, she could use one from me, too.”

“You are a lot sometimes,” Kendra teased.

“Shut up.” Aspen laughed. “So, were you nervous? Did you think we’d lose?”

“No, I knew you’d win.”

“Really? I wasn’t so sure after that first set.”

“Yes, you were,” Kendra stated.

“Fine. We’d played slow in the first set, so I was sure we just needed to speed up and we’d be fine. But I’m trying not to sound like a narcissist here, Kendra.”

“You are far from narcissistic, Aspen Ashley.”

“Yeah?”

Kendra nodded.

“Can I ask you something? And you can choose not to answer, if you want.”

“Sure,” Kendra told her and then sipped on her vanilla milkshake.

“Would you have pursued beach or indoor if you’d been able to play on? You played both in high school. I was curious.”

Kendra set her milkshake back on the small folding table the hot dog stand owner must have set up daily near the front of the stand.

“It’s okay. Forget it. Sorry, I brought it up.”

“Why did you?” Kendra asked.

“Because I want to get to know you better. I know you loved volleyball, so I wanted to know which one you would have picked if you’d gone pro.” Aspen picked up Kendra’s milkshake then and took a sip through her straw, which made Kendra glare playfully at her. “What? I won today. I can have a sip.”

Kendra wanted to tell her that she could have a lot more than that, and she didn’t even have to win a beach volleyball match to get it, but she sensed this was maybe an important conversation, so a comment like that would have to wait.

“Beach.”

“Yeah?”

“I secretly – well, not-so-secretly – wanted both. I’m actually a little jealous of your former partner because she played pro beach first and almost qualified for the Olympics before she made the US national team and would probably play indoor in the Games. That’s not exactly easy to do, and I wanted that. Well, I wanted to win a medal in both.”

“Dreaming big, huh?” Aspen asked.

“I was seventeen, so, yeah. I was good enough that major colleges were courting me, but that was for indoor because there weren’t beach teams in college yet. I would’ve played for one of them and then gone to the beach after, I think.”

“Where would you have gone?”

“I got offers from Stanford, Nebraska, Florida State, Oklahoma, Washington–”

“Jesus, Kendra. You got offers from Stanford and Nebraska?”