Page 74

CHAPTER 24

“How’s the ankle?” Kendra asked.

“Fine, like I told you yesterday, too,” Aspen replied, sounding slightly irritated.

“You know people only ask because they care about you,” Kendra said. “And DJ, obviously.”

Aspen laughed a little and said, “I know. And I’m glad people care about me. I just had my mom and dad over for dinner last night, and I was planning on cooking for them, but my mom literally brought dinner with her. My dad had a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine, and my mom made a salad and her veggie lasagna, and she also brought dessert, which was a store-bought cherry pie, which she told me she felt bad that she had to buy because she only had time to make the lasagna.” Aspen shook her head. “She told me she didn’t want me up cooking. I reminded her that I was fine. Plus, DJ keeps asking, and I understand why – it’s her career, too. Then, I’ve got trainers and people asking me on social media. I also had a meeting yesterday with one of my sponsors, and their first question wasn’t about how I was doing in general. There was a handshake, and then they flat-out asked how my ankle was; because if I don’t make the Olympic Team, they can’t air all the commercials they want me to shoot for them. I mean, I get it; I do. It’s just also exhausting to have to answer the same question over and over again.”

“Can I be honest with you?” Kendra asked as she set a bottle of sparkling water, that she’d bought specifically because she knew Aspen liked the brand, down on the kitchen counter.

“Yes, please do.” Aspen slid the bottle over toward herself but didn’t pick it up.

“I want you back on the court as much as the next person because I love watching you play – you work hard, and you also have a natural gift that most athletes would kill for – but it’s more than that for me. I know playing makes you happy. It’s part of you, like the beach is. I know how it feels to grow up in the sand and only want to do that one thing for as long as you can, and I know that’s in you, too. So, I want you to be okay because I know how happy volleyball makes you, not because I’m your partner on the beach and need you to help me win or because I’m trying to make money off of you. I see you smile when you’re out there, even at practice or when you’re in your backyard and you think no one’s around and you’re trying to hit spots on some board. You love this more than anything else, and I want you to have your dreams come true, Aspen. When I ask how your ankle is, it’s because of that.”

Aspen nodded and gave Kendra a small smile.

“That means a lot to me,” she said after a moment. “Did you buy this just for me? I don’t remember you having this the last time I was here.” Aspen held up the bottle.

“I might have gone shopping knowing that you’d be helping me paint this week, and I wanted you to have something to drink that you liked.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I’m not too good for tap water.”

“Consider it part of your payment for the help, then,” she suggested.

“Part of?” Aspen asked, sounding kind of hopeful.

Kendra almost told her that she could have payment in other ways, but in that moment, looking at Aspen, making a joke like that didn’t feel quite right. If and when they finally acknowledged this, it wouldn’t be a joke to her, and likely, not to Aspen.

“I’m cooking you dinner tonight, too. I’ve got steaks, and I bought a few different side options because I didn’t know what you’d want. I can make a salad, but I also have asparagus that I can grill, potatoes that I can bake, and I was going to make this bourbon sauce for the steak that my dad made for me a few times. It’s really good. Interested?”

“Very,” Aspen replied. “Now, what colors did you end up choosing after we narrowed it down?”

“You really shouldn’t have let me go to the hardware store alone…” Kendra told her with a little laugh and then moved into the living room, where she pointed.

Aspen followed and said, “What the…”

“I couldn’t decide, so I just bought all of them.”

“There are, like, fifteen gallons of paint here, Kendra.”

“Yeah, but I have more rooms to paint in this house, so they’ll all get used, at least. I got two gallons of a dark-green because I wanted to paint the long wall in that, and it might take two coats. I also got that off-white, eggshell color for the other wall, but I couldn’t decide at first, so I asked them to just give me everything I liked.”

“Holy shit.” Aspen laughed. “Well, I guess we have a lot of work to do.”

“I probably wouldn’t have spent so much money on paint had you been there with me. You can just decide like that.” Kendra snapped her fingers to demonstrate her point. “And I just start thinking about the fact that once I paint it, it’s on the wall, and I have to live with it.”

“Or, you just repaint it,” Aspen suggested. “If you don’t end up liking it, you just pick a new color and paint over it, Kendra. It doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. Where is that blue color going?”

“It’s some version of indigo, actually. Intense Indigo is the name. I mainly got it as a joke. It’s pretty dark. I don’t even know where I’d put it.”

“It would look really good in my room, actually.”

“Huh?” Kendra looked over at her.

“I’ve wanted to paint a dark accent wall behind my bed for a while. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I thought I would when the season was over last year, but then I didn’t.”

“Do you want it? You can have it,” Kendra offered.