Always More Page 4

  “It’s a good time to pick it back up, then.” Wicked ran over to her and said, “If you can’t because of what happened, it’s okay. I should have checked with you first. I can just tell–”

  “I’m in,” she said defiantly and loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  Wyatt nodded at her and said, “You better be good, doc. I aim to win.”

  The teams were of the standard six players instead of the usual two reserved for beach volleyball. The court was smaller than an indoor court, which meant they were all packed a little closer than normal, but it was important that they practice like this in units. The eight extra players, four on either side, would sub in. It would have been six subs, but Kara and Everly were playing, taking one of their spots on both sides of the net. No one seemed to care, though. They were excited to play barefooted on the sand and with their coaches.

  The first few plays were pretty easy. Bump. Set. Spike. Blocking was a little harder on the sand, so it took several plays for even one block. When it did happen, it earned a huge cheer from the rest of the team. Then, the players got their beach legs. The hits came harder. The sets were more finely aimed. The serves were stronger and not sent flying out of bounds as often. Everly had a few serves come her way. She passed them to their setter and prepared to play coverage in case there was a block. She had kept up well enough until one play. Wicked went for a pass that was pretty close to Everly’s zone. Everly saw the woman out of the corner of her eye, thought about just letting her take it, and instead, called Wicked off the ball. She wasn’t sure if Wicked would let her have it, though, so she hesitated. The ball dropped to the sand.

  “What happened?” Wicked asked. “You called it.”

  “You kept coming,” Everly replied.

  “I was going behind you to cover,” Wicked explained. “Just in case.”

  “Sorry. I thought you were about to barrel into me and knock me to the ground. I don’t really want to pick sand out of my shorts today, Wicked.”

  “They’re nice shorts, though,” Wicked stated back as her eyes flitted down to Everly’s spandex shorts.

  She had worn them under her team-issued tearaway pants. She hadn’t expected to play with the team today; she just often wore them under her gym attire because it made her feel like a real player again. Actually, today had made her feel like a real player again. Wicked had given her that.

  “You two done now?” Kara yelled from her side of the net. “We’d kind of like to finish the match sometime today.”

  Everly and Wyatt’s team lost the match by two points. Surprisingly, though, Wyatt didn’t seem to care. She just helped the staff pick up the balls and gear and threw on a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants before she took a long drink from her water bottle.

  “What are you doing right now?” Wyatt asked her.

  “Mentally preparing for my hour of sitting in traffic. There’s a new podcast I just downloaded that might make the drive less terrible,” Everly replied.

  Wyatt laughed and asked, “Podcast?”

  “Hidden Brain? It’s from NPR. It’s pretty interesting.”

  “Sounds like it,” Wyatt replied sarcastically, tucking her water bottle away. “I was thinking about sticking around here for a while. If I can kill another hour or so, I’ll miss most of the rush hour. You interested?”

  “In missing rush hour? Absolutely,” Everly answered.

  “In hanging out with me in order to miss rush hour,” Wyatt corrected with a smile.

  “Oh, the podcast makes the–”

  “Everly, I don’t have a lot of friends here.” Wyatt stared out at the water. “I’m not from here, like you. I moved because I wanted to start over and play volleyball stateside. I’m not crazy close with anyone on the team yet. I’m sure I will be, but right now, it’s kind of just me. You’re from here. You seem to know it well, and… I don’t know. You seem like an okay person. I just thought maybe we could hang out. If you’re worried about the job, you can just say so,” she said.

  Everly wondered for a moment how this woman continued to know when she was lying or, at the very least, trying to get out of something.

  “If you don’t want to hang out with me, that’s okay, too. Just tell me the truth, so I can leave you alone if that’s what you want,” Wyatt finished her thought.

  “You want to hang out?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

  “Okay. Let’s hang out. What do you want to do?” Everly picked up her gym bag.

  “We could go over there,” Wyatt said, pointing to a bench.

  “You want to sit on a bench?”

  “No. Behind it,” she said. “The store.”

  “A comic bookstore.” Everly smiled.

  “You’re a fan, right?”

  “I am kind of a fan.”

  “Then, let’s see what they have,” Wicked said, heading that way. “Come on.”

  They walked in silence the hundred or so yards to the mainly touristy comic bookstore. It was a massive two-story building. They had a lot of figurines, posters, and collector’s books that were all for the new movies or series.

  “Do they have any of the old stuff?” Everly asked, walking slowly up and down the aisles.

  “Looking for something specific?” Wyatt asked her, strolling behind.

  “Not really. I like some of the old Black Widow stuff.”

  “Black Widow, huh?” Wyatt asked. “Scarlet Johansson fan?”

  “No, I mean the comic books. She’s good in the movies, though.”

  “That she is,” Wyatt agreed. “I can ask for you.”

  “It’s fine. This isn’t really that kind of place anyway.”

  Everly turned around to face Wyatt, who was staring at a Captain America shield.

  “I’m buying you this.” She pointed at it.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “It’s Vibranium.” Wyatt smiled at her and wiggled her eyebrows.

  “It’s plastic, Wicked.” She covered the hand Wicked had on the toy and pulled it away. “Come on. I’ll buy you a coffee or something.”

  “Fine, but I’m just coming back here to buy this for you later.”

  “What the hell will I do with a plastic Captain America shield?”

  “I don’t know how you’ve decorated your place. Maybe it could go above the bed or behind the TV.”

  “Let’s go.” Everly pulled on Wyatt’s hand until they were out of the store. “There’s a good local place down the street.”

  “Fine,” Wyatt said through her laughter. “You’re no fun.”

  “I’m very fun,” she countered, looking over at the woman as they walked.

  “I’m sure you are, little Miss NPR.” Wyatt laughed a little louder.

  Everly laughed, too, and then said, “You’re the one that wanted to hang out with me.”

  “Tell me about growing up in LA.”

  “What do you want to know?” Everly asked.

  “What did you do for fun?”

  “Played volleyball,” Everly answered. “My dad played beach for a while.”

  “That’s why you’re so good,” Wyatt said.

  “I am not.” Everly turned to her.

  “Yes, you were.”

  “We lost.”

  “Yeah, as a team. You played well, though, doc.”

  “Please don’t call me that,” she requested.

  “Why not? You’re a doctor. You earned that Ph. D. You should flaunt it.”

  “Not with you,” she said softly, staring at the ground.

  “Why not with me?” Wyatt asked.

  Everly didn’t know how to answer that question exactly, so she just went with the safest choice.

  “Not with the team; I try not to flaunt it with the team. I think it’s important for everyone to see me as more of a coach than as a doctor. I mean, at least for now. I’m still in that building trust phase.”

  “You’ve got my trust.”

  “Really? You haven’t come to see me at all. Everyone else has.”

  “Maybe I just don’t need it,” Wyatt argued.

  “Your feet disagree,” Everly said too quickly to stop herself.

  “What?”

  “Your feet. When you were in the rotation next to Myers, you shanked more passes because you don’t trust her. Your feet shift, and it throws off your balance.”

  “So, you did talk to her?”

  “I’m just saying that isn’t the kind of stuff coaches typically notice. Sports psychologists do.”

  “Then, why are you trying so hard to appear to be a coach?” Wyatt asked her. “You’re clearly much more than that, Dr. Everly Holman.” She held open the door to the café. “After you.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “It’s like you were born to play the sport with a name like Wicked. Wicked serve. Wicked kill,” Everly said.

  “It’s actually my mom’s maiden name. I wasn’t born with it, technically,” Wicked told her, taking a drink of her coffee.

  “So, you adopted it when you started playing?”

  “The two things aren’t linked,” Wicked said, putting her cup back on the table. “My dad wasn’t the nicest guy in the world. After he dropped me off for my first day of third grade, he went home and packed his things. My mom was already at work. He left a note. I guess he forgot he was supposed to pick me up from school, too.” She paused, watching Everly’s face turn sympathetic. “She got a call that I was still there, came to get me, and we drove home to find the note and that his things were gone.”

  “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”

  “It was hard for a while, mostly on my mom, though. He wasn’t really around for me all that much. He’d been out of work for over a year. Despite the fact that he was always around, he was never really around, you know? Anyway, I started playing shortly after that. It provided a distraction for me at first. I think that’s why my mom signed me up. I actually wanted to play tennis prior to that, but that was expensive. Volleyball only required a decent pair of tennis shoes and some cheap knee pads. I picked it up pretty quickly, and I ended up loving it.”

  “I guess something good came out of him leaving, then.” Everly picked up her own coffee. “Did you see him after that?”

  Wicked laughed and said, “Yeah, the moment I signed my first endorsement deal. I had been on the national team for a while by then, but I was also playing at school, so I couldn’t sign any contracts until I graduated. The moment I did, he called me. I’m not even sure how he got my number. He told me he lived near Portland, that he had a new wife and two sons, and that he wanted me to come visit. I fell for it.”

  “You went up there?”

  “I checked into the hotel, drove to the house, knocked on the door, and watched him tell his first lie within thirty seconds.” Wicked rolled her eyes. “He said he was glad to see me.”

  “How do you…” Everly put her cup back down and shook her head. “Never mind. What happened?”

  “Well, he does have the wife and the two sons. They’re five and seven years younger than me. They weren’t there, though. It was just him. He mentioned that he saw one of my matches on TV one day. It was a tournament for the national team in France. He caught my commercial for Mikasa. He figured I’d cashed in and was worth something now.”

  “He said that?”

  “No, but I could tell. He mentioned that he had been out of work for the past couple of years because of a back injury. He was on disability but was having trouble making ends meet. Then, he asked straight-up how much I made for the commercial and for my contract.” Wicked thought back to that painful moment, watching the man responsible for her life asking her for money, after cutting off all contact with her and her mother when she was nine years old. She then smiled, pushing through the memory to get back to Everly. “I told him I made enough to support myself and to help my mom when she needed it. I think he thought volleyball players must be bringing in NFL-level money. He was mistaken.”

  “Well, you are the highest-paid volleyball player in the world, male or female,” Everly remarked with a smile.

  “And that pays the bills,” Wicked countered. “The endorsements I’ve gotten over the past six years help, of course, and I have some savings. It’s a nice nest egg that I’ll probably need to rely on when I retire, but I’ll still have to work when I’m done playing. That’s especially true if I plan to keep living in LA.”

  “Do you?” Everly asked quickly.

  “Well, I’m here for at least the next two years, but I only rented a place. Pro athletes get traded all the time, and the league is so new; I don’t know what’s going to happen. I figured I’d take the safe route for now.”

  “And for later?”

  “I don’t know yet. If things go well with the league, I’ll stick around for as long as I can. I like LA so far.”

  “I guess if I want you to stick around, I should show you more of the good stuff, huh?”

  “You want me to stick around?”

  “I’d say because of the team, but I know you could just tell I wasn’t telling the whole truth. So, I’ll just say that yes, I’d like you to stick around.”

  “You really want to know how I can do it, don’t you? It’s driving you crazy,” Wicked said and laughed.

  “I’ve got my ideas,” Everly said, squinting her eyes at Wicked.

  “Really? What are they?”

  “I think I’d like to keep them to myself for now.”

  “Need to do more research first?” Wicked asked, sipping her coffee.

  Everly squinted at her again and said, “You don’t know either, do you?”

  “What?” Wicked leaned back in her chair.

  “I can read tone and body language just fine. You’re trying to look relaxed right now, but your shoulders are tense, and your tone was off. You don’t know how you do it, do you?”

  “I don’t do anything.”

  “But you can tell when people are lying or otherwise not telling the truth?”

  “Not all the time,” Wicked replied softly and glanced out the window, watching a rollerblader zoom past them. “I think I’m going to go for a walk on the beach before we have to head out into traffic.”

  “Wyatt, did I do something?”

  “No, no. I just need to walk off all this caffeine.” She stood, picked up her bag, and shouldered it. “I’ll see you at practice?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks for the coffee.” She nodded at Everly.

  “Wicked?”

  “Yeah?” she asked, turning back to the woman.

  “Do you like art?”

  “What kind of a question is that?” she asked with a laugh.

  “A good question if I’m trying to identify a place to take you so you can get to know my city.

  “I like art just fine,” she replied. “I also like music, movies, TV shows, books, plays, musicals, and a lot of other stuff.”

  “We’re in LA. We can work our way through that list.”

  Wicked tried to contain her smile, but it emerged all the same. She nodded in response, trying to hide the fact that, for some reason, her cheeks were turning hot and reddening by the second. She turned quickly, not wanting Everly to see, and then left the café. She went to the sand, kicked off her flip-flops, and slid them into the side of her bag. She walked slowly near the water, thinking about that moment when her father had disappointed her yet again. She wondered what her mother had ever seen in that man. He had never been abusive, physically or emotionally. He just didn’t care. His apathy was abuse enough, she guessed.

  She had sat there at his dining room table and listened to him talk about his money problems and how his wife liked nice things that she bought with credit cards. He presented the whole thing like it was her fault they had no money. Wicked didn’t know for sure; maybe the woman was responsible for their debt. It didn’t matter, though. She hadn’t had the money to give him back then. The moment she revealed that she’d used the money she’d made to pay off her mother’s mortgage and car, he’d been uninterested in anything Wicked had had to say. He hadn’t even asked her a single question about herself. When she’d asked him why he hadn’t called her when she had graduated high school, won a national championship, or earned a silver medal in her first Olympic games, he’d had no excuse.

  She kicked sand around as she walked past two women and two children. The women kissed one another sweetly. Wicked looked down at the sand, suddenly feeling so lonely for no reason. She then looked out at the water, deciding to walk closer to it. She let her toes dip into the soggy sand, feeling them sink into the ground. She dropped her bag to the ground near the family, thinking it would probably be safe there, and then, she took off. She ran along the water’s edge, thinking about that day with her father. She felt the pain but replaced it with the joy of being able to take care of her mother’s debts as a twenty-two-year-old kid. The pain returned when she remembered leaving her mother for the season, knowing her mom wouldn’t be able to visit often and knowing she’d be too busy to come back home to see her. She ran and ran until she stopped, got her breathing back under control, and ran back to her bag as fast as she was able.

  She stood there with her hands on her head, her elbows jutting out to the side, staring at the ocean and wishing she had something this beautiful this close to her house when she was growing up. Then again, had she had an ocean nearby, she might not have played volleyball. She could see herself falling in love with swimming or surfing or even the beach game. She loved her sport, though.

  Wicked loved the chess match on the court, the hard angles, the teamwork it took to make a perfectly-timed block, strike an ace serve, and pull off a big win. She loved the sport; she just didn’t like being so far from home and feeling so alone all the time. That was why this league was so important. Of course, she didn’t exactly have a home to go back to anymore. She would do her best to make Los Angeles home now. She would try to make real friends beyond the team. She would try to find a nice girl to sit on the beach and share sweet kisses with; and maybe someday, she would have those two kids running around the beach, flinging sand at one another. She lifted an eyebrow as she turned around to dodge some that was coming her way inadvertently.