Page 18 of Spin Serve

They’d gotten in later than planned the previous night due to their flight being delayed, not by weather, but by a mechanical issue that forced them to get onto a different plane entirely, delaying them by more than four hours. As a result, they’d checked into their hotel well after midnight and had to play at ten in the morning, so they’d done the best they could to get some sleep and ready themselves for the match.

Back on the sand, Aspen felt in her element for the first time that day, which was odd for her because she always felt in her element whenever her toes hit the sand. She’d chalked it up to the travel issues and the fact that DJ hadn’t stopped rolling over in her sleep all night. The sheets and comforter in the hotel were like plastic or something, which meant that Aspen could hear every time her partner moved from the other bed. She would be suggesting they spend money on separate rooms for the next tournament because saving a few bucks a night wasn’t worth it if she couldn’t sleep.

“No. No. No,” Aspen said when she noticed the blocker backing away from the net.

DJ smacked the ball straight down, and it landed right in front of the would-be blocker, earning them their first point of the set. It was DJ’s turn to serve, so Aspen moved her hands behind her back and gave DJ the signal to serve their better defender since they’d had good luck with her in the first match. The woman was only 5’8”, which meant that to go over DJ’s block, she had to hit a high line or a pokey that involved using her knuckles to get the ball over the net. That would give Aspen more time to get to the ball before it hit the sand and pass it back up to DJ. DJ served right to her, and there was a good pass and set. DJ had run up to the net, taking her position, and blocked the kill perfectly. It landed in the sand behind the hitter, and DJ turned around, pumped to get her first block of the match.

For the next several points, for every two to three that they got, the other team got only one, so by the time they were at seventeen and had to get twenty-one to win by two, they were up by five, feeling pretty good about their odds. Aspen was back to serve, and she was smiling because she knew she had this. Just as the whistle blew, though, she turned her head for whatever reason and saw Kendra standing off to the side with her cameraman, microphone in her hand, watching the match. Aspen turned away quickly because she could only take so much time to serve before they lost a point. She decided to hit a simple floater instead of going for a jump serve, and she had to watch the ball fly promptly way too far and land beyond the back line, giving her a service error and the other team a point.

“Are you okay?” DJ asked her as they slapped hands.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”

Aspen lined up in her ready position, and since the other team didn’t have the ball to serve yet, she chanced a quick glance over at Kendra, who looked really good today. Kendra had to dress up more than anyone else on this beach for her job, and today, she had on a pair of nice dark jeans and a white blazer over a red blouse. She was also wearing short red heels, and Aspen had to remind herself that she was supposed to be focusing on the match she was trying to win.

The serve came over the net and went to DJ, who passed it to Aspen, who then lined up the set for her partner, making sure to give her enough space over the net. DJ’s hit went to the defender, who dug it out, and her partner set it up for her. Aspen was back on defense herself, and when the ball went to the line where she was ready at the angle, she ran as fast as she could to offer the ball her arm just to keep it up in the air. DJ was there with a sloppy but decent ball up, giving Aspen enough time to hit a free ball over the net to the other side, which gave them the time to get back into their positions. The free ball, which was a ball hit over the net generally as high as they could get it, did its job as they prepared to play defense again.

The other team passed and set, and Aspen moved to take care of the line since DJ’s hand signs at the net showed she was going to block the angle. Aspen took the pass well and got it up to DJ, who hit it over in two, trying to catch the other team off guard, which she did. They were now up eighteen to thirteen.

“Hey, do that again,” Aspen said as she held her hand over her mouth while they walked back to their positions.

“Two?”

“Yeah. The first play, just kill it over the net. Send a message.”

“You got it,” DJ replied with a little laugh.

They served the ball and waited for it to come back over. When Aspen dug it, she got behind DJ for coverage in case the other player blocked the shot she was about to make and Aspen needed to dig it out again. DJ hit the ball straight down, though, earning them another point. At nineteen to thirteen now, there was really no way the other team could come back from that, so Aspen finally let it settle in that they were going to win.

They served again, and DJ ran up to the net, prepared to block the hit coming over. When they went above the block, though, Aspen was ready. She passed it up to DJ, who set her low, which was Aspen’s preference, and Aspen poked the ball around the block. The defender was ready for that, though, and she passed it. The set was next, and Aspen readied herself for the ball to come back to her.

“Angle! Angle! Angle!” she heard the other player yell, but she’d said it too early, and Aspen was too fast.

Aspen made her move over a few feet on the court, and when the ball hit her arms, she knew DJ would just hit it back over on two since the other two women were both at the net, so none of them were in the backcourt. DJ hit it, and the ball landed just inbounds in the right corner of the court. It was set and match point.

“Hey, that was fucking amazing,” Aspen said and gave her a high five. “Let’s finish it now.”

DJ nodded, and less than a minute later, the game was over when Aspen took a swing, and her kill landed in the sand on the other side of the net. They shook hands with the other team and the referees before they headed over to their chairs and grabbed their water bottles. Aspen knew what would come next, though, so she took a quick drink, tapped DJ on the hip, and nodded toward Kendra and the cameraman, who were hurrying over to talk to them.

“Hey, Aspen and DJ. Congrats on the win!”

“Thanks, Kendra,” Aspen replied, feeling immediately weird because she’d helped this woman paint her guest bedroom earlier in the week, and now, she was being interviewed by her after a match.

“How did it feel out there? DJ, I saw you had a bit of a foot injury, and you had to take a timeout. How is that?” Kendra held the microphone in front of DJ’s face.

“I’m fine. There was a shell in the sand, and I just stepped on it, but nothing major. So, I’ll be ready for our match tomorrow, no problem.”

“That’s good to hear. Aspen, you two had a bit of a different game plan with these two today, I noticed. A lot of quick shots on two. And DJ stayed up at the net a lot instead of falling back when the set was off, which, normally, she doesn’t do. Was that all part of your plan, or were you adjusting to something you were seeing out there?”

Aspen was surprised. She knew Kendra had to know a lot about sports to do her job well, but the woman reported on just about every major sport there was, so Aspen hadn’t expected her to understand the ins and outs of beach volleyball. Maybe she should’ve given Kendra more credit than that. Strangely, though, when they’d been painting, they hadn’t talked about volleyball. They’d talked about their houses, what Kendra wanted to do to hers, and how Aspen had done some of the easy plumbing stuff herself just because she wanted to learn how to do it. That was pretty much it. They’d finished the first coat of paint, and Aspen had gone home because it had been getting late.

“It was part of the plan, yeah,” she answered. “We thought if we could land a few over on two, it would get us some quick points, and if not, we’d stop. As for her blocking, I trust DJ at the net implicitly. So, if she sees something up there that has her thinking she should back off, or something telling her to stay up there, even if she normally wouldn’t, I trust that. And she was right today.”

“You’ll play a pretty good team tomorrow afternoon instead of in the morning. How do you prepare for a match when it’s more than twenty-four hours away after a match like today?” Kendra held the microphone to Aspen, but Aspen motioned to DJ.

Kendra looked surprised but moved the microphone over to DJ instead.

“I think we’ll go to the PT tent to get ourselves checked over by the trainers, do some ice and things like that, and we’ll just make sure to eat right and get some good rest tonight. Then, a light workout tomorrow morning, and we should be good.”

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