The Co-op

Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEACON

She wins round one.

She handily wins match one almost entirely on her own, but she’s figuratively killing me, too. She and Jensen teamed up against me and Anya from the brewery, who I convinced to play. And LaRynn apparently thinks that the best attire for sand volleyball is a thong bikini. The woman is not delicate about it, either. She’s diving, sprinting, powering through the sand without restraint. Jensen wears a delighted expression when he and I face off at the net, but the rest of the time he looks a bit afraid—like he’s working that much harder to avoid being yelled at by his teammate.

They switch when it’s his serve, and now it’s LaRynn and me closest to each other across the divide. She bends and rests her hands on her knees and I see a guy take a ball to the temple on the court behind her. His partner is equally slack-jawed and staring, so he proceeds to trip over him, face-first in the sand.

“You should come with a liability waiver,” I tell her, shaking my head.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” I mutter.

She easily slips back into ignoring me, wholly focused on the task at hand. We rally back and forth countless times, a crowd gathering around us as the hits get harder, save after save. Until Jensen sets her a perfect ball and she makes an equally perfect approach. I time it out, meet her at the net just as she slams her hand into the ball, spiking it with all her might—directly into my outstretched palms. The ball ricochets off the block and she scrambles, immediately lying out behind her to try and reach it, but coming up short.

She gets up and slowly turns to me, a vicious look blinking across her face before she tips her chin and tucks it away. Sand coats half her body, from her hair to her toes, stuck in the places she’s sweatiest.

“You’ve got something”—I gesture to my head and down the length of my body—“here.” A little dig at her stunt from earlier. I smile.

She turns and bends to pick up the ball, swiping her palms across her ass to dust off the sand, the motion a bit slower and more drawn out than I think is necessary. I struggle to swallow, my vision pulsing. My brain sloshes around in my skull when I note the recoil.

“Your serve, Deacon,” Jensen says, and I realize I now have the ball in my hand and don’t know when I got it.

Anya and I end up narrowly winning the second and third match, victorious for the evening. And LaRynn surprises me by telling me good game, clasping my forearm at the end. She acts… entirely unbothered. When we say our farewells, she even gives Jensen a tight hug.

The last time I beat her here seven years ago, she tripped me and pretended it was an accident. Then I know she bought out all of my favorite gum from the corner liquor store so that there would be none in stock for me for the next week. She never admitted to the second thing, but I know it’s true. Every time I tasted her mouth that following week there was a hint of it on her tongue. The LaRynn I know is not a good sport, and my hackles are definitely raised now. Clearly, more games are afoot.