CHAPTER 3

Aspen never slept in. Most mornings, she was on a beach by six or seven at the latest because beach spots filled up quickly, and she couldn’t exactly afford to have her own court in her backyard, even if it could fit there. She did have some equipment back there and hadn’t bothered to put grass down to replace the dead stuff that had been in place when she’d moved in. She’d put in some sand, yes, but it wasn’t a full court. It was more so she could pass, set, hit, and practice a little against the box she’d set up back there in order to make the ball come back to her whenever she was alone. She’d had to get special approval to put sand in her backyard from the homeowner’s association, which she thought was ridiculous because she’d bought the damn house. Why did she have to get someone’s approval to do what she wanted in her backyard if it wasn’t hurting anyone or doing any damage?

Today was her day off, which didn’t mean she was actually taking it off. It only meant that she’d planned to sleep until eight, make a light smoothie breakfast, get in some work in the backyard, have some lunch, work out in her gym, which was really just her third bedroom with an elliptical, treadmill, and some weights, and have some baked salmon with a side salad for dinner, along with a glass of white wine, which was her treat for the day. She tried to give herself something outside of her usual diet, in moderation, at least a few times a week. Sometimes, it was splurging on Starbucks with all the sugar in her Frappuccino; sometimes, it was a glass of wine or a beer; and other times, it was a piece of her favorite chocolate. It was her way of rewarding herself but still sticking to what she needed to do to win matches and, hopefully, medals.

It was just now eight o’clock, according to Aspen’s phone, which meant she had woken up before her alarm. That was odd because, due to her experience with traveling, she’d had to adapt her sleep schedule a thousand times over to adjust to the different time zones. She’d gotten great at sleeping on planes, busses, trains, in just about any hotel room, even though she shared it with her partner most of the time and DJ snored like crazy, and she hardly ever woke up before her alarm.

Then, she heard it, the likely cause for her waking up early on her one day off. It sounded like one of those big trucks beeping like it was alerting the entirety of Los Angeles that it was backing up and to stay out of the way. Aspen grunted because it was way too early for there to be a big truck yelling at everyone in the neighborhood. She tossed her phone aside and decided to give herself another half hour to sleep before getting up, but then, she heard the sound of what had to be metal hitting the concrete. It was a loud thud that she could’ve sworn she felt from her first-floor bedroom, and had she lived anywhere else, it probably wouldn’t have reminded her of a small earthquake.

“What the fuck?” she muttered and sat up, rubbing her face rapidly with both hands. “I guess I’m up.”

Aspen decided to take a shower to help her wake up since she was pretty sure she’d just been woken up in the middle of some amazing deep sleep, which wasn’t something she got all that often. She turned the shower on to lukewarm because she couldn’t stand cold showers but didn’t want a hot one, either, scrubbed her skin a little, cleaned her face, and got dressed for her morning workout.

Her smoothie was her go-to breakfast just about every morning, and it was what her nutritionist always told her to have. They’d tweaked it a few times over the years to add more or less of something she might need based on how she was feeling or performing, but the base was greens and banana, which, thankfully, made it taste less like greens. She drank half of it, grabbed a bag of balls, and carried it outside, where she dropped the bag and took a look at the sky.

The weather was supposed to be normal for a SoCal summer today, which meant that she’d sweat a little, but it wouldn’t be blistering heat making her lethargic and wanting to go back into the air-conditioning. Aspen set her smoothie down on her backyard table that sat on the concrete stone back patio that was here when she moved in, and walked out onto her sand.

It wasn’t too hot yet, which was another reason to start training early because once that sun hit the center of the sky, the sand could start to burn her feet. She could help things by grabbing her hose and spraying the sand down, but she’d be fine for right now; she’d do that later if she needed to. Aspen pulled a ball out of the bag and walked to the side of her yard opposite her plywood-made triangle-shaped box. She called it a box, anyway, but it wasn’t really a box. It was a thick piece of plywood resting on cinder blocks that she could remove or add to, changing angles to get in a little more work than with the ball usually just returning to her if she hit it just right, which was the goal, of course.

She had a short fence that hit her around her chest, but she was taller than a lot of people, so for many of them, it would hit them around their shoulders. It helped if the ball bounced and she didn’t get it, but sometimes, it wouldn’t stop it, and she’d land a ball in someone else’s yard. She’d asked her neighbors if she could go in and pick it up if that happened, and the neighbors to her right and left had both agreed. She had one neighbor behind her who hadn’t liked the idea of her going onto his property, so they worked it out that he’d toss the balls back over the fence whenever he saw them. She’d autographed a few things for him for his trouble since his teenage granddaughter was a fan, and that seemed to prevent any issues.

She lined up to toss the ball against the box and start working on her passing when she heard a voice, which she recognized, coming from behind her.

“You can just put it there for now. Thank you.”

Aspen turned her head before she turned around fully and saw Kendra Bowie directing two burly men to put a table down on the back patio of the house next door to her own.

“We’ve got the chairs coming,” one of the movers said.

Aspen could tell they were movers because they were wearing uniforms with the name of a moving company, which meant that Kendra Bowie was moving. Well, not just moving; moving in. The house next door had been for sale for a few months. From what she’d seen when she’d been home, it had gotten plenty of interest, but when she’d looked up the asking price, she’d balked because they were asking at least fifty grand more than that place was worth. She’d been inside once at a party held by her now-previous neighbor, and while it was a nice house, hers had been updated more recently in both the kitchen and the master bathroom and had gotten a fresh coat of paint, so there was no way that place was worth more than hers.

“Um…” Aspen mumbled to herself and walked over to her fence. “Kendra?”

Kendra heard her name and looked inside the house, probably expecting someone from the moving company to be the one saying it.

“Over here,” Aspen added.

Kendra turned her head in Aspen’s direction, and her eyes went wide.

“Aspen?” she asked in surprise.

“Yeah. Hey. You’re… You’re moving in?”

“Yes. What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” She pointed to the house as if doing that would somehow prove her point. “This is me.”

“You–” Kendra walked over toward the fence. “You live here?”

“Yeah. See the sand in my backyard? That’s for me.”

Kendra got a little closer and looked down over the fence.

“I saw this when I checked out the house. I didn’t really put it together with you, though.”

“Why would you? California is filled with the stuff,” she replied.

She wasn’t sure why she was acting so strangely. Well, yeah, she was. It was because Kendra Bowie was standing just on the other side of Aspen’s fence, and Kendra Bowie was beautiful. She had that blonde, blue-eyed, all-American look about her that always made Aspen internally swoon, but she was also nice, as far as Aspen could tell from the few times they’d talked outside of the interviews she gave Kendra for work. She remembered something about Gatorade but had no idea why they’d been talking about flavors of it or which one of them had brought it up in the first place.

“I had no idea you lived here,” Kendra said. “I guess this means we’re neighbors now, huh?”

“I guess so,” Aspen replied.

“Where do you want this box? There’s no label,” one of the movers asked, holding a box in his hands just outside the sliding glass door.

“Oh, they’re all labeled. I know I put labels on all of them.”

“Not on this one,” he argued.

“Okay. I’ll be right there.”

“It’s okay. I’m just going to get in a workout. Maybe we can talk when they’re gone or something, if you want,” Aspen suggested. “I’m home all day.”

Kendra gave her a small smile and said, “Yeah, okay. I just need to get them out of here as quickly as possible. I’m paying by the hour.”

“Good luck with that,” Aspen replied. “Oh, if a ball goes into your yard, do you mind if I grab it? I had a deal with the last people who lived here. If I break anything, I buy it. That was also the deal.”

“How many things have you broken?” Kendra asked.

“None so far.”

“Can we keep it that way? I just bought this place.”

“Sure,” Aspen said with a little laugh.

“And, yeah, you can just grab it. I’ll maybe stop by later if I can find time to breathe.”

“Just come by whenever. We can have coffee or something. I’m sure you could use a break.”

“Yeah… Okay,” Kendra agreed with a little hesitation that Aspen wondered about.

“Great. See you then.”

“Okay,” the woman repeated and hurried back toward the house.

Aspen watched her go and turned away when Kendra was inside the house and she could no longer see her. She couldn’t believe that the sideline reporter, Kendra Bowie, was her new neighbor. What were the odds? Los Angeles – and its many, many neighborhoods – was a big city, but somehow, it always felt like a small town when she really thought about it. Aspen tossed the ball toward the box and got in her ready position to pass it back to her imaginary partner. There were sounds behind her as she trained, and she did her best to ignore the men talking loudly with the backdoor open, but when one of them laughed like he had just heard the funniest thing in the world, she spooked at the sound and turned around.

Kendra was standing there, and she was looking over at Aspen. Then, she quickly nodded and turned around awkwardly. Aspen didn’t know what that was about, but it was around lunchtime anyway, so she just went inside. She made herself a sandwich with baby carrots and celery on the side and mixed up a chocolate protein shake for her dessert. She sat at her kitchen table alone and ate, scrolling on her phone between bites and checking social media. When she heard Kendra’s voice outside saying something Aspen couldn’t quite make out, she got the idea to look her up instead.

Kendra Bowie had been working as a sports reporter since she’d graduated from UCLA with a degree in broadcast journalism. She’d worked her way up, though, according to her bio online, and hadn’t always been the go-to reporter for the network. She was around thirty-five, if Aspen had her math right, and, according to what she could see of Kendra’s social media stuff that wasn’t private, she didn’t appear to be married or have any kids. Aspen hadn’t ever noticed her wearing a ring, but not everyone wore one, so she hadn’t given it much thought.

She wondered if Kendra would actually come over for that coffee like she’d said she would or if she’d assumed that Aspen was just being polite. Aspen was, technically, being polite, but she also wouldn’t mind talking to Kendra about something more than beach volleyball. She got her answer when her doorbell rang seconds later. She stood quickly and nearly knocked over her chair, as if the FBI just beat down her door, and realized she was weirdly nervous.

“What is your deal?” she whispered to herself as she walked toward the door and pulled it open. “Hey.”

“Oh,” Kendra said and looked down.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’ve seen you in a bathing suit before. I just...”

Aspen looked down and realized that she was wearing a sports bra and her bikini bottoms. She wore this ensemble so often, she usually forgot to change once she was back in the house.

“I like to practice like I play,” she explained. “I was just having lunch.”

“I didn’t know if I should just come over or–”

“Yeah, it’s totally fine. Come on in. I can put on some actual clothes.” She moved out of the way to let Kendra walk inside, closed the door behind her, and added, “Just give me a second. I’ll be right back.”

“Your place is nice,” Kendra noted as Aspen hurried toward the hallway and into her bedroom.

“Thanks!” she yelled in response as she quickly tossed on a hooded sweatshirt and found a pair of shorts on her floor. “I wasn’t expecting company, so it’s not exactly clean.” She walked out of her room and found Kendra still standing by the door. “I need to do the dishes and laundry, so please don’t judge me.”

“No judgment here.”

“Since everything you own is probably in boxes, can I make you something to eat? I was just having a sandwich, but I have other stuff. Coffee?”

“I…” Kendra looked around the living room. “I’d love to, but I just came over to say thanks for the invitation and that I really should be unpacking. I leave again soon, so I need to make as much progress as possible… before I do that. Maybe another time?”

“Oh,” Aspen let out. “Sure. Yeah. Whenever I’m here. Do you need help with anything today? I don’t mind.”

“I’m okay. The movers put everything where I needed it to be, and I don’t have all that much to unpack since I came from an apartment, and the house has a lot more space.”

“You have that nice patio table.”

“I ordered it when I got the offer approved on the house. I’ve always wanted a backyard where I could sit, so it was my reward for buying my first home.”

“I do that, too.” She gave Kendra a smile.

“Do what? Sit outside?”

“Well, yeah, I’m sure I do that, but I meant that I reward myself for stuff. Like, tonight, I’m having wine with dinner; that kind of a thing.”

“If it works, you know?”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“Anyway, I should get back to that. I need to unpack the things I have to pack in my suitcase later, so…”

“Okay. Well, the invitation stands for that coffee. Whenever. Doesn’t have to be today or anything.”

“Thanks, Aspen,” Kendra replied before she turned, gripped the doorknob, and opened the door. “I’ll see you around.”

“You definitely will now,” she said.