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remarked to the air at large as she assumed her place behind the service line, “at least I’m not nervous anymore.”

The whistle blew.

“Point and game, Lambert and Hodges, 15-1.”

After shaking their opponents’ hands, Dylan and Cat strolled back to their shaded nook to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd. Dylan grabbed a water

bottle from an overly-attentive young line boy and chugged it down. Cat rubbed the sand from her body with a towel, and stared daggers at said line boy

until he took the hint and feasted his eyes somewhere safer.

Like Afghanistan.

The game had been a walkover. Cat displayed a wicked, curving overhand serve no-one—including herself—knew she had, and Dylan was, quite simply,

Dylan. Their opponents never had a chance, though they gave it a game effort.

The tournament was a modified round robin format, with the six teams broken up into two three-team groups. Each team would play the others in its group

in a one game to fifteen winner take all match. Then the winners of each group would play one another for the right to face the world’s top professional

two-woman beach volleyball team.

And that right would likely come with a royal butt-whipping.

Today, Thursday, was reserved for the preliminary rounds. Friday would host the group winner face off and the “championship” game against the pros.

The weekend itself was reserved for the true showpiece of the tournament, the annual three-on-three basketball pro-am.

The fans, however, were enjoying the preliminary “festivities”.

And if the beer vendor, who was so intent on ripping the rest of Dylan’s scant clothing off with his eyes that he walked into a support post and was

currently wearing his product, was any indication, volleyball would be back next year for certain.

Cat looked over at Dylan, who was sitting regally in her canvas chair, looking totally cool and unruffled, and felt a brief stab of envy. Cat herself was hot,

sweaty, sore, and had a pound of sand in places where sand had no place being.

She was also a hormonal wreck. It was bad enough seeing the woman of her dreams half clothed and facing her. But when Cat stood behind the service

line and looked at that perfectly sculpted back, legs longer than the Nile, and a posterior worthy of the envy of every god, past, present and future, her

mind was insisting on sending her images that would make a streetwalker blush.

People wondered where her wicked serve came from. She didn’t.

Sexual frustration, plain and simple.

And the very object of that frustration was walking toward her, oiled, sleek, and mouth-wateringly gorgeous.

“Ready?”

Any more ready and I’d explode into a million pieces right in front of the crowd.

She didn’t say that out loud, of course.

At least, she didn’t think she did.

By the look on Dylan’s face, however, there was a distinct possibility that her thoughts had been well and truly read.

Cat rose with a sigh. It was going to be a very long day.

Leaning her shoulder and head against the cool cement of the tunnel, Cat more or less patiently waited for Dylan to finally break away from every Tom,

Dick, and Harriet who clamored for her much valued attention. She’d faced the press and crowds for a small eternity herself, but it was obvious exactly to

whom they all paid homage. Which suited Cat just fine. The crowd gave her a major case of the willies.

She smiled, though, remembering one small girl, her hair all gone from chemotherapy treatments, and how she’d pushed with determination through the

writhing mass, Cat’s rookie card in her small hand. Her right leg ended in a prosthesis, which made her determination all the more fierce and, to Cat,

exceptional. The young girl had given her a shy, gap-toothed grin, and held up her card to be signed. Cat was, the girl said, her absolute favorite player in

the whole world.

Smitten, and damn near tears, she’d signed the card, knowing that the pure, undiluted joy of that simple act would be something she would always

remember.

She’d also posed for pictures with the girl, whose name was Randy, and they’d talked until her mother led her away, smiling, waving, and holding the

signed card to her chest as if it was the most priceless of treasures.

Coming back to the present, Cat smiled, shook her head, and wiped the mist from her eyes.

They’d won all three of their games, of course, though the last game was a bit close for awhile. An Olympic high jumper had paired with the number three

ranked tennis player to give them a match worth sweating for. In the end, however, they’d managed a 15-8 victory, and the crowd, ever appreciative of

their efforts, nearly fell in on itself with joy. Cat guessed, privately, that most of that joy centered on the fact that they’d just been granted another day in

which to see their Goddess in her cocktail napkin ensemble.

Cat chuckled a little at the thought.

A shower, cold and stinging, had done wonders for her disposition, if not exactly for her state of cleanliness. She could still feel fine granules of sand