Part 8. Confidence vs. Competence.
2 weeks later,
Chloe gave a mischievous smile at Jon's sweat covered face. Her dark eyes met his with a twinkle as they both took heaving breaths of exhaustion that mingled in the few inches between their faces.
"This too much for ya?" she whispered teasingly.
"No I got lots left in the tank. If you're hoping this is gonna ease-up you're outta luck," he muttered back between breaths with a smirk.
She smiled wide in amusement, "Not a chance. Bring it on big guy I can take it," she winked at him.
Jon shut his mouth realizing they were flirting, and backed away a bit from the volleyball net.
"Service! Match Point!"
Chloe's teammate hit the ball in a fast curving serve.
Jon backed away into position to admire Beth diving spectacularly and bumping it back to the setter, sliding across the floor like it was nothing. A set was arched up perfectly in front of the net and Jon jumped for all he was worth and spiked it, ricocheting off of someone's fingers and out to the side. The other team scrambled to keep it in play only barely getting the ball back across the net in a slow easy arch. Jenna passed it easily back to the setter, who relayed it to Ben this time. He faked out a spike and tipped it over the blockers fingers. Their player dove desperately to save it from hitting the ground, but knocked it out of bounds.
They cheered and high-fived, having tied the game to stay alive. Beth grasped his hands above her head and pecked him a quick kiss with a smile.
"You can do it," she whispered and gave him a subtle pat on the ass as he turned around to catch the ball.
It was his serve. If they got the next two points they would win.
He bounced it in front of him trying not to feel too nervous. He let out a deep breath.
The whistle blew. "Service!"
He focused his mind and tossed the ball up to give a hard overhand serve flying over the net and curving down, but maybe not far enough. His stomach sank as he watched it fly back and the other team backed away, confident that it was out.
To his relief he watched their disappointed faces as they saw it hit dead on the line. The ref pointed down to confirm the point and his team cheered.
"Ace!"
A couple of high fives and Jon caught the ball again.
One more point to win it. They had achieved a comeback from 5 points down earlier in the game. He let another breath out and bounced the ball a few times to focus again.
"Service! Match point!"
Jon put everything out of his mind except his physical movements. He tossed up the ball and hit it hard. It flew fast, just missing the top of the net and curving down. Jon honestly thought it was going too fast and probably would have been out this time, but the other team was taking no chances and a player jumped and stretched to reach it in time. The pass to the setter was off by a lot but she managed to get it up in a decent volley to their hitter who gave a surprisingly strong spike, aimed between Jon and Jenna. Jon dove without thinking and somehow managed to save it, but his lack of recent experience showed and he landed awkwardly with a hard 'bang' on his elbow afterwards. He groaned on the ground at the pain but was relieved the ball made it to their setter. The set went to Beth. Even after playing with her for 2 games already, Jon still marveled at her athleticism, as she jumped and hung high in the air and yelled out as she spiked it hard through the blockers hands.
Jon was sure that would be the game winner, but watched in disbelief as their player somehow lunged in time to dig it up and the ball almost flew into the ceiling. Their setter had to run fast to hit it back to the net, but managed to set it up perfectly. The pass had gone to Chloe, who didn't have nearly the vertical that Beth did, but managed an impressive spike nonetheless. Beth was right there though, and her block stuffed it right back into their faces bouncing off their bodies and into the net and eventually through flailing hands on to the floor.
Beth screamed out in victory and the rest of them cheered. They laughed as they all came together for a big group hug.
"Woohoo!" Jenna shouted.
"First win!" Ben exclaimed in excitement.
Beth found Jon immediately after and wrapped her arms around him for a kiss and a proud smile. She was being much more affectionate with him compared to their last game, and wondered if Chloe being there had anything to do with it. The other team was actually Beth's old team that she had left a few months ago, and he didn't blame her for relishing in the revenge-win this had turned into.
They let out a 'hip hip hooray!' and went to shake hands. Beth was in front of him in the line and he watched Chloe give her a polite 'good game' with a very neutral face, before turning to him and curving her lips into a naughty smile as his hand met hers.
"Nice work out there," she said breathily, as she let her fingers trail away. He kept a straight face as he looked away and put her out of his mind. She evidently thought she was having more of an effect on him than she was. In reality he only had eyes for one girl tonight and there was no comparison.
Beth's tight voluptuous body spun around at the end of the handshake line and looked up at him with a beautiful smile.
"You were awesome out there tonight!" she pecked him another kiss. "Now I can definitely tell you used to play a lot, you just had to brush a few cobwebs off I guess hey?"
He chuckled, "Yeah I guess. You were still the star out there. My biggest problem is keeping my eyes off you."
Beth gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. "I'm just glad we beat them, that felt so good."
She took his hand to walk back to the bench.
"Great game guys!" Jenna said. "Beth you were a machine out there."
Beth giggled, "Thanks, you guys are so fun to play with."
"I'm just glad we won a game finally, I was starting to worry," Ben chuckled.
"Oh whatever, this is only our 3rd game, and we just barely lost the last one," Ally said defensively.
She was a friend of Beth's, and she and her boyfriend Nathan rounded out their new 6 player rec-league team. It was definitely a more competitive league than he had thought, and at first he was worried about what he had roped Jenna and Ben into, but they had impressed him too, and seemed to be having a blast.
"Hey, Jeff texted me and he's still up for beer and wings tonight if you guys feel like celebrating?" Ben asked, as they gathered up their things from the bench.
"Yeah totally!" Beth said excitedly.
"Sweet," Jenna said. "We figure if we got a babysitter we might as well use her. What about you guys Ally?"
"Naw, sorry we got a ton of stuff to do, it was tricky to even make the game work. Next time though for sure, you guys have fun!" she said, with a smile as they headed off to the change rooms.
"How's the pathology department these days?" Jon asked Ben as they left the change room.
"The same," Ben chuckled. "It's extremely consistent work, that's part of why I like it."
"Fair enough," Jon laughed back. "I don't know how you do it honestly, but I can sort of appreciate that."
"I mean things change a bit, you get to see patterns of what comes in. We're getting more autopsies on younger ones these days. Mostly meth, some fentanyl. It's a shame to see."
"Ugh, yeah I know that's going around more. I've been working at the clinic at St. Augustine's a bit, for the last little while. ...like the shelter downtown, Liz Hartman runs it mainly."
"Right," Ben nodded.
The girls walked up with a wave.
"...and we see a lot of addiction issues with that stuff there, it's affecting a lot of people."
"Now I don't honestly know how you do THAT. Like I'm impressed, and it's good work you're doing, but there's no way I'd have the patience for that crowd."
