"I hope not," Conor said. "She can't play center - especially in this league."

"Uhm... why not?" Jamie asked. Ryan was as tall as anyone on the court, and that seemed like the main requirement for a center in Jamie's mind.

"That's just not her style," Conor said. "Especially with the way Cal runs their offense. They want a true low-post player - and that's not what Ryan's built for."

Jamie gave him a suspicious look, having a feeling that her partner could play quarterback for the football team if she had a mind to. The game finally resumed, and it wasn't pretty. The team was even more disordered with Ryan's addition, and everything seemed to fall apart. Cal still won, but their last few minutes were such a mess that everyone realized the outcome would have been very different if much more time had remained.

The team sat in the locker room, heads down, and their spirits just as low. Coach Hayes tried to rally them, but her words fell flat. Jaleesa looked up at her and asked the only question that anyone cared about. "Any word on Janae?"

"She's at the hospital, and they're going to do a CAT scan on her to make sure there's no significant damage. I really think she'll be fine, people. Let's just keep a good thought, and go on."

"Ryan," she said, "can I have a word?"

Ryan stood and waited for her to indicate where she wanted her. Coach led her back out onto the court and said, "This had been a tough night for all of us. You can do your laps after practice tomorrow if you wish."

Surprised at this largesse, Ryan thought about it for a minute and said, "I'm so wiped after practice that I don't think I could do 50, Coach. If that's my only option, I'd better do them now."

"Your choice," she replied with a shrug. "Did you weigh in before warm-ups?"

"Yeah," Ryan nodded.

"Go weigh in again," the coach demanded. "If you've lost more than a pound I won't allow you to do them tonight."

Ryan jogged to the locker room and weighed herself, noting that she hadn't lost any weight during the game. Trotting back out, she announced, "No loss. I was very careful to keep drinking."

"Okay, then let's go. We don't have all night," the coach said.

Ryan ran over to the cart that the student trainer carried water and sports drink in. She took a big gulp from a fresh bottle, and set it down on the floor near the end line and took off. Her pace was quick, what Jamie would call a fast jog - but that wasn't good enough for Coach Hayes. "I said sprints, Ryan," she reminded her loudly. "Start over!"

The tension around Ryan's grim mouth became more p.r.o.nounced, but she walked to the other end line and took off at full speed. She was moving so quickly that she had to put both hands out to stop herself against the other wall, and when she got there the coach called out loudly, "That's one!"

The torture went on until all of the O'Flahertys were staring holes in the back of Coach Hayes' head. Ryan was sweating so profusely that Jamie could actually see the fluid running into her eyes. But she didn't stop once during the entire 25 lengths. On the last one the Coach yelled. "That's 25. Take a break!"

"Break?" Martin shouted so loudly that both Ryan and the coach heard him. The older woman looked up into the stands, seemingly for the first time, and blinked her eyes - obviously a little nonplussed at the large crowd. With a pleading look on her face, Ryan lifted her eyes for the first time, and shook her head. Martin met her gaze and nodded, silently agreeing to stay out of it.

The first 25 laps had taken less than ten minutes, but the entire time was spent in full out sprinting - and it had taken an obvious toll on Ryan. When the water bottle was drained, she leaned over at the waist and grasped the hems of her shorts, pulling hard on them as she tried to suck in air. "This is torture!" Jordan hissed as she watched her friend struggle. "What the h.e.l.l is wrong with that woman?"

"I don't know," Jamie answered slowly. "She has very odd notions about discipline."

"I don't care what her notions are!" Jordan maintained. "You don't do something like this to a player who has just played a full game!"

Ryan lifted her head after her one-minute break and asked loudly, "Can I take off my uniform?"

The coach just nodded briefly, but Jamie knew that for Ryan to ask for a concession like that, she must just be dying. Ryan jerked the navy blue road shorts off to reveal navy blue compression shorts underneath, then removed her jersey. Jamie actually felt sick to her stomach as she watched the pained expression on her lover's face as she braced for another round.

"Hold up," the coach called out, then grabbed a towel and walked briskly over to Ryan. When she reached her she asked, "Can you continue?" Ryan nodded, not willing to risk the energy to speak. Sweat was running down her face in rivulets and she accepted the towel to wipe herself down. "You're obviously still sweating," the coach observed. "If you stop, that means you're getting overheated. Can I trust you to monitor yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, let's go," Coach Hayes said grimly.

By the time Ryan was on lap 30, a few of the players had sauntered back into the gym. It was obvious from the surprised looks on their faces that Ryan hadn't mentioned her punishment to anyone. They gathered in a small knot and spoke quietly for a few minutes, and it was apparent from their expressions that they felt empathy for their teammate.

Martin was standing in front of Jamie, and she could feel the coiled tension radiating from his body as he glared menacingly at the coach. She was going to ask one of the boys to make sure he didn't go down onto the court to give the coach a tongue-lashing, but when she looked at their faces they looked easily as outraged as he did. Scanning the crowd, she failed to find a calm looking face, and she prayed that no one would mouth off and make it worse for her partner. Even Mia looked irate, and Jamie knew that it was very hard to make Mia angry when watching Ryan run around in her skintight underwear.

At her thirty-second lap, Ryan paused at the end line, and Jamie immediately recognized the signal of imminent vomiting. "Don't look," she warned loudly, but most of the crowd was not quick enough. Ryan tried to get to the large plastic trashcan by the entrance, but she missed it by about two feet. Luckily she didn't hit her own shoes, and she stood slowly when she was done heaving, a disgusted look on her face.

The student trainer ran over to her and spoke to her for a few minutes, every eye in the gym watching the pair. Ryan was nodding her head forcefully, and Jamie knew she was determined to make it through, no matter how sick she felt. She had to put her hands on Martin's shoulders to stop him from rushing the court, and when she leaned over and said, "Martin, don't make it worse for her," she felt him lean against her in frustration.

"She's torturing her, Jamie!" he moaned.

"I know, Martin," she said softly. "But Ryan's an adult. She can take care of herself."

He blinked slowly a few times and finally said, "I don't know if that's true."

The trainer had placed a probe in Ryan's ear, and the coach came over to consult with her. Ryan's temperature was found to be only slightly elevated, and the trainer commented, "If you can get two bottles of sports drink down and keep them down, you should be okay."

"Ryan?" the coach asked, raising her eyebrow. "Do you need to quit, or can you gut it out?"

Now that the coach had called her fort.i.tude into question, the determined woman didn't give a second thought to how she felt. She glared at her, taking a bottle of sports drink and draining it in seconds, forcing her stomach to obey her command to behave. She gagged the second bottle down, and actually began to feel a little better when it settled in her stomach. "I can go on."

"You can take it slow if you have to," Coach Hayes told her. "I'm sure you're not used to this kind of stress."

The words "f.u.c.k" and "you" were poised on her tongue, but she didn't let her temper control her. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and growled, "You know no such thing." She turned and jumped up and down a few times, just to make sure she didn't feel nauseous again, and when she felt confident, she went back to the end line and inclined her head in the coach's direction.

When the older woman gave Ryan the signal to continue, Jamie saw the rest of the team remove their warm-ups without a word. As Ryan took off for lap 33, every other member of the team - except for Janet and Wendy - went right along with her. Shaking her head to clear the sweat from her eyes, Ryan's mouth curled up into a small smile at the generous act of solidarity. Even the O'Flaherty clan was somewhat comforted by the gesture, but Jordan was muttering to herself, "What took them so d.a.m.ned long?"

Both Janet and Wendy looked like they'd eaten a large bunch of sour grapes, but the rest of the team seemed more cohesive than Jamie had ever seen them. Most were actually smiling as they did their laps, and she could hear a few of them quietly urging Ryan on as she stumbled through her final ten.

Jamie had seen her lover put her body through many difficult trials, but she mused that this was the most debilitated she had ever seen her, beating out her exhausted state on the final day of the AIDS Ride. She was huffing and gasping for air with every agonizing lap, but she still managing to beat a few of her slower teammates down the court. When the coach finally called out "50!" in a strong voice, most of the team bent over at the waist to catch their breath; but Ryan sank to the floor in a heap, collapsing so quickly that she looked absolutely boneless. Once again, Martin tried to make a run for her, but Jamie held him back. "It will embarra.s.s her if we go out there, Martin. Let her handle it. I'm sure she'll be fine," she said as calmly as she could manage. But even though her words were calm, she was seething with an anger so intense that it actually shocked her. She had only managed to remain in her seat during the last 25 laps by picturing various forms of medieval torture being performed on the lanky coach, and she was amazed at the pleasure she got from picturing the woman stretched out on the rack, with tendons and bones breaking with gruesomely loud snaps.

Ryan was lying flat on her back with her arms and legs spread out limply when Angela, the student trainer, approached her. "Ryan," she said softly as she squatted beside her and touched her clammy leg, "can you hear me?"

That brought a chuckle from the panting woman as she gasped out, "I'm exhausted, Angela, not deaf."

She gathered herself and managed to sit up after Angela extended a hand to aid her. In all this time she had not looked into the stands, and Jamie guessed that she was afraid of another rules infraction if she did so. She allowed the trainer to rub her body with a towel filled with ice, then got to her shaky legs and gulped down another two full bottles of Gatorade. Angela patted her on the back and handed her the navy blue warm-up suit that she had fetched from the locker room, but instead of putting it on Ryan started to walk slowly back into the locker room. Suddenly she took off again, covering the last 25 feet in moments.

"Where's she off to so quickly?" Catherine asked.

"Given how she looks, she's gonna barf that Gatorade right back up," Jamie predicted. "She absolutely hates to throw up in public."

"I should think that's a universal reaction," Catherine mused worriedly.

Ryan came shuffling out just moments later with her warm ups on, and a towel draped around her neck. She looked very flushed, very tired and very wet, but there was still a proud grace to her walk that commanded both attention and respect. Once again she did not lift her head, quietly following the rest of the team out to the bus.

Angry rumblings from the O'Flahertys eventually gave way to goodbye kisses and hugs, as the volleyball team, Jennie, Mia and Jamie got ready to leave. As they made their way out to the parking lot, each of the drivers announced, "See you at the parking lot by the gym," as they got into their cars.

"What did they mean by that?" Jamie asked Jordan.

A delighted grin and an exaggerated shrugging of shoulders was her only reply as she closed the door to Mia's car. Only one way to find out, Jamie mused as she drove off into the night.

When she arrived at the parking lot, Jamie was enormously pleased to find all of the members of the volleyball team huddled together in the damp, cold fog, waiting for the bus to arrive. "You guys are just too sweet," she said fondly as she joined them.

"We just want Ryan to know that we're proud of her for not letting that a.s.shole break her," Amy said.

"She'll appreciate it," Jamie said confidently. True to her prediction, when the bus pulled up a few minutes later, Ryan smiled as broadly as her tired muscles would allow. She chuckled as the group pulled her into the middle of their huddle, and patted her roughly on the back in a show of support.

"You guys rock," she said as she popped out of the huddle to wrap her arms around Jamie. "Hey, we need to get together this weekend to give Jordan a send off," she added. "What do you say?"

An enthusiastic round of affirmative nods was the unanimous answer, and they quickly agreed that Sat.u.r.day night was the best choice. Since Ryan had the only home, hers was the obvious choice; and seven o'clock was settled on as the time.

The foursome walked into the house almost simultaneously. Ryan chuckled at the sight of her friend walking along the sidewalk, affectionately holding Mia's hand. "Have you moved in?" she asked when she noticed Jordan's big gym bag.

"I wish I could," she said wistfully. "But I get to move into a dorm with five other women," she groused. "Oops, I forgot to add that I'll be freezing my sweet little a.s.s off."

"I'll miss your sweet little a.s.s," Mia said softly as she faced her and palmed the body part in question.

Jordan turned her head to smirk at her friends, "Wish we could stay and chat girls, but duty calls and time's a wasting." Mia gave her an indulgent grin as she forcefully pulled Jordan up the stairs.

"Ahh, I recall my younger days when I was able to make love all night long," Ryan mused.

Jamie chuckled as she teased, "I remember when you used to be able to make love after 6 p.m."

"Those days are over, babe," she said regretfully. "Now a couple of hours of basketball and 50 laps of the gym, and I'm inexplicably exhausted!"

Ryan was lying in bed stark naked when Jamie came out of the bath. The long body was uncovered, and Jamie noted some blotchiness on her sides. "What's this?" she asked, trailing her fingers over the spots.

"Mmm, probably a little heat rash," Ryan ventured, not bothering to look.

Placing her hand on Ryan's belly, Jamie commented, "This feels like touching an oven!"

"My core temperature gets elevated when I run that much. It takes quite a while to bring it down."

"Should I give you an ice bath?" she asked worriedly. "Maybe we should call the doctor."

"I'm fine, sweetheart," Ryan insisted. "Really. I'm just hot."

"How about a ma.s.sage?" Jamie asked. "I have some nice aloe based lotion."

"You really don't have to, babe..."

She smiled at her partner and said, "I know, I don't." Placing her hand on Ryan's leg, she looked down at it while she drew patterns on her skin. "I want to be close to you. I was so worried about you tonight."

Ryan grasped her hand and squeezed it. "I'd love a ma.s.sage. Being close to you might make me stop wishing I could go kick Coach Hayes' a.s.s."

"If there's a line forming, I'd really like to be first," Jamie insisted.

PART 6.

"RYAN, SWEETHEART," JAMIE said quietly early the next morning. "I've got to leave for practice now. Are you awake?"

Stretching languidly, Ryan nodded and mumbled, "I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

"I am worried about you," she insisted. "You've never slept through my getting ready in the morning. I couldn't even get a response out of you when my alarm went off."

"I'm just tired, Jamie. No big deal." She kicked off the covers and placed her feet on the floor, pushing her hair from her eyes with a swipe of her hand. She caught hold of Jamie's sleeve and pulled her over to stand between her legs. "Now give me a kiss and scoot. You'll be late."

She did so and then grasped her partner's chin and lifted it so she could look directly into her eyes. "Are you sure you're awake?"

"Of course I am. We're having a coherent conversation, aren't we?"

"Just checking." She kissed her again and said, "See you tonight, babe."

"Okay," Ryan said, adding a wave. She got up and went to the bathroom, and when she was done relieving herself she stood in the doorway for a moment. "f.u.c.k it," she muttered, then climbed back into bed and was asleep before she could change her mind.

Mia came home for lunch, puzzled when she heard some m.u.f.fled sounds coming from the second floor. Walking upstairs cautiously, she detected that the noise was coming from her own room. "Jordan?" she asked.

"Nope. Just me."

She poked her head into her room to find Ryan lying atop the neatly made bed, watching TV and eating dry cereal directly from the box. The long body was clad in just a black T-shirt and a pair of gray knit boxers. "Are you sick?"

"Huh-uh," Ryan said, shaking her head. "Just tired. Do you mind that I'm in your room?"

"No, especially not since you made the bed. Why don't you just plug your TV in?"

"Too tired," she sighed.

"Did you just get up? It's almost noon."

"Not just," she said. "I got up about a half hour ago. I should be studying for my chemistry final, but I just couldn't force myself to get up this morning. I felt like I'd been ridden hard and put away wet."

"You were and you were," she teased, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Jamie was beside herself last night, buddy. I thought she was gonna run down there and throttle that woman."

Ryan gave her a curious look and asked, "Do me a favor?"

"Sure."

"Don't tell Jamie I stayed in bed all morning. She's upset enough about last night. If she thinks I was too zonked to study, she'll make me go to the doctor."

She looked at Ryan carefully and said, "Maybe you should. It's not like you to lie in bed all morning, buddy."

"I'm fine," Ryan insisted. "I just knew I couldn't get up and drag through a whole day and then be able to practice tonight. And there's no way that I'm going to ask out of practice. Mary Hayes has her head up her a.r.s.e if she thinks I'm gonna ask for any slack."

Mia scooted closer and laid the back of her hand on Ryan's forehead. "No fever?"

"No, really, Mia, I'm fine. I was just bone tired and a little dehydrated when I woke up. Being dehydrated gives me a headache, so I took some pills when I woke and I feel better now. I'm gonna force fluids down and chill a little, then I should feel fine by tonight."

"Okay," the curly-haired woman decided. "I'm gonna go make lunch. I'm bringing you some, too."