Team Mates Read Free

Heather...”
     
    “You've deserved to start for over a year,” her lover said fiercely. “If Coach Walton wasn't such a bigoted old fart, Heather would have been the one on the bench.”
     
    “That's the point,” Tabby said. “We get a new coach, I'm in the starting lineup, Heather has to pick splinters out of that sweet, sexy ass of hers...she's going to make a stink about it.”
     
    “Stuck-up, hypocritical, repressed bitch,” Stacie said mildly. The days when the closed-minded attitudes of her classmates could drive her to a fury on Tabitha's behalf were long gone. “Just because she and Walton overheard you telling me you thought Heather looked hot. How long are you supposed to pay for one mistake?”
     
    “Forever,” Tabitha said shortly, opening up the door to the locker room. As soon as she did, a flurry of questions from their half-dressed teammates hit them both.
     
    *****
     
    “So what do I do, Lindsey?” Alan said, looking down at his assistant coach.
     
    “Well, if you were Coach Walton, you'd stand around looking grumpy. And every fifteen minutes or so you'd yell at the girls to start another drill,” grinned the equipment manager.
     
    “Well, if I need to look sour, I'll grab a lemon. But I think we should do some drills.”
     
    The girls had finished warming up, young bodies moving through their exercises with the ease of youth. Luckily for Alan, he kept some spare workout clothes in his office, for when didn't feel like going home before he went on his evening run. After the meeting with the seniors, he had quickly changed into sweat pants and a t-shirt and had hung a whistle around his neck.
     
    He felt like a complete fraud.
     
    With a sharp tweet, he brought the girls into a circle.
     
    “All right, ladies,” he said. “I'm sure the seniors have broken the news to you. I'm going to be coaching the team for the next few weeks or so.
     
    “I'm not going to give you any rah-rah speeches. I'm going to do my best for you, and I hope you'll do your best for each other.
     
    “So. First drill. I hear the goal of this game is to score points,” he grinned. “And from what I remember from watching Misty May play beach volleyball in the Olympics, you do that by hitting the ball really hard so the other team can't play it. So let's do some setting and spiking drills.
     
    “Jasmine, set it up, please.”
     
    The team captain split the girls into two groups. One line took it it turns to set the ball up for a spike for the second line. Each girl made five sets, then rotated. Alan sat on the bench, making notes, trying not to be distracted by the entrancing sight of healthy female flesh.
     
    As Jasmine had said, Tabitha was superior to everyone on the team. The redhead placed the ball with almost frightening precision, right where the spiking player could hit it with the greatest force.
     
    Heather Clark, on the other hand, was wildly inconsistent. A pretty, bubbly, blonde who wore her hair in a ponytail, the junior seemed to have no idea where the ball would go from one effort to the next.
     
    After one errant pass, Alan sighed and turned to Lindsey. “I can understand what the girls were saying. Why was she starting?”
     
    Lindsey shrugged. “She's not much worse than anyone else, and she is pretty good at spiking the ball. But with Stacie and Jasmine, we don't need that. We need someone who can get them the ball in a position to make the kill. Heather can't.
     
    “Honestly, Mr. Glassman, we're not very good. It's not Heather's fault. Or even Mr. Walton's. Aside from Jasmine and maybe Stacie, there just isn't much talent out there.”
     
    “So where are we weakest?”
     
    “On offense...”
     
    “Well,” Alan brightened, “if we shore up the offense with Tabitha...”
     
    “And defense,” Lindsey continued.
     
    “Oh,” he said, deflated.” What's the problem on defense?”
     
    Lindsey gestured to the other side of the net, where a few girls were shagging