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“Not yet. She’s going to post the list tomorrow.”
    “I’m sure you’ll make the team. All you need is to work on your serve. Coach taught me mine, so I’m sure she or I can help with yours.”
    I nodded, facing my locker as if it were doing the talking.
    “Lose something?”
    My mind. I shook my head. “Just hoping I’m on the list.” I quickly flicked my eyes in her direction and back to my locker’s contents, exhaling deeply in relief when I processed that she was fully clothed. As I removed my toiletries and towel from my locker, some of my tension lifted once she said she’d catch me later. I heard her retreating footsteps. The aisle was clear. I could finally undress and head for the showers.
    Stripped down to my bra and panties, I froze with my hand on the clasp of my bra as I heard Sarah say, “Forgot to ask. When do you want to get together to talk about our Othello assignment?” I slowly dropped my hands and stared again into my locker, reaching in as if I’d forgotten something, using every ounce of concentration not to grab the first thing I could get my hands on to cover myself. It would seem incredibly odd for me to suddenly clothe myself moments after I’d undressed to shower, but even though I was wearing the equivalent of a bikini, I felt naked and vulnerable.
    Having played on many sports teams, I’d seen and been seen by hundreds of girls throughout the years, never once feeling self-conscious in the locker room or really paying attention to any of the flesh to which I was so often exposed. Until now. Why was I suddenly thinking that I would be anything to Sarah other than just another girl in a long line of girls whose bodies are seen so often they blend into the unmemorable and interchangeable? The same way I had thought—or hadn’t thought—of countless others?
    “Uh. Lunch tomorrow?” I asked lamely.
    “Sure. Let’s meet in the quad. We can sit outside so you can get some sun on those white shoulders. Wear a tank top.”
    The command set my pulse racing. Geez.
     
    *
     
    The next day, wearing a green tank top under a button-down cream and light-brown plaid shirt, I sat at one of the picnic type tables in the middle of the quad and waited for Sarah. She came around the corner with Dirk, Jasper, and Amy. After spotting me, she said something to them, gave Dirk a quick kiss, and strode over to me with that killer posture of hers my mother would love for me to mimic. She wore tan shorts, burgundy sandals, and a matching burgundy ribbed tank top. The same silver necklace she’d played tennis in lay halfway between her collarbone and the top of her sleeveless shirt, a lure to roaming eyes. I quickly averted mine.
    “Hey,” she said, removing the sunglasses that were doubling as a hairband and placing them over her eyes. “We’re here to get you some sun. Strip.” Some of the long hair that had been pushed behind her ears tumbled into her face, and she tossed it back over her shoulders like you’d see in a shampoo commercial.
    “I’m fine,” I said as I looked down toward her painted toes, embarrassed by my paleness and how attractive I found her.
    “You’re in L.A. now, so you’d better make the most of it. Besides, you practically blinded me on the court yesterday. You owe it to your fellow students not to force them to wear sunglasses in order to hang out with you.” I felt a tug at my sleeve. “Off.”
    Reluctantly, I unbuttoned and removed my shirt, tossing it onto the table. Sarah looked down at my tank, then up to my face. She smiled and sat next to me on the bench seat with her back against the table, facing the opposite way I sat. Then she stretched out her interminable legs and leaned back on her elbows, her chin parallel to the sky.
    “Feels good, doesn’t it?” she asked.
    Uncomfortable sitting next to her because of the hum her proximity stirred within me, I climbed on top of the table, put my shirt under my head, and, knees bent, lay back facing the