Chapter 6

Several minutes later, the two injured players wobbled into the locker room. Each had a bag of ice held on their heads. When Marketa saw them, she flew off the bench and hugged her teammates. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you!” The setter removed her ice and there was no doubt the girl was going to have a black eye.

The setter smiled and weakly laughed. “Are you kidding? That was the most awesome kill ever and I didn’t get a chance to see it! I think you need to stop taking the term so literally!”

The other defender laughed, “At least I got to see the first half!”

Marketa hesitantly smiled and the setter continued, “They’re taking us to see the team doctor in a few minutes. We now share the same injury as Aeden. Do you think we can hang out with him and convalesce together until we’re all better?”

Marketa made a ‘harumphf’ noise and said “Not on your life!”

Pavlina moved over to the two injured girls. “I’m sorry, I should’ve taken a look at you guys before I left. Here, let me give you a quick examination.”

She performed a rudimentary examination to make sure neither girl was in any danger and fortunately, neither one was.

The setter continued the earlier conversation while Pavlina examined her, “Didn’t think so, anyways, defense will be so much easier now, no other opponent could ever hit the ball that hard and I’m looking forward to you unleashing that swing on Russia, China or those prima donna Brazilians one day!” Marketa was relieved they weren’t seriously injured or mad at her. Pavlina stood up and smiled after the examinations, leaving her sister with her teammates as the rest of the team piled into the locker room.

Aeden had moved on to work with the women’s national team while Pavlina was in the locker room so she stood off in the distance to watch how her team interacted with him. It was obvious he didn’t have the same intensity he had with Marketa’s team, however; they seemed to have taken a liking to him. His body language was business-like so it was obvious to her he was taking this seriously and not using it as an excuse to get close to girls. A few of them made snide comments to her about bringing the stupid American playboy when she first arrived but now they were openly flirting with him and asked unnecessary questions just to get his attention.

Pavlina took that moment to process what happened with Marketa but her advanced brain was coming up empty. The whole thing took her completely by surprise and she started wondering what other surprises might lay in store as they spent more time together. She wondered how their bond would affect them long distance and if it would fade as they spent long periods of time away from each other.

She finally took a deep breath and jogged out to the court. Aeden flashed a big smile at her and asked: “How are the girls?”

Pavlina walked up to him and replied: “They will be fine, but we have to talk later, OK?”

He nodded at her and tried to hide his grimace. Conversations begun in that manner rarely ended well for him.

As the drills slowly evolved into more game-like situations, Aeden barked at Pavlina just like he had with Marketa. Nothing she did was good enough for him and she began to become mad. Every player needs to be pushed but she was not used to someone pushing her this hard.

“Hey!” he yelled at Pavlina, “Are you going to get ready to hit or just stand there and wait for Christmas to arrive? When you are finished with your defensive responsibilities, you need to get ready to hit! It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it! Now, get your ass off the net and be ready to HIT!!! You have to work harder.”

The intensity was back and he felt it. It somehow allowed him to see things he normally wouldn’t. As Pavlina’s anger grew, she realized this would be a good time to study how his emotions would affect her. Maybe she would be able to figure out how the connection worked so they could control it.

Pavlina put more effort into what he said and soon found herself terminating the ball a bit more frequently and cleanly. The amped-up intensity made her approach more aggressive, meaning things were happening faster. She found she could get the ball past the blockers more frequently due to the increase in intensity.

The extra effort also took its toll on her and she soon began to feel a little more winded. After her anger waned, she found she liked the feeling of him pushing her to be better and the way in which he was doing it began to emotionally resonate with her. Her coaches rarely pushed her since she was always so much better than other players. All she ever got from them was an occasional minor correction or small suggestion.

After a quick water break, the team took the court for a more game-like scrimmage. Seeing how well Aeden worked with the girls, the team coaches had backed off to see what would happen despite him changing their defensive scheme, after all; it wasn’t an official practice so they weren’t supposed to be coaching, anyway. They were pleased with the progress the team had made but were skeptical these new techniques would work in real competition.

It was time to scrimmage so Aeden had the girls line up the way they would normally play in a match and filled in the other side with those who were left. Once he got a look at who was lined up where, he moved players around to get as many starters playing against each other as possible.

Ursula, who was on the opposing side, kept slapping Aeden on the butt whenever she got a chance. It was usually as the result of winning a point, but it was making Pavlina angry. What made it worse was that Aeden wasn’t even playing so she had to go out of her way to do it.

Pavlina couldn’t stop thinking about it and the jealousy kept building until it affected her play. Her opponent figured out the correlation between Pavlina’s unforced errors and her grabbing Aeden’s butt and began to do it with a look of defiance while doing it.

Down 19-20, Pavlina turned to her setter Zofie and said “Set me or you’re dead. Do you understand me?” Zofie was no stranger to Pavlina’s intensity but the Hell-fire in Pavlina’s eyes kind of scared her.

“You got it, boss,” she said trying to nervously laugh it off as they got ready to receive the serve.

The pass was right on target and Zofie put the ball in Pavlina’s favorite spot. The ball streaked down the net and collided with Pavlina’s hand as she swung with all her might toward Ursula.

The ball rocketed off her hand and past the blockers who were nowhere near the ball as it cleared the net. Ursula had no time to protect herself as she took the shot into her chest, knocking her to the ground. The ball was kept in play, but that resulted in a free ball back to Pavlina’s team, which was easily converted into a point. All Pavlina had to do was hit the ball back into Ursula’s area of the court because the setter was still on the ground struggling to breath.

Aeden called a timeout and helped Ursula off the ground. “You OK?” he asked her.

Her reply came in broken English “Yes. I couldn’t breathe for a second and that scared me.”

Aeden patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and began to strategize. From the time he noticed Pavlina becoming frustrated, he had a distant buzzing in the back of his head and he wondered if that was from the bonding. If his theory was correct, he was going try some experiments during the next few points.

Tied at 20, it was Pavlina’s team’s turn to serve. While she stood at the net ready to play defense, he started pushing dirty thoughts at her and noticed she began to fidget a little more. He kept pushing them while modulating the type and intensity of his thoughts and kept track of any signs that might she was being affected.