Disclosures - SF4 (15 page)

"185 pounds!" Jamie was bent over the display, and when she stood her face reflected her surprise. "You weigh 185 pounds!?"

"Told you I was way down," Ryan remarked seriously.

"Down?! Did you say down?"

"Yeah, I like to be about 200, but I’ve only been there once this year."

Jamie looked rather weak, and she sat on the edge of the tub for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Having a baby with O’Flaherty genes might actually kill me," she muttered.

"Nah," Ryan reassured her easily. "My mother was very slight and she popped all of us out without a problem. ‘Course, she was in labor with me for 24 hours…"

"Adopting. We’re definitely adopting." The tone was firm, but Ryan detected the teasing in her eyes.

"You’re the boss, Honey," Ryan insisted.

"Yeah. Wouldn’t
that
be nice," she quipped, slapping her grinning partner on her muscular butt.

They were in the process of drying each other with fluffy white towels when Ryan's pager went off. She looked up at Jamie and said, "That might be my call now."

"I'll get it," Jamie said as she walked into the bedroom to pick it up. "It's a local number but I don't recognize it," she said as she handed it to Ryan.

"Yep, this is the call I’ve been waiting for." Ryan sat down on the bed and dialed. "This is Ryan O'Flaherty," she announced in her confident tone. "Thanks for calling me back." She nodded a few times and replied, "I'm very interested if you need my skills." Another series of nods and then, "Is that the only time you have?" Pursed lips and a clouded expression gave way to a sigh, "No, I'd rather see you today. I'll be there."

"What’s going on, Tiger? Who besides me needs your skills?"

"That was Coach Greene. I've got to go over to campus for a while. Want to come with me?"

"Who is Coach Greene, and why is he interrupting our lovemaking?" she asked, placing her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at her lover.

"Hmm," Ryan mused. "I wasn’t aware that we were in the process of making love."

"Honey, we’re either making love, on the verge of making love or on the verge of being on the verge. Get used to it." The charmingly confident expression on Jamie’s face made Ryan grin from ear to ear.

"I’m never going to argue with that logic," she immediately agreed. "I’ll call back and say I’ve become permanently indisposed."

"WHO IS HE???" Jamie’s curiosity had reached the boiling point, just the effect Ryan was seeking.

"
She
is the women's soccer coach. I heard they had some open positions, and I thought I might fit in," she replied easily.

"You play soccer well enough to play at this level?" She knew that Ryan was gifted athletically, but playing a varsity sport in college was a very big deal.

Ryan shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I guess I'll find out. She can meet me in 20 minutes. Are you interested?"

"Do I get to see your cute little butt in those shiny, checkerboard patterned soccer shorts?"

"Sure, if that makes you happy I’ve probably got a pair in with my workout clothes. "

Jamie dashed into Ryan’s room and rummaged through the drawers. She finally picked a pair of red soccer shorts and an old white jersey with red lettering that read, "Sacred Heart".

She came back into her room and held up the jersey. "Is this from high school?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "I forgot I still had that. It must have been hidden in with the shirts I packed. I wonder if it fits." She shrugged into the jersey and decided that even though it was a bit snug, it still looked presentable. Jamie came up behind her and helped tuck the jersey into the red shorts, grabbing a few handfuls of her favorite real estate in the process. Ryan had obviously prepared for this trip in advance, since she went to her room and retrieved a pair of white knee socks and some shin guards, which she snugged into place while Jamie got ready.

There was no time for breakfast, but Ryan got a couple of bananas and a plain bagel down while she was waiting for her partner. While Jamie drove the short distance, Ryan went to work on a quart of Gatorade, managing to polish it off by the time they pulled up to the soccer field.

Ryan started on an energy bar as she loped across the grass to greet the coach, Jamie following behind at a more leisurely pace. It was obvious that the two women already knew each other—rather well at that. The coach was very much interested in Ryan, looking her over appraisingly. Jamie hoped her interest was purely professional, but one could never tell with her lover.

Coach Greene looked like she was in her mid-thirties. She was not very tall, maybe 5'5" or so, but she had a very muscular build. She looked like she could be on the field herself with her Lycra shorts and tank top barely covering her tanned and toned body.

Jamie approached and was immediately pulled into the conversation by her grinning lover. "Coach, this is Jamie Evans," she said proudly. "Jamie, this is Coach Greene."

"Pleased to meet you, Jamie," she said with twinkling eyes. "Have a seat on the bleachers while I put Ryan through some drills."

Ryan and the coach went to the goal nearest where Jamie sat. After a few minutes of warm-up, Ryan took her position as the coach began to try to get the ball past her.
She's a goalie?
Jamie gaped.
I swear, one day I'll find out she was a rodeo clown or a trapeze artist.

Watching Ryan defend her goal was closely akin to watching a wild animal safeguard her newborn pups from a predator. With a glare in her eyes that Jamie had never seen before, she prowled along the goal line, daring the coach to make a move. Her laser-like eyes never left the ball, ignoring all of the stutter steps and feints that the coach tried to lure her with. She bent at the waist and flexed her powerful thighs, weight balanced on the balls of her feet, so that she was poised to move in any direction at any time, and she easily moved her body at the same second that the ball moved toward her. Working at close quarters like this, the coach was able to get quite a few balls past Ryan, but she had to really work for every one. There was a wide smile gracing the older woman's face by the time they stopped, and she tossed her arm around Ryan's neck to give her a rough hug.

They came back to the bleachers laughing and joking with each other. "She hasn't lost a step," she reported to a very interested Jamie. "As a matter of fact, I think you're quicker now than you used to be," she observed.

"I think I am too," Ryan agreed. "My legs and my butt are a lot more powerful now, and I think that helps me get a bigger burst when I move."

"What do you weigh now?" The coach’s eyes roamed up and down Ryan’s body, pausing momentarily on some of her more ample curves.

"I’m down to 185, but I’m trying to add a few," she remarked. "I have more stamina when I’m over 190."

Oh God!
Jamie shrieked to herself.
She’ll kill me with any more stamina!

"I don't know what you've been doing to keep in shape since you left USF, but you look absolutely fabulous," the coach marveled.

"I do a lot of weight training and I run. That's about it," she said modestly, omitting the 20 other things she did to keep herself fit.

"Have you ever injured your knees?" the coach asked, looking up as Ryan shook her head. She squatted down to move her kneecap gently. She continued to move her leg, trying to determine how much flexibility there was in the joint. Getting to her knees, she grasped Ryan’s leg with both hands and tried to move her knee while instructing Ryan to keep her foot planted. She nodded to herself and moved to the other leg, accepting Ryan’s hand for a boost when she was done.

She told Ryan to sit down on the bleachers as she performed the same ritual of flexing and testing her range of motion with each ankle. As she moved from body part to body part, Ryan answered negatively to each question about injury. Finally, the coach looked up and asked, "Haven't you ever been hurt?"

That brought a burst of laughter from both Ryan and Jamie. "I'm more into broken bones and concussions," she said with a smile. "But I've been terrifically lucky in that I've never injured a joint."

The coach had her squat down and leap as high as she could, gauging her explosiveness. She asked Ryan to tense her legs and felt all along her quadriceps and then her hamstrings, her nimble fingers poking and prodding deeply into what Jamie considered her exclusive territory. But Ryan didn’t seem fazed in the least by the examination, and Jamie controlled herself from barking out a protest.

When the coach had finally stopped groping her, she flashed Ryan a wide smile as she firmly slapped her butt, shaking her head in amazement. "You are absolutely rock hard, Ryan. How much do you work out?"

"An hour or so a day," she said, minimizing greatly. "I ride my bike a lot, too--about 100 miles a week. I try to run 5-10 miles every day, and since I live, or lived," she corrected, "in the Noe Valley, I do a lot of hill work."

"Well, you just look great," she said with her hands on her hips, a big smile covering her face. She turned to Jamie and asked, "Doesn't she look great?"

A thin smile covered Jamie's mouth but did not extend to her eyes. "Great," she agreed tersely as she watched the coach’s eyes linger on her lover’s sculpted body.

"I can't think of another test I could give you," she said as she shook her head.

"You could count her teeth," Jamie said only slightly under her breath.

"Pardon?" Coach Greene asked. "Did you say something?"

"No, I was just agreeing with you," she said sweetly as Ryan rolled her eyes.

"We start practice next week, Ryan. I don't have a scholarship to give, but I guarantee we could use you. Are you interested?"

"I'll have to think about it," she said slowly, a small frown gathering between her brows. "It's an awfully big time commitment, and without a scholarship…" She shook her head slowly, deep in thought. "I would like to play a sport this year, so I’ll give it some serious thought. I'm going to talk to a couple of other coaches this week. I'll let you know by Friday."

"I hope you decide to join us, Ryan. I've seen you play in all of your other sports, and I've always thought that soccer was your most natural game."

"Actually, that's not true," Ryan said with a cocky grin. "But I'm glad you think so." She shook the coach’s hand, and as the compact woman gathered her equipment Ryan asked, "Can I keep a ball to play around with for a while?"

"Sure. Those are old practice balls. You can keep one," she said, tossing one to Ryan. After she had assembled her equipment, she waved goodbye and trotted off the field.

"Well, I have no idea why, but I am amazed," Jamie said as she looked up at her lover in admiration.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know why it surprises me that you can play any sport so beautifully. You are just the most graceful athlete I've ever seen," she said.

"Thanks, Honey. But it's mostly genetics. My size and my speed enable me to do a lot of things, and they were gifts from God."

"Being given the gift is one thing. Making use of it is quite another," Jamie corrected her.

Ryan dropped the ball to the ground and started to kick it around in a lazy fashion. "Have you ever played?" she asked her lover.

"Sure. I was on a team when I was a little tyke. But I was never very good. I guess my hand/eye coordination isn’t very good."

"No way, Babe," Ryan said quickly. "You can’t play golf without excellent hand/eye coordination."

"Well, I admit that I didn’t apply myself very much. I just liked putting on the uniform and running around."

"I agree that the uniform is an important part of the game," Ryan teased. "I bet you looked adorable in yours. Do you have any pictures?"

"I’m sure we do. I’ll ask Mother when she gets home. How about you? Any pictures of you in action?"

"Yeah. A couple of hundred or so," she laughed. "You know how Da is about family pictures." She started to play a little game with the ball, and Jamie quickly caught on that the purpose of the game was to keep the ball from touching the ground. She watched in awe as Ryan spent a good 15 minutes juggling the ball with every part of her body, save for her arms, of course. Her balance was so perfect that she could easily stand on one foot while she used the other leg to repeatedly tap the ball. She would lightly touch it with the toe of her cleated shoe, then her shin, knee, shin, toe, then knee again. She effortlessly switched legs and began the routine again. When she tired of that drill she spent a few minutes tapping it with one knee, then the other, bringing her knees up so that her thighs were perpendicular to the ground. When that became too easy, she made the game a little tougher by striking it just hard enough to fly above her head.

To Jamie’s amazement she tapped the ball with various parts of her head at least 20 times, sending it to the exact same height with each tap. Jamie finally stuttered, "C...Can you talk while you do that?"

Ryan shifted her eyes, never moving her head from the level plane it was on, and easily replied, "Sure, why not?"

"I thought maybe you, oh I don’t know, had to concentrate or something!" she said with bemused exasperation.