CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Banging, something's banging on the door. Payson groans into her comforter. Not again. Her mattress is too soft and too cold to be Sasha. The light in the room is white creeping round the curtain edges, not yellow pouring from the central bulb. Payson groans again; it's definitely morning this time. More banging.

"Answer that." Kelly's voice is muffled by the pillow she has her head shoved under. "And if it's not a really hot guy, kill them."

Lie in, today is supposed to be a lie in. Still, Payson obeys the first part of Kelly's instruction. Knowing their luck this week, it's probably another crisis.

She hauls the door open with a gruff "what?" and is met with an explosion of blonde pep for her trouble. It bounces over the threshold, mouth moving at a speed where Payson can't identify the words and doesn't stop until Payson shoves a hand over it. The room falls blessedly quiet.

"Lo," Payson says, very quietly and very carefully, "it's eight am." Underscoring her statement of the time is the unspoken promise that she will throw Lauren off the balcony if she doesn't have a decent excuse for the obscene violation of this holy day. She pulls her hand away from Lauren's mouth.

"I have the most awesome plan in the history of awesome plans!" Lauren at least has the decency to lower her volume, though Payson still feels this level of excitement at this time of the morning should face some punishment.

"You have five minutes," Payson grunts, schlepping back over to her bed and falling on the mattress face first. Another bounce of the mattress indicates Lauren has located herself beside Payson's head. "Talk fast."

"Or die," Kelly mumbles.

"Ok," Lauren takes a deep breath. "So, Summer's here, which I still can't believe btw, but that's not the point. And I know what you're going to say, that I shouldn't interfere in people's lives yadda yadda, and I totally agree. Her and my dad are through, I get that, and I'm not even going to try getting them back together, which I think totally shows how I've grown as a person btw..."

"It's By. The. Way!" The lump that is Kelly issues a muffled yell through three layers of goose feathers.

Lauren continues, ignoring Kelly's plea. "But I figure it's not interfering if you're just helping people do what they were going to do anyway, right? And it's perfect for everyone because it means Summer will be back in Boulder full time."

"Why will she be back in Boulder full time?" Payson, tipping her cheek into the mattress, still able to smell Sasha's cologne on her sheets, frowns at the hem of Lauren's night dress.

"Because..." Lauren pauses to give her announcement full effect, "she'll be dating Sasha!" She grins like a game show host who just revealed the star prize. "See? Best plan ever, right?" She claps her hands and jiggles up and down on the bed.

Payson doesn't move.

"Did you not hear me?" Lauren taps Payson on the forehead. "And I'm going to need your help. I'm thinking we start by getting them alone in the bar downstairs, then..."

"Lo, hold up a second," Payson pulls herself to sitting and rubs her face. "What are you talking about?"

Lauren frowns at Payson. "Er, duh? Our plan to get Summer and Sasha back together so Summer will move back to Boulder? Did you totally not hear my big speech?"

Payson's heart is thumping hard. She shuffles to the edge of the mattress, swings her legs over and grips the edge; she needs to feel the floor. "I thought you said you were done interfering with people's lives?"

"I am," Lauren shrugs, standing up, "this isn't interfering, it's helping. They're going to get back together anyway, I'm just giving them a shove in the right direction." She still looks exhilarated, but something else is beginning to creep into her expression; this was not the reaction she was anticipating.

"What makes you think they're going to get back together at all?" Kelly is suddenly at the end of Payson's bed, arms folded, awake and alert.

Lauren shoots her a glare, hearing the doubting tone. "I wasn't talking to you."

"Hey, you wake me up, you get my opinion whether you want it or not."

"It's a serious case of not," Lauren displays a sneering smile and turns back to Payson.

Since Darby arrived, Kelly and Lauren's sniping has been much less amiable on Lauren's part; Payson is starting to suspect it's because now Lauren has options of people to talk to.

"So are you going to help me?" Lauren addresses Payson again. Her bare toes are crunching into the carpet as she presses one foot up and down; tiny bones crack.

Payson blinks. "Why do you think they want to get back together?" she says, quiet and as calm as possible. Maybe she can divert Lauren from this train of thought before it gets out of hand.

"It's obvious," Lauren waves away the possibility of her opinion being wrong in any way. "I saw them in the hallway yesterday when you were all watching quali; they're totally still into each other."

"Are you sure?" Payson says, pulling her hair into a ponytail and dragging a tie off her wrist. A stupid, jealous part of her wonders what exactly Lauren witnessed.

Lauren rolls her eyes. She's getting annoyed. "Look, they only broke up 'cause I made them. So technically, I'm just fixing what I wrecked." She folds her arms stubbornly.

"So you broke them up to get Summer back with your dad. Now you want her back with Sasha? How is that not interfering in people's lives?" Kelly's words are deliberately provocative.

"This is so none of your business," Lauren steams, attention switching to Kelly. Payson takes a few deep breathes but she saw the hurt in Lauren's eyes and guilt rolls through her clenched stomach at what she's got to do.

"Lauren, maybe we should take a minute. You know what you get like when you have an idea in your head. Let's just make sure they still have feelings for each other before we do anything." Payson stands up, holding placating hands out to Lauren. She hears her pulse beat vibrating her voice.

"What I get like?" Lauren repeats, dangerously quiet. "When I have an idea in my head? God, Pay, could you be more patronising?"

"I didn't mean..."

"You know what? Whatever." Lauren backs away. "If you don't want to help me, fine. Sorry to disturb you – maybe you should put that sign on your door next time you're too tired to help a friend." Lauren flounces from the room, pink nightdress flapping in her created breeze as she slams the door shut.

The bathroom light hums. The clock on the wall ticks. Payson's jogging to the door before Kelly can put out a hand to stop her.

"Lauren, wait." Payson keeps her voice low as she pads across the corridor. Lauren, who hasn't opened her room door yet, is pacing a small patch of the deserted hall.

"You think I don't know what this is about?" she hisses, darting toward Payson. "I know exactly why you don't want to help me."

Every look, every conversation she and Sasha have had in public in the last few days stream through Payson's mind. She launches into denial. "It's not what you think…"

"Yes it is," Lauren hisses again, flicking her loose ponytail over her shoulder. "You're still mad at me over the email thing and you don't want Summer back in my life because you don't think I deserve to be happy, do you?" She glares furiously at Payson.

Payson remembers Kelly's words yesterday, that there's no right or wrong, there's just choice.

"I…"

If Payson tells Lauren the truth, she risks losing Sasha; if she lies, she definitely loses Lauren. The vicious silence hovers between them.

"Right," Lauren scoffs, glancing away. There are tears in her eyes which she angrily wipes away. "Like me working so damn hard to change, to be a team player, like that would ever be enough for the perfect Payson Keeler," she spits.

Payson wants to step in, say how proud she is of what Lauren has done these past few months, but she can't; her choice is made.

"I bent over backward to get you to be my friend again, to get you to forgive me, but you know what?" Lauren hisses. She's speaking quickly now, temper fast taking control.

"You can keep your friendship because I don't want it. I don't want a friend who always thinks they're better than me, who judges me on every single damn thing I do. I made a mistake, I owned up to that and I tried to fix it, but I am done." She snaps the word at Payson, slicing her hand through the air.

"I'm not apologising anymore and I'm sure as hell not feeling guilty about it." She takes a step back and a cynical smile touches her face. "You know what? I should have listened to you that night at gymnastics camp, shouldn't I? Saved us both a lot of shit. We might be teammates, but we are sure as hell not friends."

There's a split second when the bitterness vanishes and the pain and betrayal Lauren's feeling washes over her face, but it's only a second; one blink and all that's left is venom. She keys into her room and slams the door without looking back.

A drop of saltwater catches the corner of Payson's mouth. She's shaking and the movement dislodges another tear, then another. The corridor swims around her, terracottas and creams and greens blurred by water.

"Come on," Kelly murmurs, coming into the hall, hand finding Payson's shoulder. "Let's get you out of here before the rest of the circus wakes up."

"I don't..." Payson blinks, unable to define a single thought in her head.

"I know." Kelly pulls gently on Payson's arm and Payson follows.

"You're quitting? That must have been one hell of a conversation you two had the other night."

Sasha tucks his cell between his ear and shoulder, wincing as he props himself up on smushed pillows. "I can't do the job, MJ, simple as that." It's already eleven but he plans to get at least another three hours sleep if he can.

"I'm no expert, but I thought your team qualifying in first place for the final showed your job performance in a pretty favourable light."

Sasha cuts his eyes to the window. The curtains are open. Last night he wasn't even capable of closing them before he collapsed on his mattress and fell into semi-medicated sleep. "All credit goes to the girls," he says, chest tight with shame. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Well, that's complete bollocks, but I'm not going to argue with you when you sound like you swallowed an ashtray."

"How kind of you."

"You're welcome. So, despite this mass exodus from well paid employment, I'm assuming you won't be resigning as Payson's coach?"

With his good arm, Sasha retrieves a pill pot from his nightstand but a shake indicates it's empty. "When we get back from Rio, we're going to tell her parents everything," he explains, sounding far calmer about the prospect than he feels, as he grabs another pot which - thankfully - does rattle.

There's a clank of ceramic on the other end of the line. Sasha suspects MJ's morning cup of tea just got slammed down on a flat surface. "Bloody hell, you never do things by halves, do you, Rebel?"

Sasha can still smell Payson's moisturiser on his skin. As he swallows three pills, washing them down with a quarter glass of stale water, he swears he will keep track of his medication today. It was inexcusable to scare Payson as he did last night.

"Look, MJ, I need your professional opinion," Sasha says, as the pills work their way down his throat.

"That's a bloody first."

"If this goes public, about Payson and me, how badly will it affect her career?" There's a long pause. "MJ?"

"I'm thinking. Hold your horses." There's a large gulp.

"Need more tea?"

"Shut up."

More silence. Sasha's eyes start to drift shut. He snaps them open. He fell asleep on the phone with MJ once before. Never again.

"Ok," she says eventually. Sasha predicts that she's pacing. "My gut instinct says this won't come out, at least not publically. Her parent's will probably castrate you, that's a given, but they won't want anyone else involved. They're private people. The NGO find out?" Another gulp; MJ never leaves England without an extra large box of teabags. "It will complicate matters but they won't want it splashed all over the tabloids either. Going into 2012, they need Payson."

Sasha stares at the ceiling. "How big does she need to win here, MJ? Realistically."

"To get the currency she'll need with the NGO to retain their backing? At least an individual silver, but if she leaves here wearing gold there's no way the NGO will want to go to the Olympics without her."

"Ok," Sasha says, mind already skimming over Payson's best events and considering the form of her closest challengers so far this week. "Ok."

"Sasha?"

The frown in MJ's voice filters through Sasha's internal calculations. He pinches between his eyebrows.

"I'm fine, MJ," he reassures, though he knows his voice is too cracked to be convincing.

A pause, then MJ speaks again with her usual businesslike bustle. "Payson and I were scheduled to meet the Grrrl Bar rep at breakfast. She wanted to push it back to lunch but I'm going to take the meeting alone, give her the day to herself. She's got enough on her plate."

Before Sasha can comment on MJ's uncharacteristic prioritising of her client's welfare over their professional commitments, she snaps a, "make sure you eat something" and rings off.

Sasha's stomach turns at the mention of food. Still, he swaps his cell for the main phone and dials up room service. While he's ordering toast and orange juice, his cell buzzes. It's a text from Ryan Griffin, Drea's brother, giving his expected arrival time.

"Bollocks," Sasha huffs as he hangs up the phone. He'd totally forgotten Ryan was flying in today. So much for going back to sleep.

Hauling his legs off the bed, Sasha lets out a groan that sounds more like a death rattle. It isn't exactly a comforting comparison so Sasha instead focuses his attention on the questions he needs to ask Reece regarding the NGO's stance on Drea's custody. Ryan Griffin has already made it very clear he means to take his sister home with him and Sasha intends to make damn sure that can happen.

"What else were you going to do? Tell her the truth?" Kelly's sitting on the carpet between her bed and the balcony, massaging her ankle. "Like Lauren would ever be able to keep her mouth shut."

The french window is slid open half an inch and Payson is leaning against the adjacent wall, tracing a finger through the snippet of air whistling through. "It's raining. I didn't know it rained in Rio."

Kelly stretches across the floor to dig a heat pad out from under a pile of towels. "Keeler, if you're about to start caterwauling some country ballad called 'It's Raining in Rio' I may just have to kill you with a banjo."

"Do you own a banjo?" Payson murmurs, watching the water drops spatter down the pane.

"I can get one." Kelly rips open the heat pack and slaps it on her ankle. "Look," she says, shuffling on the floor so she can lean against the mattress, "can I ask you a question?"

Payson, heart necklace looped round her fingers, looks over at Kelly and shrugs. "Sure."

"Have you really forgiven Lauren for sending that video of you kissing Sasha to Beals?"

Walking into the Rock the day after everyone had found out, Lauren, in front of Kaylie and Emily, had asked her if Sasha was a good kisser. Payson sets her jaw and stares back out at the cloud covered city.

Kelly watches her. "So if you're still mad at her, why is it bothering you so much that she's mad at you? Though ten, twenty percent I guess we can blame on shock and you being tired from playing doctors and nurses with Sasha last night."

To fight off the gloom of the rain sodden day, all the room lights are switched on. Kelly smiles as she sees that Payson's reflected face lightens a little.

Payson's quiet for a while. After a couple of attempts, Kelly manages to retrieve the TV remote without having to stand. The hotel has ESPN.

"Hello, Jason Ratzeburg," Kelly drawls, as her favourite anchorman pops up on the screen.

"What's going to happen to the team?" Payson pushes the window open another inch, enjoying the flickers of water that the breeze carries through.

"The team don't have to be best friends to win, Keeler, you know that." Kelly's fiddling with TV the volume. A stray raindrop lands on her calf. "And close the door already, I'm drowning here."

Payson smiles, but doesn't move. "She's going to figure it out Kelly," she murmurs, her smile turning so sad Kelly almost has to break her tradition of not hugging people.

"Sasha quits the National team as well as the Rock and I go with him? Lauren's a lot of things but she's not stupid."

Kelly frowns sullenly at the remote that still won't co-operate. "Then what excuse does she have for her fashion sense." She sighs, dropping the remote on the carpet, resigned to having to watch Jason Ratzeburg without hearing him. "Come on, Keeler, out with it. What's really going on in that anally retentive head of yours?"

Payson, still dressed in her night clothes, leans harder against the wall as she lifts her leg up and stretches her toes. "I thought she'd changed. I thought," she pauses, sighs. "I thought we were passed all this bullshit." Her coarse language doesn't fit with the quiet tone.

"Lauren is who she is, Payson. She likes drama so it's always going to find her."

"I was trying to help her be better than that."

Kelly smiles. "She's not an Amanar; you can't train her into matching some perfect behavioural outline you have in your head."

Payson's face tightens. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Yeah, you did," Kelly says, not backing off the subject. "You wanted to prove you could 'reform' Lauren Tanner when everyone else had failed at it."

"Why don't you try being blunt, Kelly," Payson snaps, glaring. "That was a little vague."

Kelly shrugs. "You want someone who tells you only what you want to hear? Go chat with Hayley."

The teammates watch one another, neither angry nor content. Payson, mind buzzing, breaks the silent discussion and steps from the window, sliding down into splits to ease out the morning stiffness of her muscles.

"We still have to work together," Payson says after a while, bringing them back to Lauren.

"Just don't make out with Sasha in front of her and I'm pretty sure she won't drop kick you off the beam," Kelly smirks and Payson finally smiles a little.

"This stupid thing's broken," Kelly moans as she retrieves the remote and starts pushing random buttons.

"So much for the tight team I wanted to make sure we had," Payson sighs, as she shifts into the side splits and leans her elbows on the carpet between her legs.

Kelly grapples with the remote casing trying to get the batteries out. "You wanted to be the perfect captain with the perfect team? Well, colour me stunned," Kelly teases, but Payson gets the honesty in the barb.

"Kelly," Payson says after a moment. "Can I ask you something?"

The remote cover flicks out of the casing and lands on Payson's thigh.

"If you hand me that, sure." Kelly leans out to retrieve the piece of plastic with a 'give me' gesture.

"Most people say please," Payson pretends to gripe.

"When are you going to learn I'm not most people? Now, ask your question."

Chin cupped on her palms, Payson tilts her eyes to the wall where Becca's collage is hanging.

"What do you think my parents are going to say?"

"About Sasha?"

Payson nods, watching her family's frozen smiles, her own young face grinning forever on some forgotten day.

"They love you, Payson. You've just got to trust that."

They sit together quietly, both looking at the Keelers smiling over at them, until Kelly, feeling there's been enough rumination for one morning, starts smacking the remote against the carpet.

"Oh, for God's sake, give it here," Payson rises to the bait, reaches over and yanks the remote out of Kelly's hand. "There." She points it at the TV and the volume rises immediately.

"Well, I totally fixed it for you," Kelly says, with a smug grin, that lasts until Payson drags the balcony door fully open and lets the rain in.

"Keeler!"