The scene, framed in the locker room doorway for anyone to see. Paradoxically fascinating, repulsing and compelling the chance viewer into a back and forth loop.

K.B., flat against the wall like a painting of herself, smaller and scared, too trapped to use her sudden swift speed to escape. Erin, playing angry, shoulders in K.B.'s face, arms and hands bracketing K.B. into place, thumbs almost brushing the bare skin between K.B.'s shirt and waistband, eyes narrowed enough to strike sparks. "Why didn't you tell me?" Harsh, demanding: Erin, stripped of her on-court demeanor, as only seen by her intimates.

A shrug, half-hearted for lack of space. "Miko just wanted to take some of the girls on the team out for her big three-oh, that's all. Don't get worked up over it."

"And I'm not on the team?"

Laughter sweet enough to sting the mouth. "I can think of three teams you're not on that I am."

"Oh really?" Smirk. "I can only come up with two, and Loree's not on one of them." Move. "Not to mention that Sue was never on either of those teams." Check.

"Come on, ET, you know what I mean."

A raised eyebrow, perfect high rainbow arc like a three-pointer destined for the basket. "You must have explained it during the two years we were sleeping together, because that's the only reason I wouldn't have been paying attention. Oh, wait. We couldn't have been sleeping together, because then I'd be on that team you were talking about. I must have imagined it, then. Too bad. You were pretty good."

"You're engaged now. That changes things. I thought you knew that."

"Then why didn't it change things for you?" Anguish, despair, frustration, making Erin impossible for K.B. to look at and impossible to avoid.

"I…"

Erin, pushing in unfamiliar ways, poison glistening on the sharp tips of her words: "Unless your boyfriend's not actually a boyfriend."

"How…" Stutter-stop, but nowhere to pop; bottled up, forced to fumble.

"Just because you lost my number doesn't mean Fro did. She told me who you were texting in practice. She actually heard you on the phone with…" Strange words, foreign on Erin's tongue, part of a conversation undreamed of in her childhood. "With the other woman. Thought it was me until she had to borrow your Sidekick and saw that the number you kept messaging was way too long to be mine."

Words, evading K.B. for so long, finally trapped in the corner, emerging from her desperate mouth: "I thought… I never realized you… did you take this more seriously than I knew?" More confident, fast break on her lips. "I thought you realized it was a teammate thing."

Erin, the defender back, denying the easy points with her own sacrifice. "I thought you were serious. God help me, I thought you loved me. I thought I meant something to you."

"You do! Just…"

"Just not like that." Sudden chill in heavy summer air, humidity freezing into ice, tension ratcheting up to snap or bend. "Two years, K.B. Two years, and you don't even think I matter enough to take out with one of our teammates. Two years, and you can't tell me the truth about what you feel, what you think, what you want. Two years I trust you and love you, and this is what I get? How is this fair?"

"Look, I'm sorry, okay, but you weren't around and she… she never hesitated."

"And neither did I! Even knowing what I knew, what I was told not to do for so many reasons, I gave myself to you." Bitter, angry, a rage that could make Erin an All-Star were she to bring it to the court. "I've had enough of this. Maybe we can work this out, if you still want me, but tell me now or it's over."

A ray of hope in darkness, a rope thrown across a raging river: K.B.'s chance to make it out with the right steps and a careful approach "To err is human, to forgive-"

Dimmed light, snapped rope, descending darkness, swirling river. Sharp crack of skin against skin, too low to be a slap, too loud to be anything else. "Vengeance is mine."

"I still-"

"I won't make someone else be the other woman. And I refuse to be the other woman." Queen over king. Check. "Of all the people, you should have known I wouldn't be so easy. Of all the people. You know what they say, K.B. You should have remembered. Every rose has its thorn." Hard fall. Mate.

Erin, creating space, stepping back to let K.B. go. K.B., hesitant and slow, unable to stay but unwilling to leave, or unwilling to stay but unable to leave. Erin's eyes, Erin's glare, pushing K.B. away, through the forcefield not really over the door. Silence, scrape of distant shoes. Dry-eyed Erin, face twisted.

And Shay, in the doorway empty a second before, bare arms crossed over black tank top. "Heard everything." Quick words in a slow scene. "She doesn't deserve you."

Scene kicking into fast-forward, Erin turning on a dime, jaw dropping, words pouring out. "You know what's funny? If she'd just said, 'Yeah, Miko's taking a bunch of the girls out, and I'm going with them, but I'm cutting out early to spend a couple of hours with you before the flight,' or even 'Yeah, Miko's taking a bunch of the girls out, and I know that's not your scene, so I didn't mention it,' that would have been fine, I could have dealt with that, because I really didn't want to go anyway. If she'd told me something like that I would have let everything else go because I'd know she still cared. But she lied to me again, which meant she would have just kept lying to me, and I wasn't going to give her any more chances."

Line begging to be crossed on the floor, a challenge irresistible to Shay. A hand on Erin's shoulder, a sly shy smile. "Want to crash their party?"

"Told you that's not my scene, and Miko's got nothing to do with this anyway." Low laughter, notes of mischief. "Tempting, though."

"What else are teammates for?" Exaggerated wink, maybe Shay's idea of subtle. "Okay, so want to go somewhere else? I'll even buy you a lemonade."

"Ooooh, suave." A leftover thorn, impotent against Shay's thicker skin. Head tilted, motion coiled and begging for release, for someplace to go and go fast. Erin, intrigued, helplessly following, drawn to Shay's magnetism.

And suddenly, fingers almost brushing, barely brushing, Shay's tattoo, almost as if to coax a flap out of the butterfly's wings, and a shared shiver down Shay's back, along Erin's arm, forcing them apart, forcing Erin to ignore Shay's bare skin aching to be touched.