"I'm hungry," Ann Wauters whined.

"Would you quit complainin', space case?" Merlakia Jones protested. "Mery, stop elbowin' me." She shoved Mery Andrade off the couch arm they were sharing.

"I was not elbowing you," Mery pouted with her slight Portuguese accent.

"Mery, you were the only other one sittin' up here. Come on, you don't even fool the refs anymore, give up the actin' career."

Ignoring the by-play going on at her ear level, Chasity Melvin replied to Ann's earlier comment. "Me too," she agreed. "But I've only got fifteen cents on me. I knew I should have gone back overseas."

"Chas, put a Goddamn sock in it," Rushia Brown snapped. She looked at her teammates with a hard line to her eyes that showed her Harlem origins. Things were about to get ugly on the loveseat with the four players parked on it, especially since the television they were watching through a neighbor's window had just been turned off.

Fortunately for most of them, although one would disagree, Brandi McCain chose that moment to come in the door and scream at the top of her lungs, "I won twenty bucks on a scratch-off ticket!" Brandi never stood a chance as every player in the room dove for her. Ann and Chasity came away triumphant, holding the petite point guard by her ankles and shaking her repeatedly. "You bullies!" she yelled as she swung gently in the air and waved her fists futilely.

"What are you grinning about?" Penny Taylor whispered to Jennifer Rizzotti while everyone else watched Brandi get shaken down.

"Ann and Chas got the ten bucks she had in her pocket- but I got the lotto ticket," Jennifer replied as she skipped out the door.