Kulti (12 page)

S
o apparently I
needed to work on keeping my game face on a little better. I could do that. I smiled and nodded at the man sitting across the table. “I’m fine, G. Thanks, though.”

H
is features eased
a bit and an emotion I wasn’t sure I recognized crossed his face as I took a step back. “I’m proud of you Sal, for standing up to him. Especially now that I know how you all are feeling about his presence here… I want you to know that. You’re a good girl.”

G
ardner’s words
made me feel nice at the same time they made me feel guilty. I gave him a little smile and shrugged. “I should have said something to you earlier about the girls, G.”

“
I
t’s fine
. You said something now and that’s all that matters.”

W
as it
?

W
e said bye
to each other one more time and then I was out of there.

B
ag over my shoulder
, I slowly made my way out, thinking. Had I done the right thing? I wasn’t positive, but what else was I supposed to do? I could painfully go through another five months of tiptoeing around this German dingle-berry, but it was different if I wasn’t the only one being affected by his presence.

T
he trek
back was old and familiar. Down two hallways and head to the elevator. I knew it by memory. I rocked back and forth on my heels as I waited for the elevator.

I
t was
the soft squeak of a foreign pair of tennis shoes on the linoleum floor that had me glancing over. The sound wasn’t anything special in this building; mostly everyone wore tennis shoes unless it was game day or if it was a woman wearing heels. But when I saw a pair of special edition RK running shoes, black with lime-green stitching, my shoulders tensed up.

A
nd I looked
.

O
f course
it was the ass-gobbler I’d just been talking about.

S
ubconsciously
, I started to reach back and make sure my hair was tucked up neatly beneath my headband, but I stopped before I got there. Poop. Plus, what did it matter if my hair was messed up? It shouldn’t.

I
cleared
my throat when he stopped a yard or so away from me and our eyes met. His eye color was clearer that I’d thought it would be. It was a perfect mix of a honey-brown with a fitting blend of murky green. Bright, sharp and incredibly, unbelievably observant from the weight of the stare it was capable of.

H
oly bejesus he was tall
. His forearms were big beneath the sky blue training polo he had on. Then I glanced back up at his eyes to see them still locked on me. He was watching me check him out.

F
uck
.

P
oop
, Sal.
Poop
.

P
ee
. Stop it.
Stopitrightnow
.

Y
ou dragged
him out of a bar and into a hotel room without a single thank you in return. Not even a smile. All you got out of it was a threat.

A
nd suddenly with that
, I felt fine.

I
swallowed
and smiled my sugar-sweet asshole smile, using the only half of my face capable of moving. “Hi,” I said before adding quickly, “Coach.”

T
hat heavy gaze
flicked down to the number printed on my chest for a moment before moving its way back up to look at my face. The blink he did was slow and lazy.

I
tipped
my chin up and blinked right back at him, forcing a smug and closed-mouth smile on my face.

T
he elevator dinged
open as he said in a low tone which sounded like it cost him ten years off his life to use on such a lowly faithless creature like myself, “Hello.”

W
e looked
each other right in the eye for a split second before I raised my eyebrows up and headed inside the small space. I turned to face the doors and watched him follow in after me, taking the spot against the corner furthest away.

D
id he say anything else
? No.

D
id I
? No.

I
kept my eyes forward
, and lived through the most awkward thirty seconds of my life.

T
he problem with men
, or males in general, that I’d discovered over the course of my life, was that they had huge mouths. I mean a whale shark has nothing on the average man with a couple of friends. Honestly.

B
ut you know
, it was my fault. Really, it was. I should have known better.

M
y dad
, brother and his friends had taught me the reality behind male friendships and yet I’d forgotten everything that I’d learned.

S
o I couldn’t
blame anyone else but myself for trusting Gardner.

A
lready more than halfway through
that morning’s practice, I had just finished my own one-on-one game against a defender. I went to take my place away from where the sessions were happening, and I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about what I could have done differently to get the ball into the goal quicker when someone stepped right in the middle of my path.

I
t was
a simple side-step that landed the body bigger than mine just a foot away.

I
knew
it wasn’t Gardner. Gardner had been on the other side of the field when I’d been playing, and there were only three other men on staff it could have been. Except two of them were too nice to do something so confrontational.

T
he German
. It was the damn king of jerk-offs. Of course it was.

T
he instant I
made eye-to-eye contact with him, I knew.

I
knew Gardner was a caring
, overly blunt bastard who had mentioned my name to the German.

M
y heart felt
like it started to pound in my throat.

H
e didn’t have
to say ‘I know what you said’
because the passive look on his face said it all. If he’d stood through me ranting about my dad without making a face, then I knew whatever it was he’d heard had hit a nerve. A person like him didn’t appreciate being criticized because he already thought he was perfect, hello.

I
t wasn’t
like I’d called him a worthless piece of retired Euro-trash—which was horribly rude. Or said he was an awful player and that he didn’t deserve the job. Nothing remotely similar to that had come out of my mouth, but I put myself into his situation, thought of myself having an ego ten times the size of the one I currently had and asked myself how I’d feel.

I
’d feel
pretty damn pissed if some kid started saying what I needed to do differently.

B
ut it was the truth
, and I’d stand by it. I hadn’t called him
Führer
or a dick or anything. What was I going to do? Apologize to someone who didn’t deserve it? Nope.

I
did
what I needed to do. I stayed right where I’d stopped when he first got in my way, and I wrangled my heart into not beating so fast.
Calm down, calm down, calm down. Poop. Pee. Poop, poop.

B
ig Girl Socks
? On.

V
oice
? In check.

S
teeling myself
, I pushed my shoulders down and looked at him dead-on. “Yes?”

“
S
print time
!” someone yelled.

M
y bravery
only went so far because the next thing I did was turn around and run toward the line where sprints began. A whole nice round of conditioning, meaning running sprints at increasing amounts of distances, was my love-hate relationship. I was fast, but that didn’t mean I really loved running them.

I
lined
up between two of the younger girls who were always trying to run faster than me. The player on my right bumped her fist against mine right before we took off. “I feel like today is the day, Sal,” she smiled.

I
wiggled
my ankle around and slowly rested the weight on the ball of my foot. “I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty good today, but bring it on.”

O
ne more fist
bump and the whistle sounded.

T
en yards
, back and forth. Twenty, back and forth, Forty, back and forth. Midfield, back and forth. Then the whole field and back.

M
y lungs seized
up a little by the end of it, but I sucked it up and pushed forward on the last leg. I finished up with enough distance between myself and the next person to sleep okay that night. I thought about how good it was that I always tried to push myself on my own runs a little harder each day.

R
ubbing
my hands up and down on my upper thighs while I caught my breath, I smiled at the girl who had challenged me at the beginning when she made it. She looked a little annoyed but managed to keep a smile on.

“
I
don’t know
how the hell you do it,” Sandy panted.

I
panted right back
. “I run. A lot.” When she gave me this expression that said ‘no-shit-Sherlock,’ I snorted. “I do the bike trails at Memorial at six-thirty every day before coming here. You’re welcome to come with me if you get up early enough. I’m not the greatest company to talk to that early in the morning, but it’s better than running alone, right?”

“
R
eally
?” she asked a little too incredulously.

“
Y
eah
.”

S
he wiped
at her forehead and gave me this funny look. “Okay. Sure. That sounds great.”

I
rattled
off where I parked my car in case she really did want to go and wasn’t just saying she did. By the time we finished talking, everyone else had finished their sprints too, even the slower players. Not that anyone was slow exactly, but slow
er
.

P
ractice finished soon after that
, so I finished getting my stuff together, keeping an eye to see where Gardner was so I could give him a tiny piece of my mind. Regular shoes on, a clean pair of ankle socks beneath them, I made my way toward the head coach busy counting balls to make sure they were all there.

“
A
re
you ready for the game?” he greeted me first thing.

“
I
’m ready
,” I agreed, watching his sneaky face for any sign that he felt remorse for taking advantage of my trust.

“
E
verything okay
?” he asked, straightening up when I didn’t move from where I’d been.

G
lancing
around to make sure that no one was too close, I turned my attention back to the male Gossip Girl and scowled. “Did you tell Kulti what I said?”

T
he old bastard
had the decency to look just a little sheepish. “I had a talk with him this morning on the way here. I figured it was time,” he neither agreed nor denied.

“
D
id
you tell him it was me who said something?”

H
is brown eyes
were careful and consistent. “He must have guessed it was you since you’re the only one that’s ripped him a new one.”

H
e didn’t deny it
. I’d also been the one he saw coming from the offices too. It wasn’t like the cookie trail hadn’t been left behind. On top of that, I had laid into him for being a piece of horse crap to my dad. Once again, it was my fault.

I
t was done
, and there was no point in dwelling on it.

“
Y
ou can tell
me if there’s a problem,” he stated in a careful honest tone that I couldn’t help but believe.

W
hat was
I going to do? Tell him
oh, he gave me the stare down?
Nope. Or worse, tell him about me picking him up from a bar? Yeah, no.

I
nstead I gave
him a reassuring smile that I didn’t necessarily feel. “Everything’s fine, I was just… curious if you said something or not. No big deal.”

“
N
o
. I didn’t say anything.”

“
G
reat
, thanks G. I’ll see you later then,” I sighed, turning around to walk toward the bathroom, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.