Kulti (21 page)

“Hey, Sal?” he asked slowly, cocking his head to the side.

Kulti was busy looking around, aloof. Thankfully.

I shot Marc a look that clearly said
shut up
. “Later.”

“Come here,” he insisted in a low voice, eyes narrowed just a bit more.

Fortunately, Simon chose that instant to call everyone together to choose teams so I turned away. With my boss-slash-friend on one side, and one ex-professional soccer player on the other, we made our way toward Simon.

But Marc wouldn’t leave me alone. Knocking his fist against mine as we walked, he leaned toward me. “Sal, is that—“

“No.”

“Holy—“

“Be quiet about it at least, big mouth,” I hissed under my breath so that Kulti wouldn’t hear me.

Marc stopped walking. His normally tan face went white. “Are you shitting me?”

“No.”

I kept on going. If I didn’t pay attention to him, then I couldn’t confirm anything.

They figured out who were going to be the team captains by a process of guessing numbers. The winners were one man I’d played with a few times before, whose name I thought was Carlos, and the other I didn’t know. After an intense game of paper-rock-scissors, Carlos got to pick first. He immediately looked over and waved me forward. “I’ll take Sal first.”

“What a suck-up,” Simon said, as I walked by him, an affectionate smile on his face. “I’m Sal and I play professional soccer. Look at me,” he added in a high-pitched girly voice right before kicking me in the butt.

The other captain called Simon’s name, and I swatted his leg away with a laugh.

Each person was chosen until the only people left were Kulti, a girl I’d played with before and another guy. Marc had been picked for Carlos’ team too, and I could see him making faces, tipping his head over in Kulti’s direction not very subtly. Finally understanding what was going on, Carlos pointed at the ex-star. I would forever hold onto the fact that he’d gotten chosen almost last for what had to be the first time in his life, and said “I’ll take him.”

I couldn’t help but snicker to myself. When I caught Marc’s eye, he slid me a sneaky evil grin that had lost its surprised pallor. For all I knew, Kulti could suck just as much at softball as my brother did, so I really wasn’t sure what Marc was excited about. This could go horribly.

As we circled together once the other girl had been chosen, gear was grabbed and we got ready to play. I looked at Kulti and said in a low voice, “I should have asked you before, but do you know how to play?”

From the expression on his face, you’d think I asked him if he knew what a yellow card was. Sheesh.

I held up my hands in a peace offering. “Just asking.” There was one more thing, in case he happened to be really good with a bat and a glove. “Look, this is for fun, all right? I don’t think they can handle your superhuman skills, so tone it down a little. Yes?”

His pleased little baby grin said everything, and he finally nodded once in acceptance. “Fine. We’re going to win anyway.”

“Duh.” Like anything else was even a possibility. I put my hand up and shoved his shoulder before I even realized what I was doing, and I froze. Then I snatched it back and frowned. “Ahh, sorry.”

Anddd this was awkward.

I don’t know what I was expecting him to do, but flashing a grin at me so wide I swear my heart stopped, wasn’t it. I’d seen him win championships on television before, of course he’d been smiling then but… what just came across his face so abruptly was beyond unexpected.

All I did was stare dumbly back at him for a moment, long enough to look like a complete idiot, before I forced myself to remember
poop,
and I grinned back at him.

“Sal! We don’t have all day, get your ass over here!” Simon called from somewhere behind me.

I met Kulti’s eyes once more, flashed him a smile like the one that had since melted from his face and made my way over to the rest of the group. Marc was looking back and forth between my coach’s headband and mine, the expression on his face smooth and curious. It wasn’t until he swallowed what looked like a grapefruit that I could tell he was dying on the inside, and when his eyes shot over to me, it was confirmed.

“I like to play shortstop,” Carlos, the team captain for the game, announced.

A couple other men spoke up and announced the positions they thought they were good at. This had me rolling my eyes because everyone thought they were good at the popular positions. It happened every single time. All you had to do was nod and smile and eventually things worked out fine. I wasn’t impatient, and I didn’t mind playing the positions no one else liked.

Carlos looked at the four of us: Marc, Kulti, another man I didn’t know and me. “You guys fine with playing outfield and second?”

I was only a little surprised when Kulti didn’t pipe up and voice his opinion, but when it was silently and unanimously agreed that we’d play whatever, those green-brown eyes met mine, and a smirk covered the lower half of his face.

Two seconds later, we were positioned across the field. I was in the outfield and so was he.

Approximately ten minutes later, Simon was screaming off the sidelines, “This is horse shit!” after I’d caught the third out, following Kulti’s first catch, and a second one that he’d sent flying to third base with time to spare. Who would have known he’d have an arm on him?

We switched to batting and not much changed. Kulti knocked the ball close to the fence to make it to third base on one run. I hit the ball far enough, allowing the player on first base to cross home. I ran fast enough and made it to second.

Thirty-five minutes after that, the other team captain was practically foaming at the mouth, yelling at our team captain about how they needed to pick different players for the next game. “They,” and he pointed at Kulti and me, who had surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, played like we’d been teammates for years, “can’t be on the same team together!”

So maybe it was a little unfair.

A little.

I mean, this was softball and we were soccer players. I’d been a tomboy most of my life, and I happened to be good at most sports. I’d never been a great student, I always chose practicing over studying, but you couldn’t have it all unless you were Jenny.

It just so happened that Kulti was good at catching and throwing a ball. Whatever.

I never played all-out during ‘fun’ games of any type; first, I couldn’t afford to get hurt and second, I didn’t like to dominate the games when I was fully aware that the people who played did it to unwind. They didn’t need my competitive butt ruining it. Even Kulti hadn’t run as fast as we both knew he was capable of, but at fifty percent, he was still leaps and bounds better than the average man. He ran slower, held back and I noticed that he really did try to give other people a chance.

But the point was he didn’t like to lose. I didn’t like to lose. So if people weren’t taking advantage of the opportunities opened up to them, well, one of us was going to do something about it. And for some reason, I was fully aware of where he was on the field constantly. He was catching balls and throwing them the entire game.

In the end, we won nine to zero.

Finally deciding to move
Rey
to the other team, I met those crazy eyes from our positions on opposite sides of the field. He didn’t have to say it and neither did I. This was going to be our rematch. Round two. This might have been a completely different game, but in reality this was going to be me versus him.

That fiery burn I got in my chest during games flared inside of me as we each locked gazes, and I shot him my own
bring it
smirk.

Was he going to make me eat dirt? Hopefully not.

“
S
on of a bitch
,” I muttered to myself when Simon’s wristwatch beeped with the time.

Marc trotted up next to me, his face flushed and shocked. “Did we lose?”

I nodded slowly, halfway in a stupor. “Yes.”

“How?” he asked. We never lost, especially not when he and I were on a team together.

“It was him,” I answered. There was no need to point. We both knew who I was referring to.

We both just looked at each other and silently went off to cower in our disappointment. I grabbed my bat, tucked my glove under my arm and stretched. Halfway through a body settled onto the ground next to me, and I knew it was Kulti.

Asshole.

When he didn’t say anything, I felt my frustration race up. When I didn’t find it in me to say anything either, my anger just ticked up a little higher. Eventually he looked over and kept his expression blank. “A coach of mine used to say that no one likes a sore loser.”

My eyebrows went into a straight line. “I find it hard to believe that you listened to him.”

His brown eyebrows went up and a hint of an angelic, serene look took over his features. “I didn’t. I’m only telling you what I have been told, Taquito.”

What a smart-ass.

W
e were
at the airport in Seattle on the way back to Houston, following our second game a few days later, when I spotted the crowd surrounding our sensation of a coach.

Not again.

I hadn’t said anything about the crowd around the Audi after the first game, and I hadn’t heard anyone else say anything about it either. To be honest, I hadn’t given it much thought. Since then, I’d played softball with the German and even joked around with him for a little bit, at least as much as his dry humor was capable of.

On the other hand, nothing had changed while we were on Pipers time. He still ripped me a new one each chance he had. I hadn’t given him another ride home, either. The black Audi was always there after practice, its tint so dark I’d bet a dollar it was illegal.

Everything seemed to run normally, not bringing any unwanted attention to this new buddy I had. No one had a clue, with the exception of Marc, who wasn’t speaking to me unless he had to because I’d brought Kulti to softball and hadn’t warned him. He’d get over it eventually.

Besides that, everything was fine. The Pipers played another game and won, and now we were heading home. I’d gotten a ride in the last van to the leave the hotel along with Jenny, my hotel-room buddy.

The chunk of the team that had arrived before or with the German, was scattered throughout the gate. Several airport security stood close by, while the people who recognized Kulti stood in front of him, staring. Oblivious to his audience or simply settling for pretending they weren’t there, Kulti was looking down at his iPad like he didn’t have people treating him as if he was in a fishbowl.

Why wasn’t he in the colonel’s lounge, or whatever it was called, like he’d been on the flight over?

Kulti looked up and around. His face was expressionless, but he caught me watching and something passed between us, something that only my gut understood. He was doing the same thing he had back during the preseason game when that fan had stopped him. So he knew that he was surrounded. He was looking for help.

I could have ignored him. I was well aware of how easy it would be to pretend I hadn’t seen him. Damn it.

“Jen, do you have your Uno cards with you?” I really hoped this didn’t backfire on me. I wasn’t sure my pride could handle it.

Standing right next to me, as she sipped on the Americano she’d purchased on the walk over, she nodded. “Always.”

“Are you ready to do your good deed of the day?” I asked her, knowing damn well what her answer would be.

“Sure. What are we doing?”

“We’re going to see if Kulti wants to play.”

Her almond-shaped eyes didn’t even blink once. “We are?”

“Yes.”

It took her a second to catch up when I made my way over to the lonely German, but she followed, without an argument. He looked up as I took the open seat on his left, his backpack was on the other seat, and Jenny took the open one on my other side. His eyebrows made a funny line, like he wasn’t sure what exactly was going on and was undecided about whether or not it was a good thing.

Jenny passed the deck of cards over to me—sneaky, sneaky, sneaky.

I raised my eyebrows as I moved the cards onto my lap for him to see. It didn’t escape me that his crowd of onlookers was watching us curiously, but knew better than to say anything. I kept my attention on Kulti the entire time, watching as his eyes went from the cards to my face and then back to the deck again.

Part of me expected him to say no.

He didn’t. He took his iPad and slid it into his backpack, raising his own thick eyebrows. “I haven’t played in a very long time.”

Jenny popped her head in from around, smiling wide. “We’ll teach you.”

I snorted and pushed her face back with my hand on her forehead.

Not fifteen seconds later, the three of us sat on the floor at Sea-Tac, playing Uno with a small group of Kulti fans standing around. It made me feel awkward. I couldn’t help but glance up every so often and smile at the people watching us because I didn’t know what else to do. But it didn’t stop the three of us from trying to beat each other.

And exactly six hours later, when our plane landed in Houston, I had an email from my dad that said:
You’re famous.

There were pictures of Jenny and I sitting with Kulti, laughing our asses off during one of our games. Someone had posted the picture on a fan website. Below the image was an italicized caption:
If one of these lesbos is his girlfriend, I’m gonna kill myself.

E
xactly one week
after the softball game, days after pictures had gone on the internet of Jenny, the bratwurst and I playing Uno at the airport, I had Kulti pull me aside after our cool-down following practice.

We rarely spoke during practice unless it was him calling me a different synonym for slow, or asking me if I was going to finish my passing drills in the next decade. I didn’t take it personally and tried not to think about it too much. We’d just played softball. We hadn’t gotten married.

Awkward thought
.

So… whatever. I was learning and growing, and I was busy enough that this weird friendship didn’t live at the front of my brain.

“Are you playing again tonight?” Kulti whispered the question when I was close.

I kept my eyes forward, no matter how badly I wanted to look at him. “I was thinking about it.” I paused. “Do you want to go?”

“Yes,” he answered quickly. “Same time, same place?”

“Yep.” I waved at Harlow as she walked by; totally not missing the raised eyebrow she was giving me. “I’ll wait for you in the same spot.”

Kulti grunted his agreement.

We both went our own ways, wordlessly.

I couldn’t help but think about the fact that he wanted to go play again. He wanted to play softball of all things.

Then it hit me just like it had the first time; Reiner Kulti wanted to play with me. He’d asked. Again.

I was on such a one track mind that I wasn’t paying attention as I prepared to leave. My mind was on the fact that I had his phone number—poop—and that I really hoped Marc wouldn’t say anything this week either, when a reporter snagged me on the way to my car.

“Casillas! Sal!”

I slowed down and turned. A man not much older than me was sitting off the side under the shade, a tape recorder clearly visible in one hand and a messenger bag over his shoulder. Whatever media showed up was always before practice, no one ever stayed after.

“Hey,” I told him.

“I have a few questions for you,” he said quickly, rattling off his name before skipping the whole ‘if you have time part.’ I didn’t have time, but I didn’t want to be rude.

Instead I said, “Sure. Shoot.”

The first two questions were easy, normal. What I thought about analysts saying we had a tough road ahead for the championship, with the inception of two new teams in the WPL? Why would it be a tough road? I enjoyed a struggle. What we were doing to assure we would continue to move up past the regular season? He must have thought I was dumb enough to give away the imaginary tricks we had planned. No one ever wanted to hear that it was hard work, practice and discipline that were the key to winning at anything. Then finally, it happened: “What do you think about the rumors circulating that Reiner Kulti has a drinking problem that’s been kept confidential?”

Again?

I tried to think about all of my PR training in the past. There could never be any hesitation when journalists asked questions like that. You absolutely couldn’t let them see that they’d rattled you. I especially wouldn’t since I’d grown
almost
fond of the German bratwurst lately. Well at least I think there was more beyond his crispy exterior. “I think that he’s a fantastic coach and that rumors are none of my business.”

Fantastic coach? All right. That was stretching the truth a bit, but it was a white lie. At best I’d say he was trying.

“Has he given the impression that he might be drinking excessively?” He snapped out the question quickly.

I allowed myself to blink at him in disbelief. “I’m sorry but you’re making me feel really uncomfortable. The only thing he does excessively is push us to better ourselves in any way he can.” What I didn’t say was that he did it by yelling at us like we were the scum of the earth, but did the method work? It most definitely did. “Look, I like him. I like him a lot as a player and as a coach. He’s one of the most decorated athletes in history, and he’s a good man.” Lie? Not so much. He’d sent my dad a present. How? I wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. A complete prick wouldn’t have thought twice about my little dad. “If there’s something in his past or if there isn’t, I could care less. I know him and respect him now more than ever. To me, that’s all that matters.”

“So, you’re neither confirming nor denying that there might be a chance—“

“Look, you can’t be that caliber of player without extreme self-discipline in some form. I’ve tried to drink a Coke before a game once, and it nearly killed me. I will gladly answer any questions you have about our upcoming games or practices, or just about anything else related to Pipers, but I’m not going to bad-mouth or spread gossip about someone that I value and respect when I don’t have a reason to.”

Value and respect? Meh… Another stretch of the truth.

He didn’t exactly look sure whether to believe me or not, but fortunately, I guess I’d frustrated him enough that he looked back behind me to see another player coming. Hallelujah.

“Thanks for answering my questions,” he said, not exactly grateful. But what did he expect? Me to trash talk Kulti?

I’d had people I played with in the past do that to me, and I had sworn to myself a long time ago that I would never be that person. If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, right?

T
he German was waiting
for me in the parking lot when I pulled in that night.

Impressive.

Until I realized I hadn’t decided whether or not to tell him about Sherlock Junior asking dumb questions after practice. His response could go one way or the other, and I really didn’t know him well enough to predict which one.

By the time I grabbed all of my crap, I hadn’t made a conscious decision.

A minute later after we’d greeted each other with a, “Hi,” and a, “Hello,” on the sidewalk, I was still undecided.

But apparently, my brain had chosen for me. We had barely taken three steps forward when I blurted out, “There was another journalist asking about a supposed drinking problem.” Well it wasn’t so
supposed
. I wasn’t going to base his drinking off one experience, but I couldn’t forget about it either.

Kulti didn’t jerk or react in any outward way. “Who?”

I rattled off the man’s name.

“What was his question exactly?” he asked.

Word for word, I repeated what the man had asked. Slowly, making sure to watch Kulti’s face, I told him verbatim how I responded. Well, mostly. “I wouldn’t violate your trust or your image in any way.”

Those green-brown eyes looked into my own, making me think of a rusted lime. “I know you wouldn’t.”

What? That easy? He knew I wouldn’t? Nothing was ever that simple, and his easy acceptance made me feel uncertain. “Okay.” I paused. “Good.”

He did that European short nod of agreement that consisted of a chin jerk. “Thank you, Sal.”

There were two parts of that statement that had me stumbling, mentally at least.

The t-word again. Thank you.

But the most shocking in my book was… the Sal.
Sal
.

Honest to god, I think I said something remarkably close to, “Ermghard.” What the hell did that even mean? I had no idea, but it seemed fitting.

In a split second, I got it together and offered him a tremulous smile. “Thank… you.” Wait. What was I thanking him for? Stupid, stupid, stupid. “For that,” I explained quickly, even though it sounded more like a question than a comment. My face went all warm suddenly at the compliment he’d just paid me.

He’d given me his trust, or at least something close to it.

What do you say after that? I couldn’t think of anything intelligent that didn’t end up with me smiling like a goofball afterward, so I kept my gaze elsewhere as we approached the field.

“You came back!” Marc greeted us, his eyes immediately flashing toward Kulti, with that deer-caught-in the-headlights look. Or maybe he was constipated, both expressions were strangely similar. He’d finally started willingly speaking to me today, when he asked if I was planning on going to softball that night.

“You know I don’t like to lose.” With a smile, I eyed Kulti and tipped my head over to Marc. “Marc, Rey. Rey, Marc, again. Just in case you didn’t remember.”

Extending out his free hand, my brother’s friend shook my coach’s hand and I swear—I
swear
—I saw Marc eye his palm like he was never going to wash that bad boy again. We were going to need to have a talk, seriously. He was just as bad as my dad.

“Is there room for us?” I asked.

“Yeah, except I’m positive no one is going to agree to let you both be on the same team together.” A familiar arm was thrown over my shoulders. “I want to be on his team this time.”

I groaned and tried to elbow him in the ribs. “Traitor.”

“You ladies ready to play?” Simon called out from where he’d quickly gotten surrounded by multiple people.

To no one’s surprise, Kulti and I were chosen for two separate teams, in a way that told me the captains for the week had planned it, before we arrived. A look passed between the two of us that was a mix of a smirk and a grin. Splitting up into our respective teams—my team was playing defense and I’d been assigned second base—I suddenly felt like we were two boxers circling each other, or two rams about to go head to head.

This was going to be fun.

“
T
ag him
! Tag him!” someone yelled.

It was the last inning, with only one out to go. I was playing second base, and a ball had been hit straight at first base. The player on first was barreling toward me as the first baseman ran up behind him.

One of my legs was braced behind me, the other one out in front so I could tag the runner out, if the first baseman didn’t get him first. I should have recognized the look on the guy’s face—pure determination. I was just a girl in front of someone insistent on not getting out. Muscles contracted, my hand was out to catch the ball in case first baseman decided at the last minute to throw it.

But he didn’t.

A second later the runner was on me, one foot stomping down on mine, in an attempt to make it to second. What did I do? I got the hell out of the way, even though it was too late to avoid the heavy-ass shoe on my instep.

Holy freaking
shitttt
.

A giant puff of air escaped my mouth, and pain flared up through my foot and shin. It was one thing to get stepped on and another to have an elephant-sized foot try and trample me.

“Out! He’s out!”

“Are you blind? He made it!”

Hands gripping my foot over my shoe, I looked up at the sky and breathed through the pain while I tried to convince myself that I was fine. Some of the players were arguing about the call, but I stood off to the side cradling my freaking foot.

“Are you going to live?”

Breathing out through my nose, I looked just slightly down to see Kulti standing in front of me, his thinner bottom lip pulled into a straight line. “I’ll be fine.” Yeah, that didn’t sound convincing at all.

From the shape his eyebrows took, he didn’t believe it either. “Put your foot down.”

“In a minute.”

“Put it down.”

I should and I knew it, but I didn’t want to.

“Now, Sal.”

I gave him a look that said just how much I disliked it when he got bossy and set my foot down anyway, gingerly, gingerly, gingerly—

I groaned, grunted and whimpered just a little at the same time.

“You’re done,” he ordered.

Yeah, we were. I needed to ice myself because there was no way in hell it wasn’t going to bruise spectacularly. Marc and Simon were two of the people arguing about the outcome of the game, those assholes not giving a crap that I’d gotten practically crushed.

“Losers,” I called out. Sure enough, they both looked up. Ha. “I’m leaving now. I’ll call you later.”

They nodded, with only Marc adding, “Are you all right?”

I gave him a thumbs-up.

With a quick wave at the people I did know, the ones who hadn’t tried to hurt me, I walk-slash-limped around the outskirts of the field, following two steps behind a slow-paced Kulti. He didn’t stop or turn around to make sure I was following after him; he just kept heading in the direction of the lot. As we got closer, he jogged toward his car. In the time it took me to walk the rest of the way toward the bathrooms where I’d found him, he had already opened the trunk of the Audi and set a small blue cooler on the lip of the bumper. He pulled two small white things out and closed it again.

With a large hand, he pointed at the bench right off the curb. “Sit there.”

I squinted to see what he was holding, as I sat dutifully.

“Shoe off.” He continued to order me around and I didn’t fight him on it, realizing he had two ice packs stacked together in one hand.

Toeing my tennis shoe off, I pulled my foot up to rest the heel on the edge of the bench. Kulti handed me one of the packs before sitting down next to me. He didn’t have to tell me what to do; I rolled my sock down until it just covered my toes and placed the still very cold cloth material on what was already inflamed pink skin.

Kulti folded his body so that his leg was partially propped up on the corner of the seat and placed the other pack on top of his knee.

We were sitting on a bench nearly side by side, with icepacks.

I burst out laughing.

I laughed so hard my stomach started cramping and my eyes got all watery and overwhelmed, and I couldn’t stop.

The German raised an eyebrow. “What is it?”

“Look at us,” I laughed even harder, unable to catch my breath. “We’re sitting here icing ourselves. Jesus Christ.”

A small smile cracked his normally stern face as he looked at my foot and then at himself.

“And why do you have icepacks in your car anyway?”

His small smile eroded into an even larger one, which eventually cracked into a low chuckle that lightened his face in a way that had me admiring just how handsome something so insignificant could make him. “If I want to walk tomorrow, I need to ice immediately.” There was a brief pause before he added, “If you tell anyone—“