Kulti (20 page)

You also had ten other people on the field to move the ball back and forth.

My morning run and practice had already taken their toll. Playing with Kulti made every muscle feel that much more intense, even the backs of my knees were wet with sweat.

But when his breath was in my ear and his body was right behind me, I could hear and feel the exhaustion radiating from his own body. I smiled.

“Getting winded?”

He grunted but didn’t respond; a second later, I realized why. In a move that was Reiner Kulti at the height of his career, he stole the ball from me and powered toward the goal using the advantage of his long legs. I saw it coming but I still didn’t slow down as I ran to catch up.

With a swift kick I didn’t have a chance of blocking, the soccer ball flew through the air in a sharp powerful line. Perfect. It was a perfect shot.

I smiled and shook my head despite the fact that under normal circumstances, I would have been pissed off I was down a point.

But that had been beautiful.

And when Kulti turned around with the most smug triumphant smile I would probably ever see, and that was saying something considering I’d played against some pretty egotistical people, it pleased me. It went straight into my sternum because it was so…
him.
It wasn’t the blank indifferent man I’d seen so many times over the course of the last month.

“One-zero, Taco,” he said like I was an idiot and had no idea what the score was.

Just like that, that pleased feeling in my chest that had appreciated the joy of his brief triumph disappeared.

Had he…?

“Taco? Really?” I wanted to laugh, as demeaning as the nickname was, but I’d kind of asked for it, hadn’t I?

He shrugged in acknowledgment.

I waved him on. “All right, pumpernickel. Come on, six more to go.”

Y
eah
, we only made it to four-three, and even then it was a miracle we hadn’t keeled over.

“You look like you could use a break.” How the hell I managed to get that out in one sentence, I had no idea. I was wheezing. He was wheezing. When the hell was the last time I’d breathed like that? Never?

Kulti was soaked in sweat, and on top of that, his face was a little pale. “I’m fine.”

Fine? He looked like he wanted to puke. I’d also noticed that his right quad was pulsing. Why I noticed that, why I’d even looked down there, I had no idea. But I wasn’t going to think about it either.

“Positive?” I stuck my tongue as far out of my mouth as I could and took a deep breath to calm down. Ugly, but it worked, and my lungs thanked me for it.

He rolled his eyes but kept struggling to catch his breath. Jeez. Were we really playing that roughly? “Unless… you want to.”

I did. I did want to. I had no idea how I was going to push a lawnmower even if it was self-propelled. This was too much, and I’d been stupid for putting myself through it. But fuck if I was going to admit it. “I do if you do.”

His cheeks were puffing full and empty, reminding me of a frog. “You’re… losing. I don’t care.”

I was losing and that sucked, but later on, I could pat myself on the back for hanging in there as long as I had. So I shrugged at him.

He lifted his eyebrows in return but didn’t agree to anything.

“You choose.”
Please say yes. Please say yes.

Kulti took a deep inhale through his nose. “You look like you’re about to pass out,” he noted.

Asshole.

I was losing and, apparently, I looked like I was going to pass out. Please, compliment me more.

I hoped his knee was sore later.

“I don’t think you should overdo it either.” I smiled, biting back my words. “Since you haven’t played forever and all.”

His started chewing on the inside of his cheek from the way his facial muscles moved.

It’s the little victories in life that really mattered. Sticking my tongue out once again and sucking in another ragged breath, I calmed down a little more. My head was gently throbbing from how exerted I was, and I reached up to rub at my temples.

The German slowly hunched over until his palms rested just above his knees and took deep breaths. His eyes were on the grass before slowly moving them up. His shirt was plastered to his shoulders and his biceps, his hair matted down to his scalp.

Neither one of us said anything for a while.

Squeezing my eyes closed, I bent over to do a quick stretch of my hamstrings, then my quads and finally my calves. When I straightened, I shook out my shoulders and watched as my coach straightened up and began to stretch. All those long, lean muscles…

I cleared my throat and looked at the sky. No need to make this awkward or give him a reason to rub his stupid win in my face. Would he do it? Yeah, he would. It was time for me to get the hell out of there and feed the goblin in my stomach.

“Well I’m leaving now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I had just turned around and started to make my way off the field when he piped up. “You’re a good loser, Casillas!”

I started to shake my head as I walked off…

I kept shaking my head, even as I realized that he’d used my last name again.

“
S
omeone finally got laid
.”

I scrunched my face up and looked around. “Who? Phyllis?”

“Sal, that’s disgusting.” Harlow shuddered. “No. You know who I’m talking about,” she said with that look that said ‘you know who I’m talking about.’

“Heh.” I crossed my eyes at her and zeroed in on the overly aggressive bratwurst walking around the field, helping set up equipment with the rest of the staff. This was normal, except for the fact that he
was
freaking sort of smiling
.
It was as much of one as a man who had more in common with a robot was capable of, I guess.

Still, the smile went straight to my gut.

“Look at him. He looks happy. It’s weird and wrong, isn’t it?” she muttered under her breath.

It was weird and slightly wrong.

Tipping my head to the side, I kept rolling my socks up my shins and watched him for a second longer. The smile didn’t last long, and there was something else different about his face, his entire demeanor. He looked like a smug son of a bitch, the same smug son of a bitch that used to dominate the field.

Oh God. He was back. My gut said that he might have gotten laid, though he didn’t strike me as the type that sex would have made that big of a difference in him, but it was beyond that.

Those greenish-hazel eyes looked around the field as he shoved a big yellow obstacle into place, and he caught me looking at him. His eyelids lowered and one corner of his mouth pulled up into a smile that was one fourth the size of a normal one. It morphed into a smirk a second later.

I knew what he was thinking: loser.

That smirk said it all, though. I was right. Maybe he’d gotten laid, and I didn’t really like the way that thought made my ears feel strange, but I knew why he’d been smiling.

Because maybe he’d kicked my ass the day before.

But the truth was, at least the version of the truth I wanted to accept, he’d finally played soccer for the first time in years.

And you know what? As much as I hated the fact that he’d won by a point, I had to snicker to myself.
You’re welcome, pumpernickel.

Damn that was annoying.
He
was annoying.

“Pssh. He probably stayed up doing inventory on his trophies last night.” I laughed.

Harlow snickered and laughed.

Waggling my eyebrows, I elbowed her in the side and gestured toward where the mini-bands were located for stretching. Jeez Louise, I was sore. I probably looked like a lumbering bear getting to my feet. Busy adjusting my bun and headband so my bangs wouldn’t get into my face, I barely happened to look up just as I was passing by Gardner, Kulti and Phyllis, the fitness coach.

“Morning,” I greeted them.

“Good morning,” Gardner replied.

Phyllis said something that was probably “good morning.”

The German grunted, “morning.” This stupid expression crossed his eyes, and I pretended to ignore him as I kept on walking. Well it was more of a limp than a walk.

My limp only got more pronounced after the first half an hour of practice. It got so bad that I started daydreaming about actually taking an ice bath. I mean, who dreams about an ice bath?

The cherry topping on my sundae of pain happened when I jogged by Kulti. He shouted after me, “Are you planning on running any faster today, Casillas?”

It took everything inside of me not to flip him off with both my middle fingers.

Practice wasn’t the best. I was sore all over; my hamstrings were too tight, my shoulders were a little sore, and I was tired. Yesterday had been too much. So yeah, I dragged ass. It didn’t help that everyone pointed it out. Two hours felt like ten and by the time the equipment was put away, I was beyond struggling. But I’d accomplished what I had set out to do, hadn’t I? I’d gotten Scrooge to sort of smile and he hadn’t talked a whole bunch of shit to me.

I might have lost our one-on-one, but I’d won the real battle.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard a snicker. “You seemed to be struggling today.”

Slowly pushing up to my feet from the crouching position I was in, I instantly rolled my eyes at Kulti’s question. He stood a few feet away, having pushed one of the heavy metal obstacles off to the side of the field.

“Oh, I’m perfect. How are you feeling?”

His mouth went into a straight line that said exactly how full of shit he thought I was. “Wonderful.”

So full of shit. “Oh yeah? I thought I saw you favoring your left leg a little bit, but I guess not.”

As if bringing it up made it hurt more, his leg jerked at the same time his eyes narrowed. Voice flat and dry, he said, “My leg is fine,” but he still had that funny look in his eye. As if he was only barely frustrated with his knee hurting—or in his case ‘not hurting.’

I purposely glanced at his knee and said, “huh” before looking right back at his face.

Tipping my chin up, I stared him right in the eye. He seriously had the most intense face I had ever, and probably would ever, see. His gaze was unflinching and solid. If someone could have light sabers in their eyes, it would be him. He had the demanding stare that boxers and fighters seemed to perfect when they were face to face with their opponent during weigh-ins.

Wait a second. Why was he looking at me like I was his enemy?

For one brief second, the idea bothered me. Later on, I’d wonder if I was just so subconsciously bored that having Kulti look at me like I was a real opponent was exciting. But then… I’d take it.

I smiled at him,
no
, smirked at him. I was pleased with myself.

His nostrils flared in response, and he just kept right on staring, head held high, neck elongated. He was such a proud asshole.

And as much as I would have enjoyed standing there, staring at him, I knew how important it was for me to do something about my body pain. I let my smile grow bigger and then took a few steps backward. “I’ll see you later, Coach.” Two more steps backward, I eyed his leg. “Keep off your leg.”

It wasn’t like he needed me to tell him what to do. Ha. I bet that was irritating.

Sure enough, he was a master at being just as equally irritating. “Make sure you ice down. I don’t need you being useless again next practice.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth and nodded. “You got it.”

T
he next day
his limp was worse. Despite the ice bath I’d taken, which should be said even if you’ve taken one a hundred times before, it never stops sucking a massive amount of donkey nuts; I was still in pain everywhere.

And when Kulti spotted my bowlegged walking, just as I noticed how he kept taking weight off his left leg, we each just gave each other dirty looks.

“
A
re
we going to win or are we going to
win?”
Grace, the Pipers’ captain, belted out at the top of her lungs.

The energy in our circle was tangible—more than tangible. It went straight into my bones, into the very center of me. In each of us there was anticipation, joy, eagerness and even a little violence that made up the wattage coming out of our group.

On the evening of our first game of the regular season, there was blood in the air.

Months of practice and years of experience, had led each member of the Pipers to this point. We wanted to win and needed to win. The first game was always so instrumental to how each team would treat the rest of the season.

I loved this. It was the endless possibilities, the opportunities and the ability to start all over again, regardless of how our last season went. It was my favorite. Knowing that my parents were there, Marc, Simon and a few other friends that had been along the long path with me, only pumped me up that much more. This wasn’t just about me, this was about it all of them. My parents who had worked so hard to put me through youth leagues, teams, clubs, camp after camp, youth national teams, college, the WPL. Marc and Simon had been with me since I was a little kid tagging along with Eric, who they loved to bully and teach horrible habits to—like elbowing and tripping. They’d played with me almost as much as Eric had.

I was hungry for a win, for all them.

This moment in time was for all of my teammates. It was love. It was perfect.

From the sound of everyone belting out a “
We’re gonna win!!!”
I wasn’t the only one who felt so deeply about it.

Our arms linked over and around each other, every single female who had made it to this moment, yelled “PIPERS” at the top of their lungs.

We were off.

“
I
t was a close game
—“

That was an understatement. We barely managed to squeak by with a win.

“—but we did it, ladies. Don’t take this for granted—“

Standing together, sweaty and worn out, I bumped arms with Genevieve, a younger player standing next to me, who’d scored the winning goal in the last five minutes of the game. She shot me a huge excited smile that I returned wholeheartedly.

A heavy damp arm wrapped around my neck, in what would have been considered a chokehold, if it had been anyone other than Harlow. It was just the way she hugged me. Her mouth pressed up against my temple, as she spoke low and excited. “We fucking did it, Sally.”

I wrapped my own arm around the middle of her back and squeezed tight, nodding up at her with a grin on my face. “Of course we did,” I whispered back, excitement still thrumming through my veins.

Gardner continued his spiel about setting a standard for the rest of the season and bringing up a few things we needed to work on. Finally after a few minutes, he held up his hand for all of us to try and reach for, and he said, “I’m going out tonight. Who’s coming?”

I wasn’t. My family was in town, and I usually celebrated with them and the rest of the gang. I’d just finished burning hundreds and hundreds of calories playing the entire game; I could fit in a reasonable Mexican meal with a gallon of water all to myself. Jenny was coming with us, like she usually did, on season openers.

A few staff members cheered and claimed that they’d go out with him.

I finished changing in the locker room and met up with Jenny outside, so that we could go find my family. Gardner and his small group were ahead of us, making their way out to the parking lot too. I couldn’t help but notice that Kulti wasn’t with them.

As we crossed the double doors, I spotted a black Audi idling by the curb.

Then I spotted the crowd of people wearing various versions of Reiner Kulti uniforms, close by it. I watched as long as I could, curious to see whether the German would make his way out or not. By the time I got in my car and pulled out of the spot, nothing had changed. I’d spotted Gardner’s truck zipping out of the lot ahead of me.

But still, the black Audi hadn’t moved and neither had the people hovering by it.

A
few days
later I heard, “Twenty-three!” and wanted to bang my head on an imaginary door.

How many times had my number been yelled in the last hour and a half? My best guess was somewhere between a dozen and twenty. Anything more than two, was too many.

I wanted to punch him in the dick. Any guilt I felt for how he hadn’t played in two years, or how the poor guy wasn’t able to walk to his car after a game without being surrounded by people, didn’t matter at all at that point. Not even a little bit.

Patience, Sal. Patience.

I walked quickly over to where he was and tipped my head back, ignoring the fact that three weeks ago, I hadn’t been able to talk to him in a complete sentence. “Yes?”

“Don’t you have some drills to do?”

“No.” I hiked my thumb back. Twenty seconds had possibly passed since I’d finished them and when he’d called my number. “I’m waiting so I can start stretching.”

Those lazy eyes did that lizard blink. Keeping his gaze on mine for what seemed like a minute straight, he finally lowered his voice and asked, “Do you want to play today?”

Uhh.

I felt like I had stadium spotlights and a dozen cameras on me. I had to fight the urge to look around and make sure I wasn’t getting pranked. My quad gave a pulse of nervous anticipation. “I can’t?” I said it like it was a question, taking in the confused look in his eyes. “You almost killed me the other day. Maybe this weekend?”

He only missed a single beat. “Fine.” Was that disappointment in his eyes?

Oh hell. I think it was.

I watched his face while I suggested, “I have some friends that play recreational softball. They’re all pretty good and sometimes I play with them. They’re having a game tonight. We could go.”

He blinked at me.

“My contract says I can’t play any type of regulation soccer on a team, but it doesn’t say anything about any other sport,” I explained.

He seemed to mull the thought over for a minute, and I was pretty convinced that he was going to tell me to screw off, but out of the blue he nodded. “Fine. Text me the address and the time.”

Was this for real? “I don’t have your phone number,” I kind of croaked out.

“Give me yours.” He had his phone out of his pocket a split second later, and I rattled off my number. Another long moment later, he nodded. “Now you have it.”

It didn’t hit me until much later what exactly he said and what it implied.

I had Reiner Kulti’s phone number, for one.

And I was going to text him—two.

But three seemed to be the one that really snuck into my chest cavity; he had asked me if I wanted to play with him.

He had asked me to play. With him.

Instead, he was going to play softball with me and a few of my friends. Huh.

S
even P.M. at Hershey Park
. I’ll wait for you by the bathrooms near the parking lot.

I checked my phone one more time to make sure that the message really had gone through. Then I checked it again to make sure that I hadn’t missed a text in response. I hadn’t.

With my bat, glove and bottle of water in one hand and armpit, I fidgeted with my headband with the other. I’d accidentally grabbed a thick one from my glove box, which fit over my ears, and those made me feel a little claustrophobic. I messed with it some more as I looked around the nearly full parking lot. It was only five minutes before seven, and Kulti still hadn’t shown up.

It then hit me again with the same strength it had the first time, Kulti was coming to play softball, only after he’d asked if I wanted to play soccer with him. Why hadn’t he asked anyone else to play with him?

Well I was probably the most aggressive forward on the team, so we had that in common. Harlow didn’t count because… she was a defender, right? I was the fastest. Without really tooting my own horn, it was a fact. So really, who else would he play against? My style was the closest to his, and he’d enjoyed beating me the first time.

So there.

No big deal.

I was an obvious choice.

Plus, maybe he had asked someone else? I doubted it, but you never knew.

Possibly another minute ticked by, and I looked around the lot again, anxiously. I was nervous. Why was I nervous?

For Kulti’s sake I’d already decided not to tell anyone who he was. I wasn’t positive how they would all react, especially Marc and Simon, or even if they’d let him play, and I didn’t want him feeling under a microscope from the start. I was going to tell them he was my friend who had recently moved to Houston.

That wasn’t
really
a stretch, I figured.

The headlights of a car illuminated my body for a split second, before the car pulling into the lot turned and then finally took a spot one row down. It was the same nondescript plain black sedan that wouldn’t have called my attention, even with the Audi emblem on it.

Of course he’d be in an Audi.

I smirked to myself as a long body folded out of the vehicle’s back passenger door, slamming it shut before heading to the back and grabbing a bag from the recently opened trunk. His tall lean body seemed even more imposing without his team T-shirt or polo. The graceful lines of muscle that lined his shoulders and arms for the first time since he quit playing soccer full-time were delineated perfectly in the shadow of the setting sun. What I really caught a good eyeful of though, was the wide earband he had on that looked similar to mine, matting down his short hair and making him look like a different person. Not like himself at all, unless you really knew who you were looking at. The length of his hair on top of his larger frame and facial hair was an excellent disguise.

Poop. Poop, poop, thisisyourcoachstupid, poop.

He gave me what could have been considered a smile, if you closed your eyes and looked sideways, the minute he spotted me standing there, which was almost immediately.

“Hi,” I greeted him.

That sort of smile grew maybe a millimeter. He grunted his greeting, looking around at the three fields that seemed to form a U-shape. Two of them were already full, but the one that my friends usually played on was mostly empty, with only a few people gathered.

“Come on, before we get stuck on a shitty—“ I winced at myself. Was I allowed to cuss in front of him even though we weren’t on Pipers hours? “—crappy team.”

He tipped his head down in a lazy nod and followed after me as I led him around the outskirts of the field. “They’re all really nice,” I told him, not that he’d care, “but I think we should keep your identity a secret.”

Kulti shrugged but didn’t say a word as we approached what I quickly counted to be seventeen people. Damn it. Recognizing more than half of the people hanging around, I waved at the ones I knew and headed toward Marc and Simon, who had their backs turned to me. As soon as I was close enough, I kicked each one in the ass with the side of my foot. “Hey guys.”

Marc turned around first, frowning at getting kicked until he realized I’d been the one to do it. “You shit, you could have told me you were coming.”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Last-minute decision. Live with it.”

Roughly, the man I worked with every day shoved me toward Simon, who gave me a big grin before pulling me into a full frontal hug that made it seem like it’d been weeks instead of days since we’d seen each other. “Glad you came, Salmonella. We need you.”

“I told her weeks ago that she should come out, but someone’s too good for us regular folks,” Marc added just to be a pain.

“You, shut up. I’m here and I brought reinforcements.” I finally waved at Kulti, who had stopped a few feet behind me and to the right. “My friend and I wanted to play, so I figured I’d come down and see if you had spots for us.”

Marc and Simon looked over and around me to view a reconstructed version of Kulti. Neither one of them said anything for so long, that I started to think they recognized him.

It was Marc who raised an eyebrow, mouthing ‘friend?’ And Simon, who didn’t have a filter in his big trap, asked, “You finally got a new boyfriend?”

“
Friend
,” I insisted. I looked at Kulti for some clue as to what I was supposed to call him, but he didn’t catch on to the question in my voice. “…Rey? This is Marc and Simon. Marc and Simon, this is… Rey.” Saying his name out loud, like we were actually friends, was strange. It was like writing with my left hand. I almost felt like I’d get in trouble for saying it out loud, but I didn’t let myself think about it too much.

The two men I’d grown up playing with, didn’t miss a beat. They were obnoxious, but they weren’t impolite. Each one made sure to shake Kulti’s hand before settling back into place. Simon didn’t look twice at him, but I noticed Marc staring at him a little too intently.

Shit.

I’d tell him the truth later, once I was sure he wouldn’t lose his shit and start crying. Would he be pissed? Of course but it was either him being mad at me or the possibility he’d fall to the ground and start kissing Kulti’s feet.

“So, you have room? I think I counted seventeen people, right?” I asked, rocking back on my heels and swinging my stuff with my other hand, keeping a steady eye on Marc.

Simon made a noise as he looked behind at the people who had gathered. “I’ll see if somebody wants to sit this game out and play the next one instead.”

“All right, if not then I’ll sit it out and see if someone will swap with me next game,” I offered, still watching the dark-haired man I’d grown up with.

Simon, a tallish blond, rolled his eyes and scowled. “Right. You know you can ask half of these assholes if they’ll let you play and they’ll fight over who will do it.”

I snorted and let him head toward the group, leaving me with Kulti and Marc. Marc was looking at Kulti like he was trying to undress him. Lines furrowed his forehead and a second later, he slanted his gaze over in my direction and the confusion deepened.