Kulti

I shouldn’t have been surprised to find the German waiting on the curb. Mostly, I wasn’t. Mostly.

“Need another ride?” I asked, stopping right next to him so that we were side by side.

He cut straight to it. “Please.”

Please. Well, how about that. I was almost tempted to look around and make sure pigs hadn’t started flying. “Come on, then.”

Kulti threw his bag into the trunk alongside mine. Neither one of us said anything as we got inside, and I couldn’t help but feel a little awkward that I’d said something to him about the license rumor. About halfway to his maybe-house, I finally broke the silence. The radio wasn’t on, and the quiet was stifling.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked, slowly.

“Yes.” There was a pause. “I might not answer.”

I hated it when people said that. “All right.” I psyched myself up to ask the question I couldn’t stop thinking about. The possibility of getting reamed was very real, but screw it, you only live once. “Why are your PKs sucking so much?” I went for it. I just blurted it out. Good God, I should have been proud of myself. “I don’t get it.”

In an ideal world, he would have yelled at me and said that I was a lowly peasant in his universe who had no right to speak to him, much less ask questions like that.

In the real world, he made a choking sound.

I gave him a side look to make sure he was still alive. He was.

Was his face red?

“No one can say you aren’t honest, can they?” he asked. Another choking sound—or maybe it was a snicker?—came out of him before he continued. “You can say I’m out of practice.”

All right, that was something. Not enough, obviously. “How long out of practice?” I was hesitant asking. I felt like I was trying to pet the mean dog on the other side of the fence.

He raised a hand and ran it over the short hair on his head. That hard jaw might have jutted out to the side, but I couldn’t be sure. The one thing I was sure of: he did glance over in my direction like he couldn’t believe I had the nerve to ask.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe I actually gone through with it. What I really couldn’t believe was that he replied.

“Do you know when I retired?” he asked in that strict voice with only the slightest hint of an accent. I remember hearing somewhere that he spoke four different languages fluently, or was it three?

Poop. Who cared how many languages he spoke?

Of course I knew when he retired, but I didn’t say it like that. I could be cool about it. “Yes.”

“That’s your answer.”

Wait.

Wait.

“You haven’t done what since you retired?” The question was careful.

It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

Kulti’s mouth twisted to the side at the same time his nostrils flared. “I haven’t played since I retired. If you tell anyone—”

I almost slammed on my brakes.

Okay, I didn’t, but I wanted to. I couldn’t believe him. I eased the car to a stop at a red light as he finished his stupid threat that I chose to ignore. Slowly, incredulously I said, “You’re joking.” Who was I kidding? He didn’t have humor in his DNA.

Sure enough, he confirmed it. “I am not.”

“No.”

He arched a dark eyebrow. “I don’t lie.”

I let my head fall back against the headrest as I took in what he’d admitted. Two years. Two years! He hadn’t played in two years! “At all?” My voice was all low and whisper-like.

“Correct.”

Holy fuck. It felt like the world had been ripped out from under my feet. Two freaking years for a player like him? What in the hell was that?

I wanted to tell him something, to apologize or something, but I could only open my mouth and close it, good intentions present.

But I knew that my pity wasn’t what he’d want. If I had to bet money, I would have said that the longest length of time he’d ever taken off from playing was when he tore some ligaments in his foot but, I wasn’t about to bust out my Kulti-psycho-stalker-knowledge.

Keeping my eyes forward, I cleared my throat and then followed up by doing it again.

Because—two years! Two years!

Holy shit. How was that even possible?

I dwelled on the number one more time, and then locked it away to process it later in the privacy of my own home. Two years was a lifetime and yet it was more than long enough to explain why he had such a huge stick up his ass. The poor guy was like a eunuch. No soccer was pretty much the equivalent of losing your balls, at least that’s what I figured.

Compassion and understanding rolled through me.

Easing off the brake, I told him my own story. Although later on I’d wonder why I bothered. It wasn’t like he’d care. “When I was seventeen, I tore my ACL during a game, and I was out for almost six months. My parents and coaches wouldn’t even let me look at a soccer ball or watch a game because it drove me nuts to know there was nothing I could really do to speed up the healing process.”

Those were some of the worst months of my life. I’d never been really bitchy but toward the end of my recovery, I’d gotten so short-tempered I wasn’t sure how my parents didn’t slap me for being such a pain in the ass. “It was the longest six months of my life and probably the most miserable,” I added, shooting him a sidelong glance.

His attention was focused forward, but I did see him nod. “I’ve been there.”

I knew he had, but once again, it was Kulti-psycho-stalker-knowledge that I’d take to the grave with me.

We stayed quiet the rest of the way to the house, his house, whatever. Only this time as soon as he opened the door, I told him, “I won’t say anything about your dry spell.”

Kulti nodded, and I could have sworn he had something that could have been considered the smallest smile in the history of smiles pull at the corners of his mouth. Then he was at my trunk getting his bag and actually raising a hand in a half-assed goodbye as he walked up the stone path to the front door of the big house.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about Kulti, and how he hadn’t played in two years, the rest of the day.

The next day, during practice, I couldn’t help but keep staring at Kulti and wondering how the hell he hadn’t murdered anyone since he’d quit playing.

I mean… he hadn’t played at all? Or just… I don’t know, hadn’t played a regulation game? By the look of his movements and his body language, it didn’t seem like he’d completely stopped playing, but what did I know? Two years couldn’t completely erase a lifetime spent with a white and black ball.

Harlow elbowed me in the ribs as she stopped right by me.

“Did he just call you a slow-ass?”

The team was running drills, and I’d been in the first group of players.

I hunched my shoulders up, saying nothing. What was there to say? Kulti had called me slow during a drill, and then asked another player if she had two left feet. She was the same girl I’d run with in the morning a few times by then, the one that always wanted to beat me at sprints.

Was she slow? No. Hell no. Sandy was really good.

“I would like to finish drills in this lifetime, can we move on?” a voice bellowed from the other side of the field.

Absently, I reached over to the shoulder that had been punched. At that moment, Kulti glanced over. The space between his eyebrows crinkled, and for a split second, I debated hunching over and pretending I had a shooting pain going through my shoulder so I could mess with him. He hadn’t brought it up the day before and neither had I.

I didn’t do it though. Harlow was a little too attentive. She’d notice. Plus, I had no idea how he’d handle it.

Really I had no idea how to handle any of this. Was I supposed to not be saying anything about giving Kulti rides home? Because I hadn’t. Not even my dad knew, and I usually told him everything. He wasn’t treating me any differently than he had before I gave him rides, so it didn’t mean anything.

There wasn’t anything to tell. Was there?

“Is your shoulder bothering you?” Harlow’s voice tore me away from looking at the German.

“No.” My face flushed as I turned back to her. “Ready?”

She shoved me to the side and took off. “Catch up, slow-poke.”

Little did I know that the ‘slow-ass’ and ‘slow-poke’ nicknames were only the beginning. Before practice was over Kulti had called my passes sloppy, and then followed up by saying I needed to learn how to play with both legs.

This was coming from the man who played with his right foot ninety percent of the time? Ha.

I didn’t let his comments get me down or bother me. I also didn’t worry too much about whether he was being overbearing because I’d recently learned his secret, or if it was because I just took his shit. Regardless, I listened to what he said and took it all in stride. I wasn’t going to let myself take it too personally.

When the end of practice rolled around an hour later, I was already expecting him in our usual spot, and he didn’t disappoint.

Skipping the obvious, I asked as I approached, “Ready?”

“Yes,” he answered.

That familiar silence followed us as we got inside and continued as I drove for a little bit.

Two minutes was as long as I could contain my curiosity before I broke down. “Do you miss it?”

Not a total idiot, he asked, “Playing?”

“Yeah.” As much as I tried to reason how he’d made it so long, I still couldn’t really comprehend the idea of not playing. I couldn’t.

He slid his gaze over to me as he nodded, so honest and straightforward it caught me off-guard. “I miss football every day.” Just as quickly as his gaze had moved to mine, it moved back as he swallowed.

So… “Why haven’t you, then?” I asked before I could talk myself out of it. What was the worst he would do? Not answer? Tell me to mind my own business?

Curiosity killed the Sal. Let it be said I went down in a blaze of glory asking Reiner Kulti about a secret I wasn’t sure he would share willingly.

Why he’d decided to share it with me, I still wasn’t positive, but I’d take what I could get.

A slow steady exhale made its way out of him. “Do you know why I retired?”

He’d torn his ACL for the third time. There’d been rumors from the prior tear that he wouldn’t come back one hundred percent, or even ninety or eighty or seventy percent. He was too old, people had said. When it finally happened, stacked on top of arthritis in his toe, and other small injuries that managed to add up over the years, everyone thought it was inevitable.

Reiner ‘The King’ Kulti had announced his retirement shortly afterward, ending his legacy.

Was I going to say that? Definitely not.

I settled for a nod and a “yeah.”

“It took a long time for me to heal,” he said. Then he didn’t say anything afterward.

I found myself slowly turning my head to give him an incredulous look I realized I had no right to give him. “Okay. Then what?”

He shrugged.

Reiner Kulti shrugged like ‘oh, my ACL took a long time to heal’ was reason enough to explain why he hadn’t played his beloved sport in two years. He wasn’t fooling me. He still loved it. You didn’t give up a great love so easily. I could tell by the look in his arrogant eyes when he watched the team. He looked at some players like they were complete pieces of crap he wished he could shake until they got things right. You didn’t look like that unless you still cared.

He wasn’t fooling me.

“That took what? Six months? Eight months?” I asked, blinking at him slowly.

When he said, “It hasn’t completely healed,” it was proof enough for me he was full of shit. He didn’t strike me as the type to want to make a big deal about his injuries.

So I said something I would have said to any other player I had a decent relationship with—he didn’t exactly count—“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

I laughed. “That’s bullshit. Your knee still hurts? Come on. Do I look like I was born yesterday? I’ve been in some sort of pain since I was sixteen, and I’m sure you have been too.” I shook my head and laughed again before focusing back on the road. “Jeez. Next time tell me to mind my own business instead of telling me something so ridiculous.”

What the hell else had I been expecting? He’d said more than I would have bet my life on to begin with.

“You don’t know anything,” he snapped back.

Once again, another thing I shouldn’t have been surprised at. “I know enough.” Because I did, his bullshit was evident from a mile away.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Kulti’s voice was laced with just a bit of anger.

He’d finally dropped a ‘fuck.’ How about that.

I was almost in awe—almost, and I definitely couldn’t find it in me to get all bent out of shape at his ugly tone and words. “You know what I mean. Look, you don’t need to get an attitude. All I was asking was why you haven’t played in so long. It’s none of my business, fine. Sorry I asked.”

There was a pause. “Explain what you meant.”

He wanted to understand, but I knew in my heart he didn’t really want me to tell him. I kept my attention forward and shook my head, the laughter and amusement dying off my face. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” he insisted.

I kept my mouth shut.

“Say it.”

Yeah, I wasn’t saying anything. Nobody was handing me the shovel to dig my own grave.

“You think I’m lying?” Kulti asked in a cold voice.

I swallowed. Well he asked, right? I picked my words carefully and answered. “I’m not saying you’re lying. I’m sure your knee hurts, but there is no way that’s why you haven’t played. Even if you’re only back at sixty percent, fifty percent, it doesn’t matter; you still would have played with friends at least, or something. Kicked the ball on your own. You have the money to build your own field, I’m sure, if you don’t want everyone in your business. It seems like you’re selling yourself out. You already told me you miss playing. I just don’t believe something like a little pain would stop you from at least… you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m glad you finally started kicking some balls around. Good for you.”

Hours later, I’d realize how differently I could have handled the situation. How horribly I’d actually gone about it. I knew better. I knew better. I understood people who held their pride and arrogance like a shield and how they handled someone attacking them. Or worse, someone feeling sorry for them.

I knew because I was well aware how much I hated anyone feeling sorry for me.

Pitying a man with the ability to make my life a living hell on the field, a man who had once upon a time held a passion for soccer that seemed to light him up from the inside out, it was like I turned a force of nature against me.

Forget that I’d tried to be nice to him, that I’d driven him home and never insisted on knowing why he had me take him instead of his driver or a taxi or Gardner or Grace, or just about anyone else that had more of a relationship with him than I did.

In the words of my brother, I did it to myself. I brought the attention of a perfectionist down on me, and there was no one else to blame for it.

The next two weeks of my life could be summed up in three keywords: physical and emotional hell.

Any kind of bond I’d formed with Kulti had been shattered the day I pressed him for answers in my car. Proceeding to give him shit for using his injury as an excuse was just the icing on the cake.

Since then I hadn’t given him a single ride home. I wasn’t surprised after that initial first practice, following what I would call Interrogation Day, when he took ripping me a new one to a totally different level.

Seriously.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Listen to me!”

Blah, blah, blah, fuck, blah, blah, blah, something-something-shit, blah, blah, blah.

But my favorite thing that came out of his mouth was “Is that how girls play soccer?”

Oh man.

I’d heard that one before. It still got me every time.

But if what he wanted, was for me and the team to show him just how girls played, he got his wish. We were all out for blood. Most of us had grown up playing with boys and from experience, we all knew their asses got kicked just easily as other ladies did.

I couldn’t remember the last time any coach had been on top of me with such a vengeance. There wasn’t anything friendly about the things that came out of Kulti’s mouth. It was all business. All tough-love, I’m-going-to-break-you-down-to-get-what-I-want love.

Each day was worse than the one before. Gardner didn’t say anything. He patted me on the back and told me to hang in there.

It got hard to keep my head up and brush off the ugly words. I tried my best to focus on the things that came out of his mouth that had knowledge beneath them, but it wasn’t easy. Toward the end of the first week Jenny, the world-class athlete, was the one who panted out, “What did you do to him?” after Kulti yelled at me for passing the ball to another player when he felt like I should have taken a difficult shot instead.

What could I tell her? Nothing. I couldn’t tell her anything without bringing up that I’d driven him home a few times. “I have no idea,” I told her.

“Did something else come up with Eric?”

“No.” I’d been getting fewer and fewer messages about Eric and Kulti over the course of the last few weeks. I seriously doubted that the team photos with us standing by each other had anything to do with it, and Sheena hadn’t brought up anything else about releasing clips from the press conference I’d done with Gardner at the beginning of the season.

Jenny scrunched up her face, wiping at her neck with her shirt collar. “Bring him a cupcake or something then Sal, because this is getting out of control. I don’t know how you haven’t started crying yet.”

That’s how bad it was. My whole body was tight before practice began and it stayed that way afterward. Marc went out of his way to tease me more often to get me out of my exhausted funk.

It barely helped.

And then, I finally had enough.

“If you would have—“

If I would have. If I would have done something differently, we could have won by five points instead of one.

He was being unfair and everyone knew it. Did anyone say anything though?

Of course not. No one wanted to be the one getting their ass chewed out, and I couldn’t exactly blame them.

Most importantly, did I say anything? Nope. I stood there as Gardner and Kulti went back and forth over what we could have improved upon in our last preseason game. I stayed quiet as Kulti hung the weight of an almost-loss on my shoulders and nodded when I was supposed to.

He was right. I did miss a few opportunities. I wouldn’t deny it.

But so did half the members on our team. Yet did anyone bring that up? Gardner made some generalizations, but he didn’t name anyone directly even when it was obvious someone had messed up big time. He didn’t get a kick out of embarrassing players, and instead would pull a person aside and talk with them.

And this fucking frankfurter…

I swallowed the fucking bratwurst bitch, sauerkraut shit, German pieceofshit Chocolate Cake insults, which were all throwing a party in my mouth. They each begged me to let them come out and play.

Inside, oh my God, inside I was raging and trying to talk myself out of doing something that would land me in jail. I wouldn’t cut it. I enjoyed being outside too much.

“Sorry guys,” I said in a deceptively calm voice once Kulti had finished his rant.

Harlow and Jenny’s faces stood out at me from the semicircle we were standing in. Harlow looked like she was on the verge of laughing, and Jenny looked like she was contemplating how quickly she could grab me in case I decided two to fifteen years behind bars wasn’t that long.

None of the girls said a word.

Our post-game meeting finished soon after that, leaving a clammy awkward feeling in the air that I’m sure I was responsible for.

Like a sane rational person, I grabbed my things and casually went about preparing to leave. Harlow gave my arm a squeeze as she walked by me, not saying anything, but I felt like she was giving me her blessing—her inner fearlessness. Jenny crept over to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders and in a low voice said, “Salamander, please don’t make me visit you in jail. Orange isn’t your color, and I don’t think you’re cut out to be some lady’s… you know… bitch.”

Leave it to Jenny to make me lose focus. I laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist. How did she know me so well? “I swear I’m not going to do anything violent.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

She didn’t exactly look like she really believed me, but eventually she dropped her arm. “Please.” Jenny looked me right in the eye as she pleaded.

I couldn’t help but smile at her and nod. “Promise.”

Her eyes dropped low but she eventually nodded. “See you tomorrow?”

I assured her I would, and she bid me goodbye. The area had mostly cleared out by then, but the person I was looking for was still there. Taking a deep breath, I calmed my nerves and told myself I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t keep doing this crap with him.

I wouldn’t. I knew exactly what I needed to do to resolve it.

There he was standing, just as I finished sending Marc a text letting him know I’d be late. Standing at the curb where I’d picked him up time and time again. He wasn’t expecting me to come up behind him. Or maybe he was, except possibly with a knife in one hand.

“I can’t do this with you anymore,” I warned him. I wasn’t having any of this being-discreet crap. I stood there and I faced him. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that my face was flushed, I was sweaty everywhere. There was a slight chance that I might smell too, but I had to get this out. Now. I pointed at the field behind us. “Come on.”

Kulti reared back, his face scrunching up. “What are you talking about?”

I waved him onward more insistently. “Come on. I’m not going to be your punching bag the rest of the season. You and me, whoever makes it to seven first, wins.”

His bottom lip dropped and he blinked. Then he blinked again, confused.

“Come on.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on,” I repeated.

“Twenty-three, no.”

“Kulti.” I waved him forward, giving him one more chance to do this the easy way.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

All right. I sniffled and took a deep breath. “And you’re being a coward.”

That might have not been the smartest thing to say because the next thing I knew his shoulders stiffened, and his mouth had slammed closed. Well I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten the job done. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re being a chicken.” I did it. Holy shit, I called Reiner Kulti a chicken and a coward, and there was no coming back from it. In for a penny, in for a pound, I told myself. “Come on. What are you scared of? You know you’re better than me. I know you’re better than me, so let’s get this over with. Play me so you can get over this crap.”

“I’m not doing this with you, little girl,” he stated evenly, his jaw gritting.

Little girl.

Could I have let it go? Sure. Of course I could. But I hadn’t been lying when I said I couldn’t do this with him any longer. All that repressed anger he had, and the frustrations he took out on me because I unfortunately had so much knowledge of him, the tension was out of this world. It wasn’t like I’d forced him to tell me the truth, but regardless we couldn’t keep this hateful dance up.

“Yeah, we are.”

“No, we are not.”

Clenching my hands together, I was about two seconds away from going Super Saiyan on his ass. “I know I’m going to lose, Kulti. I fucking hate losing, but we’re doing this anyway, so let’s get it over with.”

He raised both hands into the air and scrubbed his palms over the back of his head. Jesus Christ, he was tall. “No.”

“Why?”

“You’re a pain in my ass,” he snapped.

It was my turn to blink at him. “You think I’m going to beat you, don’t you?”

He rolled his eyes upward as he huffed. “Hell hasn’t frozen over.”

Based on his tone, I wasn’t sure if he really thought so or not. Or maybe I was just being egotistical. Maybe. But I knew that I needed to set my ego aside and make him do this. Some part of my gut recognized that it was necessary, so I needed to do everything possible to make this happen.

Even if it meant pissing him off.

I tipped my chin up at him and looked right into those light-colored eyes. “Then quit being a pussy and play me.”

Yeah, that did it.

“I am not a pussy.” He took a step forward. “I can and will kick your ass.”

Whoa. I held my hands up and guffawed. “I said you were going to win, sauerkraut, I didn’t say you were going to kick my ass.”

That look I recognized all too well crossed over his features, and I was honestly torn between shivering in fear and… well I wasn’t going to say it, or even really admit the other emotion. He had the look of the old Kulti—the borderline psychotic competitor.

Oh my gosh, he was going to wipe the floor with me.

And then I almost laughed because, really? I wasn’t about to bend over and let him win. Please.

Something flared within my chest, and I let the fire of competition burn in my heart. “Let’s do this.”

And we did.

John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene and Peter Parker all spewed out of my mouth at some point.

It was one thing to have watched him play from the safety of my television or from the stands. To a certain extent, it was an advantage because I knew how he played almost as well as I knew my own game; the kind of moves he tended to stick to, his tells. My body was instinctively aware without me really thinking about it, that he faked leading with his right foot before switching to his left. I knew his tricks.

And yet…

Two years of not playing barely slowed him down. Barely. I was fast and he was just as fast, if not faster. His legs were a lot longer than mine, and he ate up the turf like no one’s business. There was a reason this man was an icon, why he’d been the best for so long.

But fuck that. I wasn’t going to let him win without a fight. I kept what I knew about him in the front of my brain, and I moved my legs as fast as I could. I tried to out-think him and play smarter more efficiently. The ball stayed as close to me as possible. Later on I would wonder if it really looked like we were playing ‘keep away’ from each other or not.

He cornered me at one point and managed to get the ball. While he did it, he shouldered me a little more than was necessary. I mean he was a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier, yet he was playing as rough as my brother and his friends did. I’d been playing with the boys since I was a kid, and they’d missed the memo that said I was a girl seven years younger than them. Apparently, Kulti had too.

“Playing a little rough, aren’t you?” I asked as I ran up behind him, trying to block him from getting a clear shot of the goal.

He looked up at me from under his eyelashes. “Are you whining?”

I huffed. Asshole. “No, but if that’s how you want to play, then that’s how we’ll play.” Between the people I played with for fun and Harlow, I could take it.

We ran after each other for what felt like forever. I’d steal the ball from him; he’d steal the ball from me, over and over again. Sweat poured down my face, arms and lower back. He was breathing hard—had he ever breathed hard before?

It was a miracle that he was playing pretty sloppy, and I think that’s the reason why he didn’t manage to score. I wasn’t egotistical, I knew I was good, but I wasn’t as good as he was. But I watched and I learned. That was all I ever wanted.

“You’ve had like… eight opportunities… to score…on me…” I huffed.

His back was to mine, butt pressed to my hip. “And… you’ve…. had three…if…you’d known what you were—doing!” He kicked the ball up high and tried to do a header to get it in. My miracle was obviously still in effect because he didn’t score.

We both hauled ass for the ball, and I might have slammed my body up against his pretty rough, but whatever, he could take it.

“I know what… I’m doing…” I pushed my shoulder into his chest and took the ball away from him.

Back and forth, we went chasing and stealing, chasing and stealing, until I was breathing hard from the spike of adrenaline. We played aggressively, battling it out. In a real game, you knew how to keep your energy perfectly balanced. You had ninety minutes to get through, and you couldn’t wear yourself out within the first fifteen.

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.”

Yeah, 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.

“Someone 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.”

The 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.