Kulti

“Are 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.

“It 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.

Seven 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.

“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.

“Son 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.

We 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.