Kulti

“You look like crap.”

I snorted at Harlow’s observation and nodded my agreement. There were individuals who were morning people and could wake up after a couple hours rest and be happy to be alive.

Then there were people like me. I had to get up early so I did it, but that was only after I lay in bed for approximately seven minutes, and then followed that up by sitting on the edge of my bed and staring absently forward for at least another five. Then, if it was a good day, I wouldn’t say anything for another two hours because my morning routine kept me away from humanity. If it was a bad day, someone would force me to talk to them within an hour because things hadn’t worked out as I planned.

So, add up the fact I hadn’t gotten rest the night before, wasn’t a morning person, and my morning run turned into more of a leisurely jog that I yawned through. Needless to say, I was overly anxious about Kulti. I’d looked at my phone at least a dozen times expecting him to call or text me, but he hadn’t.

He also hadn’t shown up yet, and practice was supposed to start in five minutes. He’d been sleeping soundly when I left around six this morning, my neck hurting from how I’d slept in the uncomfortable chair and my body stiff from lugging his ass around. I knew he was alive.

So…

“Are you sick?” Harlow asked as she continued to rub sunscreen onto her shoulders.

I gave her a lazy blink and shook my head as I slowly lowered myself onto my butt with a muffled groan. My back hurt like a son of a bitch. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night.” I sat up too straight and it sent a super-sharp pain across my lower back. “Mother fuck,” I hissed before gulping and looking back at Harlow, who had an eyebrow raised. “I strained my back.”

“Doing…?”

I looked her right in the eye, because I didn’t want to seem like I was hiding something. “I got stuck dragging a drunk person around.”

She made a noise deep in her nose. “Should’ve left them there, Sally.”

How I wish I could have.

A moment later, the defender shoved two painkillers in my direction. “Here.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking the pills from her and dry-swallowing them before chasing them with a swig from my bottle of water.

Someone groped the messy knot I’d thrown my hair up into. “You okay?” Jenny’s clear chipper voice asked.

She knew me too well. “Fine. I got some back pain.”

A furrow formed between her eyebrows; she was just as confused by my predicament as Harlow was, and for good reason. We were all so particular about taking care of ourselves that it seemed weird I’d do something dumb like hurt myself off the field.

“You want me to rub you down later?” she asked, dropping her stuff right by Harlow.

Harlow and I glanced at each other in a single split second. Without even thinking twice about it, I answered, “That’s okay, Jenny. Thanks, though.”

“Are you sure?”

Was I sure I didn’t want to get manhandled by Jenny’s freakishly strong hands? Yes. I was no stranger to massages or the soreness that accompanied them afterward, but what Jenny was capable of was beyond that. The CIA could have used her Hercules-like strength to torture answers out of people.

So… yeah. No.

“I’m sure,” I said carefully so that I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. “I’ll be fine once we start warming up.”

She shrugged. “Okay.”

“Where is he?” I heard one of the new girls ask as they walked by.

He.

I wasn’t about to look around when I knew damn well who the only missing ‘he’ was. I’d definitely set the alarm clock on the nightstand for seven. It was more than enough time for him to get here.

I glanced at my phone again and checked to see if I had a missed call. Still nothing.

Oh well.

Our workout started a few minutes later, and I had to push Kulti and his absence to the back of my brain. Then Gardner waved me over immediately after we ran sprints.

“Is everything okay?” he asked as we stood off to the side of the field while equipment was being moved around. “I was asleep when you called.”

Ahh shit.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I called you by accident.” Vague, right? That was good enough?

Gardner didn’t think twice about it; he simply shrugged. “I figured as much.”

Before I could ask him what he meant by that, I spotted someone lumbering across the field.

Kulti.

I swallowed, scratched at my eyebrow and then pointed behind me. “I should get back.”

My longtime coach nodded in agreement.

I got the heck out of there.

At least I tried to, but as I walked toward the group of women standing together, I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder.

Those amber-moss eyes that I’d seen from across my bedroom walls for thousands of days in my childhood, were on me. On. Me. Not looking through me, not over me. But directly on me.

Though there wasn’t a slice of an expression on his features, there was no missing the intensity behind his gaze. I’d seen the intent before. Many, many times before when he played.

When he played and he was about three seconds away from losing his shit.

And… poop.

Pushing my shoulders back and taking a deep breath, I looked right back at him with a neutral face.

Had I done anything wrong? No.

I picked up a near complete stranger that was drunk, paid for a hotel room for him to stay at, drove him there, left cab money and a note. What else did he want? I hadn’t told anyone what happened, and I wouldn’t. Not even Jenny.

Okay, so I guess he didn’t know I wouldn’t tell anyone.

Sliding my gaze forward, I reminded myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong. I did the best I could. It also wasn’t my fault he hadn’t woken up on time. Either way, it wasn’t like I could go back in time anyway. Maybe I should have called in the morning to check on him, but obviously he was fine.

Head in the game, Sal. Keep your head in the game. Worry about things when they happen instead of wasting your time anticipating.

Right.

I focused.

Practice was fine until two hours later, when it happened. I was out of breath and grinning like an idiot as I high-fived the two girls I’d just finished playing with. It’d been a three-on-three mini-game that lasted five minutes. We’d won and after a cool down, our practice was over.

I made it so far as to grab my stuff, walk back to my car, stash my bag in the trunk, and put my hands up over my head to stretch my shoulders when a hand gripped my elbow out of nowhere.

The last thing I expected was to look over my shoulder and see a tall figure with brown hair and lightly tanned skin. Kulti. It was so much Kulti up close again. The night before had been such a blur the only thing I’d focused on was the size of his body and his weight, nothing else. Unlike today. In a sky blue and what I’d heard was officially called ‘snow mint’—it was really just a soft, calming green—training jersey, the famous pooping German had the fingers of his left hand clasped around my elbow, and he was looking down at me.

I swallowed.

I freaked. Just a little but more than enough, even if I managed to contain it all inside.

This was no big deal. None. Poop, poop, poop.

“Say a word about yesterday and I will make you regret it,” the low hard-edged accent whispered the declaration so low that if I hadn’t been staring at him, I wouldn’t have thought his lips moved. But they had.

Reiner Kulti was standing by my in-desperate-need-of-a-carwash Honda, saying…. What?

“Umm…excuse me?” I asked slowly, carefully. I didn’t usually imagine hearing things.

“If you,” his tone sounded a little too ‘you’re-stupid’ for my tastes, “tell anyone about yesterday, I’ll make sure you’re watching the season from the bench.”

I could count on my hand the number of times I’d gotten in trouble for something that wasn’t me playing too roughly on the field.

Once when I was in second grade, I got caught copying my friend’s homework.

Twice I lied to my parents about where I was going.

Then there was that thing when I was on the national team, which was me being plain stupid rather than really trying to deceive anyone.

The point was I didn’t like to do bad things or disappoint anyone. Honestly, it made me feel about two inches tall and that was the absolute worst. It was for me at least. Throughout my life, most people had called me a goody two-shoes because I didn’t like to do things that would get me into trouble. I had better things to do, anyway. Pushing around a few players didn’t count because they gave as good as they got.

So it seemed absurd to me that he would think I’d do something like that.

Immediately after I got over how surprised I was that he’d assume that, I got pissed. Really fucking pissed. Bench me?

Indignation, a blast of anger that rivaled freaking Krakatoa and disbelief made my heart start pounding and my chest get tight.

I was panting. Was I panting?

My face got all hot and a knot formed in my throat.

For one half of a split second, I forgot who was in front of me.

It was just long enough for me to ball up my fists, rage making me jut out my chin, and say “You—,” I don’t know what I was about to call him because I was so pissed off—so pissed off—I couldn’t think straight. But just as my hand began to make its journey toward the German’s face, I caught Gardner and a couple of the players that hadn’t left yet just behind him, walking toward their cars.

And common sense mixed with that little voice in my head that kept me going when I felt like quitting this dream, reminded me to think about what I was doing.

The air went out of my lungs like I’d just been punched. A vein in my temple throbbed in response. Don’t do it. Don’t you do it. The hair on my arms prickled up.

Slowly, I let my hand drop to my side and made my mouth close itself.

This dipshit wasn’t going to be the reason I had to sit out a season.

He wasn’t.

The urge to open my mouth and tell him to go suck a cock was right there, but I reeled it in slowly and steadily like it was a barracuda fighting for its life. But I did. I kept it deep in my chest, in my heart and locked it up.

He wasn’t going to take this away from me.

In what was probably one of the hardest things I’d ever done, I kept my middle fingers tucked in, my knee straight and away from the general vicinity of where a groin on a six-foot-two man would be, and pivoted around before sliding into my car. I closed the door without saying anything, made sure I wasn’t going to run over anyone, and backed out of the spot I was in.

I didn’t look in my rearview mirror once. I was too pissed.

I made it as far as the light before one single tear came out of my eye. Just one. How could he threaten me after what I’d done? I couldn’t understand. I took a deep, ragged breath and told myself that I wasn’t going to waste my tears on him. Whether it was humiliation or being insulted or plain being angry, it didn’t matter. His stupid-ass opinion didn’t matter to me. I knew who I was and what I was.

He could go suck a big dick.

And I hoped he gagged on it.

“Are you okay?”

I tied the knot on the big black bag I’d just finished dumping the grass catcher into. I nodded at Marc and gave him a tired smile. “I’m okay. Are you?”

He pulled his hat off his head and ran a hand over his short black hair. “A little hung-over, but I’ve been through worse.” He fidgeted with the duffel bag he had thrown across his body before following after me. “Was, uh, everything okay last night?”

“Yeah. He made it to practice this morning.” I said that so casually I thought I deserved a gold star. “Thanks again for calling me.”

He shrugged off my thanks and picked up the edger waiting on the driveway. “What the hell do you think he was doing there anyway?” He asked the question quietly.

“I have no clue.” He hadn’t said anything besides threaten me. Fantastic. “It seems pretty stupid to me, but at least we got him out of there.”

Slamming the tailgate closed once we had all of our equipment back in the truck bed, Marc turned to look at me. “You did the right thing. Don’t worry about it.”

The sudden urge to tell him that Kulti threatened my season loomed in my mouth, but I kept it there. All it had been was a threat. I told myself that I wasn’t going to give that cyst power over me.

Plus, I had a nagging suspicion that I would never, ever acknowledge that I might still let out a tear or two if I repeated his words aloud. It was only because I didn’t have anything in my hand that I could afford to break that I didn’t throw it onto the floor.

Wanting to throw something just wasn’t like me. I wasn’t this person. I couldn’t believe he was capable of bringing these emotions out of me. I wasn’t hot-tempered or emotional. Not anymore, at least.

It was his fault. It was all Kulti’s fault.

“Salomé! Salomé Casillas!”

I had been purposely hanging my head low so that the journalists hanging around the training field wouldn’t see me behind the group of players I was heading to the field with.

Damn it.

“Sal!”

Jenny snorted when I stopped, and she kept walking right on past me. Traitor. Forcing a polite smile on my face, I looked around at the female voice calling my name. She hurried over, recorder in hand, a smile so big I really wasn’t sure whether it was authentic or not. You could never really tell anymore.

“Hi,” I greeted her.

“Hey, thanks so much for stopping,” she said, brushing her long hair out of her face. “Do you have a couple minutes for me?”

The “sure” that came out of my mouth sounded strangely convincing. Honestly, it was nothing against anyone in the media, it was just me being awkward and antisocial, knowing that my words could be documented and held against me. Maybe.

She slid me a grin, holding up her recorder. “I’m going to record this, if you can approve it for me.” I did. “Okay, thanks again. My name is Clarissa Owens and I work for Social Jane.”

A website I’d heard of. Okay, that wasn’t too bad.

“What’s it like working with one of the world’s sexiest men?”

Andddddd it was the Hindenburg all over again. Crashing and burning, and then crashing and burning once more.

I blinked at her. “You meant Coach Kulti?” It wasn’t like most women would find Gardner attractive; he was, at least in my opinion, just in an unconventional way. I liked his graying hair, his face was classic, he was in good shape, and he had a perfectly round booty.

But…

Clarissa Owens let out a really feminine laugh. “Oh you know who I’m talking about, silly. Reiner Kulti. What’s it like to being coached by one of the sexiest athletes in the world?”

It took everything inside of me not to look up at the sky and ask for divine intervention. My mouth opened and closed multiple times, like it was trying to make words magically appear in the place of complete silence. “Umm… well. He’s our assistant coach and he was one of the greatest players in our sport, so that’s pretty exciting.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “Tell us, does he wear boxers or briefs?”

How the hell was I supposed to know? Instead I said, “I… have no idea, but I hope he has something on under his uniform.”

“What kind of interests does he have?”

“The only thing he’s interested in is winning, I think.”

Ms. Owens gave me an exasperated look. “Is he single?”

I blinked at her some more and finally looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was fucking with me. When I looked back at her, I blinked again. “Is this a joke?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

It took a moment before I managed to get myself together. “Kulti is my coach. He’s the best soccer player to ever play in Houston, in Texas more than likely, and we’re unbelievably lucky to have him here—“ even if he didn’t do anything, but why kill the illusion? “I respect him and so does the rest of the team because he’s a great athlete. His personal life is his business and I have no idea what he does when he’s not here, I’m sorry.”

“Oh. Okay… Can you tell me anything else about him that you think the public doesn’t know?”

That he was just as much of a bastard as he’d been made out to be? Or that he occasionally drank too much at bars and had to be picked up, without ever issuing a thank you in exchange? I made sure none of those ideas crossed my face as I shrugged at the woman who really was just doing her job. It wasn’t her fault that people really would want to know things like that.

“I’m sorry. I really don’t. I saw him wearing purple socks one day. That’s as much as I know,” I offered her the miserable piece of knowledge. He’d been wearing royal purple socks, that was a fact.

She gave me a look that said that wasn’t what she was looking for, but realized that was as good as she was getting from me. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t know that most of us were unable to give her any juicy gossip. No one knew anything about the German, except maybe Grace. Maybe. She was the only one on the team he seemed to ever speak to, but Grace was too professional to ever spill the beans anyway.

We quickly said goodbye to each other and went our own way.

But I couldn’t shake off the annoyance at being asked stuff like that. More than likely, I just couldn’t shake off the fact that they were questions about such a fucking asshole.

I will make you regret it.

Okay, Scarface. Cheese and fucking crackers. Jeez.

I had to tamp down the inner scream that went on inside of me.

Did he have any idea what he’d meant to me when I was younger? Of course he didn’t. But that was beside the point. I was where I was because I thought he hung the moon when I was a kid. Because I thought he was the greatest player ever and I wanted to be him—okay, and be with him, but whatever. I used to get into arguments with people who talked badly about him.

That’s what it was like. Even now, I defended his skills like an objective unbiased player because you couldn’t argue the statistics. He had been amazing and there was nothing emotional behind that statement.

He’d been an incredible player above the layer of assholery he wrapped himself in.

Freaking jackass.

“How’d that go?” Jenny asked with a smile when I sat down next to her.

I didn’t bother to hide how I rolled my eyes. “They asked me if he was single.”

She snorted.

“I should have said, ‘no, I met his life partner a few days ago. He’s great.’” I gave her a little smile as I pulled my things out of my bag. “Maybe one day.”

“Yesterday I had one of them ask me if I thought he was preparing for a comeback. Then, I was getting my mail when my neighbor asked, ‘Hi, Jennifer, do you think you could get me tickets to your next game?’ I don’t even know his name!” she exclaimed. “The day before that, my aunt asked me if there was any way for her to drop by during practice. She doesn’t even like soccer.”

Jenny wasn’t one to ever complain, so for her to mention it said something.

I settled just for nodding at her. I didn’t trust the words that could potentially come out of my mouth.

“Genevieve told me that her boss said he’d give her a raise if she brought him back something that belonged to you-know-who.”

Not surprising. On the other hand, I was sure that if I gave Marc Kulti’s underwear, he’d probably tell me to take a week off and still pay me my half. “I heard Harlow tell a reporter this morning that she came to play, not talk about her coach.”

We both snorted.

“But what are we going to do? Complain about all of the attention? I already told them about the weird emails I’ve been getting about Eric, and they’re trying to turn everything around to work out positively. Eric told me Kulti was offered some huge deal from a European team, and he turned it down. They aren’t going to want to risk losing him.” I thought of the night at the bar again and his threat, and felt that familiar bolt of frustration streak down my back before I pushed it away. “Oh well.”

She nodded in resignation. “I hope everyone calms down as the season goes on.”

“Me too.”