Kulti (6 page)

My prayers had been answered when they gave us ten minutes to use the bathroom and get a drink.

I looked at her in the reflection of the bathroom mirror and made my eyes go big. I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed the wordless man who went through the meeting with his back against the wall and his arms crossed over his chest. “It does feel like that, huh?”

She nodded like she was glum about it. “He hasn’t said anything, Sal. I mean, isn’t that weird? Even Phyllis,” the mean old fitness coach, “talks every once in a while.” She hunched her shoulders up high. “Weird.”

“Very weird,” I agreed with her. “But we can’t say—“

The door opened, and three of the newer girls on the team walked in, joking around with each other.

Jenny shot me a look in the mirror’s reflection because what was more obvious than immediately stopping a conversation when other people walked by? I might as well have the word guilty tattooed on my forehead. So I spouted out the first thing that came to mind, “—that you didn’t ask for onions on your burger without sounding like an asshole…”

One of the girls smiled at me before going into the stall, the other two ignored us.

Jenny visibly bit her lip as the newcomers went into the bathroom stalls. “Yeah, you can’t complain about that…?” She mouthed, ‘what was that’ the second they were in.

‘It was the first thing I thought of!’ I mouthed back to her with a shrug.

Jenny pinched her nostrils together as her face went red.

“I know, right?” I held my arms out at my sides in a ‘what was I supposed to say’ gesture even though she was too busy trying not to burst out laughing, to see me in the mirror. God, she was no help in our made-up conversation. “I clearly asked for no onions but whatever. I guess. It’s not like I’m allergic to them.”

By that point, Jenny had her forehead to the bathroom counter and her back was arching with repressed laughs.

I kicked her in the back of the knee lightly just as one of the toilets flushed.
She looked up and I mouthed ‘stop it’ to her. Did she? No. Not even close.

Yeah, she was too far gone to keep going with the charade. One look and the other girls would see Jenny losing it over onions. God, I really was a horrible liar.

I shoved her out of the bathroom just as one of the latches turned.

“
T
here’s
a rumor going around that you’re going to be rejoining the national team soon, any word on that?”

It was the first official day of practice and my feet were itching. After nearly six months of playing soccer with friends and family, while training and conditioning on my own, I was ready.

And of course I’d gotten waved down by a writer for Training, Inc., a popular e-magazine.

So far, two questions in, it was going fine.

That still didn’t mean that I was going to open my big mouth up and tell him all my deepest secrets.
Vague, Sal. Don’t ever confirm or deny anything.
“I don’t think so. My ankle still isn’t back to where it needs to be, and I’m busy with other priorities.”

Okay, that wasn’t too bad.

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“I’m working with youth camps.” I left out the other small parts of my life, the parts that weren’t glamorous and had nothing to do with soccer. No one wanted to hear about our miserable paychecks and how most of us had to supplement our incomes by getting second jobs. That didn’t go with the image most people had of professional players in any sport.

And no one especially wanted to hear that I did landscaping when I wasn’t busy with the Pipers. It didn’t embarrass me, not at all. I liked doing it, and I had a degree in Landscape Architecture. It wasn’t glossy or pretty, but I’d be damned if I ever let anyone give what I did a bad name. My dad had supported our family being the ‘the lawn guy’ or ‘the gardener’ and any and all other things that could put food on our table. There was no shame in hard work, he and my mom had taught me from a very early age when I had cared what other people thought. People would laugh and crack jokes when Dad would pick me up from school with a lawnmower and other tools in the back of his beat-up truck, with his goofy hat and sweat-stained clothes that had seen better decades.

But how could I ever give my dad a hard time about picking me up from school so he could take me to soccer practice? Or he’d pick me up, take me to a job or two with him, and then he’d take me to practice. He loved us and he sacrificed so that Eric and I could be on those teams with their expensive fees and uniforms. We got where we were today, because he worked his ass off.

As I got older, people just found more things to pick on me about and laugh. I’d been called a priss, stuck-up, a bitch, a lesbian and a dyke more times than I could count. All because I loved playing soccer and took it seriously.

Eventually one of my U-20 coaches pulled me aside after some of my teammates had gotten an attitude with me. I’d declined an invitation to go out so I could go home and get some rest. He’d said, “people are going to judge you regardless of what you do, Sal. Don’t listen to what they have to say because at the end of the day, you’re the one that has to live with your choices and where they take you. No one else is going to live your life for you.” Most times it was easier said than done, but here I was. I’d gotten what I had worked so hard for, so it hadn’t been in vain.

There were going to be a hundred parties I could go to when I was older and past my athletic prime, but I only had the first half of my life to do what I loved for a living. I’d been fortunate enough to find something that I enjoyed and that I could work toward. I wasn’t going to blow this chance I’d been given.

Sometimes though I didn’t feel like having to defend what I liked doing, or why I made sure to sleep so much, or why I didn’t eat that greasy meal that would give me indigestion on a run later or why I didn’t like to hang around smokers. This guy was one of those people I’d rather save my breath on. So I didn’t elaborate.

The blogger’s eyebrows went up to nearly his hairline. “How are your soccer camps going?”

“Great.”

“How do you feel about critics saying that the Pipers should have gotten a coach with better qualifications than Reiner Kulti?”

I knew exactly how the little sister on the Brady Bunch felt. Kulti, Kulti, Kulti. Holy shit. Honestly, part of me was surprised I wasn’t dreaming about him. But could I ever say that? Absolutely not. “I’ve been told I was too short to be a good soccer player. You can do anything you
want
to do as long as you care enough.” Maybe that was a bad thing to say when Kulti didn’t actually seem to care a little bit about us, but the words were already out of my mouth and I couldn’t take them back. So…

“Kulti’s notorious for being a one-man show,” he stated, matter-of-factly.

I just looked at him but didn’t say a word. If there was a way for me to answer that, I didn’t know how.

“He also broke your brother’s leg.” At least this guy wasn’t pretending to have amnesia when bringing up Eric, unlike the last guy I’d talked to.

“It happens.” I shrugged because it was the truth. “Harlow Williams dislocated my shoulder once. Another friend of mine broke my arm when I was a teenager. It’s not unheard of for stuff like that to happen.” And then there were the dozen other injuries my brother had caused me over the years.

Was I full of shit? Only about half. While it was true that Harlow had dislocated my shoulder and that a teammate had hit me so hard during a scrimmage game that I got a hairline fracture, they had been accidents. What happened between Eric and Kulti… not so much, and that was the problem. Kulti had played dirty—real dirty—and all he got was a yellow card. A yellow card in that situation was pretty much a warning after you’d hit someone with your car, backed up to hit them a second time and driven off afterward. It was insulting.

He had almost ruined my brother’s career, and all he got was a miserable yellow card. It was the biggest bullshit call of the last century. People had gone nuts over it, claiming that he’d been forgiven because of his status and popularity. It wasn’t the first time a superstar had gotten away with something, and it wouldn’t be the last.

But could I say that on record? Nope.

“I really need to start warming up,” I said carefully before he had a chance to ask anything else.

“Thanks for your time.” The writer for Training, Inc. smiled as he extended his hand out for me to shake.

“No problem. Have a nice day.”

This guy had done enough in my life.

“
W
hat’s going
on with you?” Jenny asked me while we were off to the sidelines, waiting for the rest of the team to finish their ball-touch drills.

I pulled my shirt up to use the bottom to wipe my upper lip and mouth off. The temperatures and humidity were out of this world in Houston—no surprise. The tension headache I’d been rocking all morning didn’t help any either; the conversation with the reporter kept picking at my nerves. “I’m fine,” I told her before snatching a bottle of water off the floor.

She raised a single eyebrow, her cheeks puffing out as a disbelieving smirk crossed her face. Who was I trying to fool? Regardless of whether we’d been friends for five years or fifteen, she still knew me better than almost anyone. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”

She gave the worst guilt trips because she was so nice about it, but still. Sometimes I didn’t want to talk about things. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m
fine
.”

“Sal, you’re not fine.”

I squeezed another mouthful of water out as a few more players made their way around to wait where we were. “I really am all right,” I insisted in a lower voice so only she could hear me.

She didn’t believe me and for good reason.

I was a little bit pissed and a little bit annoyed.

I wanted to play, not have people digging up stuff from the past. I didn’t want the world. The most I’d ever gotten out of playing was a deal with a major athletic clothing company that basically just took pictures of me playing and paid me for it. But that was it. Kulti’s presence could potentially put me at risk when the past wasn’t even my fault.

He’d hurt my brother seriously and that was that. I could learn to put it behind me for the time being, especially when he didn’t seem to either know or care about who I was related to.

With that thought I accidentally looked over to where Mr.-Silent-Superstar stood, arms crossed over his impressively sized chest, looking at the players on the field with a plain expression. It was the same unemotional demeanor he’d been portraying since he arrived. He annoyed me, but I was also annoyed with myself for letting his attitude bother me. All I needed was to focus on getting through preseason training.

I wasn’t totally surprised when Jenny blinked slowly. “You’re bitch-facing out there. You only bitch-face when someone pisses you off during a game.”

She had a point. I could feel myself bitch-facing. Smiling and smirking were two expressions my facial muscles were used to. Scowling was newer territory. I took a deep breath and tried to relax my face by stretching my jaw and mouth. Sure enough tension eased its way out of those small muscles, going even all the way up above my eyebrows.

“Told you so.” Jenny smiled gently at me. “You looked like you had during the Cleveland game last year, remember that?”

How could I forget? A defender on Cleveland had twisted the hell out of my nipple when I’d landed on top of her after a play and hadn’t gotten caught. That bitch. I didn’t get her back during that first half, but I sure as hell did in the second when I scored two goals on her team. I couldn’t wear a bra for a week without being in pain, but at least we won.

“My nip still hurts,” I said to Jenny with a small worn-out smile on my face.

She raised an eyebrow. “Is your ankle bothering you?” she asked, looking around once more to make sure other players weren’t around. Injuries were like shark bait. On one hand we were all teammates with the same objective, but I didn’t for a second think someone wouldn’t try to exploit an injury for their own benefit. Competitive people were like that.

I wiped at my face again and took another sip of water. “A little bit,” I told her honestly because it was true, just not the whole truth.

Jenny grimaced. “Sal, you need to be careful.”

This was the difference between venting to Harlow and venting to Jenny. Harlow would have slapped me on the back and told me to walk it off. Jenny worried, she stressed. From now on she’d keep an eye on me, and that was part of the reason why I cared about her so much.

I scrubbed at my face with the back of my hand. “I’m all right.”

She eyed me a little critically before asking, “What else is up?”

Jenny wasn’t going to leave me alone about it. I scratched at the tip of my nose and made sure no one was close enough to hear me. “This morning some writer brought up the Kulti-Eric thing.” Frustration bubbled in my throat. “I’m a little worried about it.”

My friend let out a low whistle, completely aware of the situation.

“Yeah,” I agreed to her wince.

“Why? That’s old news.”

I shrugged. Yeah, it was. “I know, right?”

She nodded in agreement.

“I’m just a little grumpy about it, I guess.”

“Take a breather,” she demanded easily. “We’re only allowed one person to have looking like a serial killer on the field.”

At the same time our eyes swung around to search out Harlow. When we looked back at each other, we smirked. Harlow was awesome but… she really did look like a murderer. I could have easily imagined her as a Viking princess, raiding villages and mounting people’s heads on spikes.

“Who’s ready for some three-on-three drills?” Coach Gardner yelled.

High-intensity drills, my favorite.

I must have smiled or something because I heard Jenny clearly murmur, “You’re a monster,” under her breath.

I pushed my ankle, The King and Eric out of my head, and smacked Jenny on the butt cheek right before I took off toward the coaches. “You coming?”