Kulti (8 page)

I yawned. “Hey, everything all right?” I answered tentatively.

“Salami,” he hissed, sounding just a little drunk while the sound of loud voices filled the background, making it really hard to hear what he was saying.

“Hey, it’s me. What’s going on?”

There were more sounds in the background, people laughing, what might have been glasses clinking together. “I don’t know what to do.”

Immediately I sat up in bed and threw my legs over the edge. Marc didn’t know what to do? My gut said he wasn’t calling me for shits and giggles. “It’s all right. Are you okay? What do you need?”

“Oh? Me? I’m good. Sorry. I was actually calling because… hold on one sec, I’m trying to get into the bathroom real quick…” All of a sudden the background noise cut out completely and my friend’s voice became clear over the line. “Hey, he’s here.”

Rubbing at my eyes with the back of my hand, I yawned. “Who’s where?” Then it hit me. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” He had class at eight in the morning.

“My professor isn’t coming in.”

“Okay…”

“I’m at that bar by my house. You know which one I’m talking about?” He didn’t give me a chance to respond, but I knew where he was referring to. We’d gone there together a few times in the offseason. Marc continued, “Kulti’s here. Been here. The bartender cut him off a while ago, but I think he’s asleep. The bartender’s been asking if anyone knows him, but I guess I’m the only one.”

He breathed loud, continuing. “This is some shit, Sal. I thought about taking a picture of him to sell it, but that’s kinda fucked up. Imagine if anybody recognized him.”

I could imagine and I cringed a little. The WPL’s focus on morals and family values flashed through my head. If it got out our brand-new superstar of an assistant coach was passed out drunk at a bar before the season even started... it’d be a disaster.

“I figured you’d know what I should do,” Marc finally ended.

Jeez. What a mess. A small part of me didn’t want to get involved. He wasn’t my friend, and it wasn’t like he’d been particularly friendly or kind in any way. But the point was he was a member of my team. That part of me that battled between being a dick and saying he wasn’t my problem lost to the bigger part of me that made me do the right thing. My mom would be horrified if I was an asshole. I wouldn’t want to give her another reason to be disappointed in me.

I bit back a groan and stood up with a sigh, already looking through my dresser for a pair of pants. “Can you call him a cab?” Please, Jesus. Please.

“I asked the bartender who checked his ID, and he said it wasn’t a Texas driver’s license. He either wasn’t paying attention or doesn’t care who he is,” Marc explained. “I don’t think he has any car keys on him either.”

If I was drunk, famous and what seemed like mainly alone in a foreign country, would I want someone looking through my pockets? Or, I don’t know, videotaping me when I wasn’t at my best? Definitely not.

Pulling my pants up, I sighed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

I
shoved
my phone back into my pocket with a tired and slightly frustrated sigh. Sheena hadn’t answered her phone and neither had Gardner; then again, what had I been expecting? It was almost one in the morning, and apparently I was the only idiot that left their ringer on overnight.

The warm yellow lights from inside of the bar made me sigh again. What the hell was I doing? A man I hardly knew was sitting inside, drunk and possibly on the verge of making an ass of himself if people realized who he was. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that if he were recognized, people would brush it off. That wasn’t how people worked. I could already envision the videos being uploaded and going viral and all the hell that would come from it.

Was it totally unfair? Of course it was. Most people had too much to drink at some point or another, and no one ever thought twice about it.

Shit.

I sighed and threw the door open, not thinking about the fact I was in gray six-dollar sweatpants and an old, stained sweatshirt that I’d thrown on over the baggy shirt I usually slept in. Marc must have been keeping an eye out for my car because he was waiting at the door for me. In a T-shirt and jeans, he looked like a cleaned-up version of the man I spent nearly every afternoon with. He was showered, his hair was styled, and he had his nice set of glasses on, so that was pretty fancy. He had a striking resemblance to Ricky Martin when he wasn’t dressed in his work clothes. Dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin and he was just... well, pretty.

“Over here,” he said, waving me toward a booth in the back.

The figure hunched over the table was unmistakable, at least to me. That shade of short brown hair was the same I’d been seeing in person for the last two weeks. It was definitely Kulti. The fact he didn’t have on any team-related clothing like the polo shirt he had on earlier in the day was a small blessing, I guess. His beanie was slouched pretty low on his head, another bonus.

For the first time I thought, what the hell was he doing getting drunk at a bar in Oak Forest? This side of town was predominantly a middle-class neighborhood that had slowly been getting taken over by the upper middle-class with small houses being demolished and bigger, near-mansion-like homes taking over. It was a family neighborhood, not one you’d expect a rich single man living in.

“I’m sorry,” Marc said over his shoulder.

”No, it’s okay. You did the right thing calling me.” Well I still wasn’t convinced that was true but… if it were Harlow calling me because she needed a ride home after drinking too much, I would have gotten her without thinking twice about it. Hell, if any of the girls on the team felt desperate enough to call me for a ride home, I would have been there. We were a team. That’s what you did. When you played on a team with people who held grudges against each other, it was a lot harder than it needed to be.

Sigh
.

“All right.” I eyed Kulti and tried to guess how much he weighed. If I could throw him over my shoulder I could probably carry him out, but that wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous. I tapped on his arm, then I tapped on his arm some more. Nothing. Next, I shook his arm.
Nada
. “Hey you, wake up,” I said, shaking him some more.

And still nothing.

I sighed. “Help me carry him out to the car.”

Marc didn’t even blink; he just nodded.

For a moment I thought about whether his tab was open or not, and then I decided he could figure it out in the morning when he was sober.

“Ready?”

Marc and I dragged my coach across the seat and got him to the end of the bench. Squatting down, I peeled the arm that was plastered to the table and lifted the heavy weight to put it over my shoulders. Over the top of Kulti’s head, I watched Marc do the same thing.

How did I always let myself get dragged into this crap?

“Ready?”

At the count of three, we stood up. Well, Marc and I stood up, and Jesus Christ. I was used to people jumping on top of me, but it was never deadweight. It was also never someone almost a foot taller leaning up against me.

I huffed and I heard Marc make a light grunting sound. He was used to lugging around bags of soil, grass seed and mulch, so that said something. Somehow we managed to circle around and slowly make our way toward the door. I ignored the patrons that were watching us, interested and disapproving at the same time. Whatever. Keeping my eyes forward, I focused on making sure to take as much of Kulti’s weight as I could to save Marc the hassle. My rear passenger door was unlocked and we slowly finagled the big man into the seat, letting him slump over onto his side.

Good enough.

I rubbed at my eyebrow with the back of my hand, closing the door with my hip at the same time. “I tried to call Coach Gardner, but he hasn’t answered, so I’m not sure whether to take him back to my place or take him to a hotel, I guess.”

He gave me this look that said ‘good point.’ “Are you going to stay with him?”

Stay with him? I glanced in the backseat and shrugged. “I don’t know. You think I should?”

Marc lifted his shoulders too, looking into the car as well. “If it was you I was picking up, I’d say yes because it’s you. If it was Simon, I’d pretend I dropped the call because he’s a grown man that shouldn’t have gotten messed up.”

I understood his point. He’d heard me tell him day after day that I hadn’t spoken much with my coach. “I’ll figure it out, I guess.”

“You need any help?”

He didn’t go out often, and I realized he’d already gone above and beyond by calling me. I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I can get him in somewhere.”

“Call me if you need me though, okay?” he asked.

I reached forward and pulled at his shirt cuff. “I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He grinned, taking a step back. “See you.”

“Goodnight,” I called after him before getting in my car and watching him go back inside the bar.

A single rough snore from the backseat reminded me of the treasure I had there. What in the hell was I going to do with him? Take him home?

It didn’t even take me five seconds to decide that was a shitty idea.

I didn’t know him. He wasn’t my friend. How weird would that be for him to wake up on my sofa in an apartment of a player he’d spoken to once?

One quick search on my phone later and the input of my credit card information, and I was driving down the dark dead streets toward the closest hotel. It took five minutes to get to the chain hotel, another fifteen minutes to check in because my discount reservation hadn’t gone through yet, and then I was back at the car, eyeing what had to be close to two hundred pounds sprawled out on my backseat.

Thank God for squats and deadlifts.

It took a whole bunch of huffing and puffing, breaking out into a sweat, slapping at his cheek in hopes of reviving him futilely, and dropping the F-word every five seconds before I had his arm over my shoulders, my arm around his waist, and a barely conscious man trudging along besides me.

“Come on,” I pleaded with him as we hit the stairs what felt like thirty minutes later.

I was dying.
Dying
. And that had to say something because I had full-sized women who jumped on top of me, and had me helicopter them around.

Fuck me.

Every other time I’d ever done this, I always had help.

By some miracle, the room assigned was right by the stairs.

His sleepy face was shuttered, and I slowly let him slide down the length of my side to sit on the floor. I opened the door, held it cracked open the back of my foot and snuck my arms under his armpits to drag him in.

I sure as hell did drag him in, his long legs and feet extended out in front of him. Three huffs and a rough hoist later, I pulled him onto the bed and set him on his side with one knee cocked up and his top arm extended across the length of the mattress. I peeled one eyelid open to make sure, what? I wasn’t sure. I stuck a finger under his nose to make sure he was breathing evenly. And then I watched him for a solid thirty minutes, sitting in the chair just to the side of the bed. I’d been around enough over-drinkers in my life, and he wasn’t giving me the impression he was going to puke up blood or anything.

Now what?

The idea of staying with him didn’t seem like a good one. I wasn’t sure how he’d react in the morning and, frankly, a part of me didn’t want to find out. I took a breath and searched for one of those complementary notepads some hotels provided. Sure enough, across from the bed, bingo.

Dear Kulti,

I tore it up.

Kulti
,

I tore it up again.

Fuck it. I scribbled a message that was longer than I expected, pulled the forty bucks I had stuffed into my bra out, and set the note and the money on the nightstand next to him.

Then I looked back at the armchair with resignation. I wasn’t going home tonight and I damn well knew it. If I left, I’d stay up worried the whole night. Obviously, I only had one choice: stay in the hotel room for at least a few hours and then get the hell out of there before he knew I was there.

My conscience said it was the right thing to do, but my gut said to get the hell out.

Damn it.

“
Y
ou 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.

“
A
re 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.

“
S
alomé
! 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.”