Kulti

Chapter 8 #2

“Jesus.” Gardner nodded and ran a hand over his head. “I get it.”

Had I said too much? Maybe.

Puffing my cheeks like a blowfish I started yammering.

“Look, he’s a great player. I’m not saying he’s not, obviously.

But shouldn’t he be coaching us? Bitching?

Telling us when we’re doing something good or at least doing something spectacularly bad?

Something? I figured maybe he was just getting used to being around girls, but it’s been long enough now. Don’t you think?”

“I understand what you’re saying. It makes sense.” He rubbed a hand over his head and glanced up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why I didn’t think about that before. Huh.” He nodded at himself before looking over at me. “At least now I know where I need to start.”

Fidgeting in the chair for a moment, I sat up and nodded at him. “That’s about it.”

Gardner made a few faces as he thought about what I said but finally gave me a curt nod. “I appreciate you talking to me. I’ll make sure we get this sorted out,” he said finally, my cue to get the hell out of there.

“All right, then. I should get going. See you tomorrow,” I said, grabbing my belongings and getting up.

He gave me a funny look. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you too. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you look like you’re ready to bite someone’s head off.”

So apparently I needed to work on keeping my game face on a little better. I could do that. I smiled and nodded at the man sitting across the table. “I’m fine, G. Thanks, though.”

His features eased a bit, and an emotion I wasn’t sure I recognized crossed his face as I took a step back. “I’m proud of you, Sal, for standing up to him. Especially now that I know how you all are feeling about his presence here…. I want you to know that. You’re a good girl.”

Gardner’s words made me feel nice at the same time they made me feel guilty. I gave him a little smile and shrugged. “I should have said something to you earlier about the girls, G.”

“It’s fine. You said something now, and that’s all that matters.”

Was it?

We said bye to each other one more time, and then I was out of there.

Bag over my shoulder, I slowly made my way out, thinking.

Had I done the right thing? I wasn’t positive, but what else was I supposed to do?

I could painfully go through another five months of tiptoeing around this German dingleberry, but it was different if I wasn’t the only one being affected by his presence.

The trek back was old and familiar. Down two hallways and head to the elevator. I knew it by memory. I rocked back and forth on my heels as I waited for the elevator.

It was the soft squeak of a foreign pair of tennis shoes on the linoleum floor that had me glancing over.

The sound wasn’t anything special in this building; mostly everyone wore tennis shoes unless it was game day or if it was a woman wearing heels.

But when I saw a pair of special edition RK running shoes, black with lime-green stitching, my shoulders tensed.

And I looked.

Of course it was the ass-gobbler I’d just been talking about.

Subconsciously, I started to reach back and make sure my hair was tucked up neatly beneath my headband, but I stopped before I got there. Poop. Plus, what did it matter if my hair was messed up? It shouldn’t.

I cleared my throat when he stopped a yard or so away from me and our eyes met.

His eye color was clearer than I’d thought it would be.

It was a perfect mix of honey brown with a fitting blend of murky green.

Bright, sharp and incredibly, unbelievably observant from the weight of the stare it was capable of.

Holy bejesus, he was tall. His forearms were big beneath the sky blue training polo he had on. Then I glanced back up at his eyes to see them still locked on me. He was watching me check him out.

Fuck.

Poop, Sal. Poop.

Pee. Stop it. Stop it right now.

You dragged him out of a bar and into a hotel room without a single thank-you in return. Not even a smile. All you got out of it was a threat.

And suddenly with that, I felt fine.

I swallowed and smiled my sugar-sweet asshole smile, using the only half of my face capable of moving. “Hi,” I said before adding quickly, “Coach.”

That heavy gaze flicked down to the number printed on my chest for a moment before moving its way back up to look at my face. The blink he did was slow and lazy.

I tipped my chin up and blinked right back at him, forcing a smug and closed-mouth smile on my face.

The elevator dinged open as he said in a low tone that sounded like it cost him ten years off his life to use on such a lowly faithless creature like myself, “Hello.”

We looked each other right in the eye for a split second before I raised my eyebrows and headed inside the small space. I turned to face the doors and watched him follow in after me, taking the spot against the corner furthest away.

Did he say anything else? No. Did I? No.

I kept my eyes forward and lived through the most awkward thirty seconds of my life.

THE PROBLEM WITH MEN, or males in general, that I’d discovered over the course of my life was that they had huge mouths. I mean, a whale shark has nothing on the average man with a couple of friends. Honestly.

But you know, it was my fault. Really, it was. I should have known better.

My dad, brother, and his friends had taught me the reality behind male friendships, and yet I’d forgotten everything that I’d learned.

So I couldn’t blame anyone else but myself for trusting Gardner.

Already more than halfway through that morning’s practice, I had just finished my own one-on-one game against a defender.

I went to take my place away from where the sessions were happening, and I wasn’t really paying attention.

I was thinking about what I could have done differently to get the ball into the goal quicker when someone stepped right in the middle of my path.

It was a simple sidestep that landed the body bigger than mine just a foot away.

I knew it wasn’t Gardner. Gardner had been on the other side of the field when I’d been playing, and there were only three other men on staff it could have been. Except two of them were too nice to do something so confrontational.

The German. It was the damn king of jerk offs. Of course it was.

The instant I made eye-to-eye contact with him, I knew.

I knew Gardner was a caring, overly blunt bastard who had mentioned my name to the German.

My heart felt like it started to pound in my throat.

He didn’t have to say “I know what you said” because the passive look on his face said it all.

If he’d stood through me ranting about my dad without making a face, then I knew whatever it was he’d heard had hit a nerve.

A person like him didn’t appreciate being criticized because he already thought he was perfect, hello.

It wasn’t like I’d called him a worthless piece of retired Euro-trash, which was horribly rude.

Or said he was an awful player and that he didn’t deserve the job.

Nothing remotely similar to that had come out of my mouth, but I put myself into his situation, thought of myself having an ego ten times the size of the one I currently had and asked myself how I’d feel.

I’d feel pretty damn pissed if some kid started saying what I needed to do differently.

But it was the truth, and I’d stand by it. I hadn’t called him Führer or a dick or anything. What was I going to do? Apologize to someone who didn’t deserve it? Nope.

I did what I needed to do. I stayed right where I’d stopped when he first got in my way, and I wrangled my heart into not beating so fast. Calm down, calm down, calm down. Poop. Pee. Poop, poop.

Big girl socks? On. Voice? In check.

Steeling myself, I pushed my shoulders down and looked at him dead-on. “Yes?”

“Sprint time!” someone yelled.

My bravery only went so far, because the next thing I did was turn around and run toward the line where sprints began.

A whole nice round of conditioning—meaning running sprints at increasing amounts of distances—was my love-hate relationship.

I was fast, but that didn’t mean I really loved running them.

I lined up between two of the younger girls who were always trying to run faster than me. The player on my right bumped her fist against mine right before we took off. “I feel like today is the day, Sal.” She smiled.

I wiggled my ankle around and slowly rested the weight on the ball of my foot. “I don’t know, I’m feeling pretty good today, but bring it on.”

One more fist bump and the whistle sounded.

Ten yards, back and forth. Twenty, back and forth, Forty, back and forth. Midfield, back and forth. Then the whole field and back.

My lungs seized up a little by the end of it, but I sucked it up and pushed forward on the last leg.

I finished up with enough distance between myself and the next person to sleep okay that night.

I thought about how good it was that I always tried to push myself on my own runs a little harder each day.

Rubbing my hands up and down on my upper thighs while I caught my breath, I smiled at the girl who had challenged me at the beginning when she made it. She looked a little annoyed but managed to keep a smile on.

“I don’t know how the hell you do it,” Sandy panted.

I panted right back. “I run. A lot.” When she gave me this expression that said, “No shit, Sherlock,” I snorted.

“I do the bike trails at Memorial at six thirty every day before coming here. You’re welcome to come with me if you get up early enough.

I’m not the greatest company to talk to that early in the morning, but it’s better than running alone, right? ”

“Really?” she asked a little too incredulously. “Yeah.”

She wiped her forehead and gave me this funny look. “Okay. Sure. That sounds great.”

I rattled off where I parked my car in case she really did want to go and wasn’t just saying she did. By the time we finished talking, everyone else had finished their sprints too, even the slower players—not that anyone was slow exactly, but slower.

Practice finished soon after that, so I finished getting my stuff together, keeping an eye to see where Gardner was so I could give him a tiny piece of my mind.

Regular shoes on, a clean pair of ankle socks beneath them, I made my way toward the head coach busy counting balls to make sure they were all there.

“Are you ready for the game?” he greeted me first thing.

“I’m ready,” I agreed, watching his sneaky face for any sign that he felt remorse for taking advantage of my trust.

“Everything okay?” he asked, straightening up when I didn’t move from where I’d been.

Glancing around to make sure no one was too close, I turned my attention back to the male Gossip Girl and scowled. “Did you tell Kulti what I said?”

The old bastard had the decency to look just a little sheepish. “I had a talk with him this morning on the way here. I figured it was time,” he neither agreed nor denied.

“Did you tell him it was me who said something?”

His brown eyes were careful and consistent. “He must have guessed it was you since you’re the only one that’s ripped him a new one.”

He didn’t deny it. I’d also been the one he saw coming from the offices too. It wasn’t like the cookie trail hadn’t been left behind. On top of that, I had laid into him for being a piece of horse crap to my dad. Once again, it was my fault.

It was done, and there was no point in dwelling on it.

“You can tell me if there’s a problem,” he stated in a careful honest tone that I couldn’t help but believe.

What was I going to do? Tell him oh, he gave me the stare down? Nope. Or worse, tell him about me picking him up from a bar? Yeah, no.

Instead I gave him a reassuring smile that I didn’t necessarily feel. “Everything’s fine, I was just… curious if you said something or not. No big deal.”

“No. I didn’t say anything.”

“Great, thanks, G. I’ll see you later then.” I sighed, turning around to walk toward the bathroom, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.

The last thing I wanted was to bring negative attention to myself, especially where Kulti was concerned.

The team had a lot banking on him, and though I was considered one of the hometown favorites because I was from Texas—and I was the leading scorer for the team—I understood priorities.

One of us was a lot more popular than the other, even if it was only me playing, and one of us got paid a lot more.

I would lose every time.

Patting my phone over the material of my bag, I thought about calling my dad to rant, but then thought better of it.

The bratwurst had already done enough. I didn’t want to bring him up unless I had to.

My mom? Jenny? No and no. Plus, I’d have to explain everything for my predicament to make sense, and I wasn’t all about that either.

So I weighed my options and accepted again that keeping it all to myself was the best way to go about dealing with everything.