Chapter 16 #2
Even though I was sort of expecting his response to be similar, I still recoiled.
But even as I did, I bit my words back, swallowed my pride, accepted my fault, and marched over to the bench.
Elbows to my knees, I sat forward and watched the rest of the game, mentally kicking myself in the ass for being such an idiot.
An hour later, our team had barely squeaked by with a 1-0 win in thanks to a ball that hit the tip of Grace’s foot just perfectly.
We headed to the locker rooms and listened to the coaching staff drone on about what we did wrong, and what we really did wrong.
Kulti didn’t even bother looking at me when he decided to speak, but it was obvious to me that he was referring to all my screwups.
Normally that would have put me on edge, but I had already accepted reality.
As a wrap, Gardner gave his bit of motivational advice for the next week, and we were released to get out of the locker room.
Showering, getting dressed, and heading toward the bus for a ten-hour drive back to Houston, I managed to avoid talking to anyone.
I was too angry with myself for slacking off to be good company, and everyone gave me space.
Sternum burning with embarrassment for playing like such an asshole, I managed to make it halfway to the bus before I caught Kulti standing off to the side as he spoke to… a woman. Was that a woman? I squinted.
“Casillas!”
I hesitated. Did I want to listen to him rip me apart in front of a stranger who might have been a woman or a slim man wearing skinny jeans? No. Definitely not. But it’d be obvious if I ignored him and kept on walking toward the bus.
“Casillas!”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I guess I’d been warned. “I’ll deal with you later” wasn’t exactly a vague threat.
If I were a really religious person, I would have done the sign of the cross as I walked over to where the German was standing.
Yeah, it was definitely a woman next to him, so I put on my big girl socks during the short trip.
It took me until I was about five feet away to recognize the person he was talking to.
An ex. Blah. She was an ex-girlfriend that I was certain was an actress or had been one at some point.
In the blink of an eye, I was pissed off, and every step I took closer made me more and more angry.
He wanted to do this now, in front of an old girlfriend?
“Are you sure you don’t want to meet up tonight?” the attractive redhead asked, ignoring my approach.
Kulti wasn’t even looking at her; instead he was staring at my face. My aggravated-as-shit face. His one-word answer sounded as brutal as usual. “No.” So at least he was an asshole with everyone. There was that.
The woman bent a long leg and moved her head over to get into his field of vision. “Positive?”
It was too dark to tell whether his eyes glanced over in her direction or not. “Yes,” he confirmed.
“Kulti—” A hand went to rest on his shoulder, and I didn’t miss the way he shrugged her off.
“It took you long enough,” he grumbled when I stopped close but not too close to them.
I was looking at him, instead of the woman who was obviously still trying to get his attention.
I just stared back at him, not exactly wiping off the irritated look on my face. Was he planning on chewing me out? Did he really think this was the right time to do it?
Pulling together an amount of bravery that I really didn’t have in me, I forced a calm look on my face, relaxed my shoulders to not give away how tense I was, and I blinked at my coach, Reiner Kulti.
“Yes, Coach?”
His luminous eyes bore down on me with the power of a strobe light, the biggest strobe light in history. By the shape of his mouth and the tic of his jaw, I was about to get reamed.
He didn’t even bother looking at the woman next to him, hopeful and still attentive to a man who wasn’t giving her the time of day, before he lowered his voice.
Unfortunately, I recognized he wasn’t lowering it to be inaudible, he was just that pissed, before laying it down for me.
“What the hell was going on with you tonight?”
He was just as to the point as I expected. All righty. I licked my lips and gave him a solid shrug. “My mind wasn’t in it, and I’m sorry about that.” It was implied that I wouldn’t let that happen again.
“That’s it?” he spat.
“There’s no excuse,” I told him, watching the woman look back and forth between us. “I know better, and I’m sorry.”
His lids got heavy. If I didn’t know him any better, I would have assumed he was sleepy. He wasn’t anywhere close. “You played like an imbecile.”
Seriously? Did he have to call me that in front of another person?
“Kulti?” The woman waved her hand around in his face.
The German turned his head and stared at her long enough that she scrunched up her face and stepped back.
“God, I forgot how much of an asshole you can be. I don’t even know why I bother,” she hissed at him.
The man who guarded his words like they were gold didn’t let me down. He didn’t say a word. Kulti looked at her for maybe five more seconds and then turned his attention back to me as if she hadn’t spoken.
What an asshole.
“Your team deserves your attention, and I deserve better from you. Do that shit again, and I’ll have you coming in as a sub for Thirty-Eight,” he threatened, oblivious to the woman who shook her head as he spoke before finally turning around to walk off.
That time, I flinched and winced. I probably sucked air in through my nose. Thirty-Eight was one of the younger forwards, Sandy, a rookie on the team who would be a force to be reckoned with in the near future.
“Learn to compartmentalize your life, do you understand me?” he asked in that somber crisp voice I had a feeling he had learned to wield perfectly in the last few weeks.
As much as I hated to admit it, my face went hot, and I knew I was blushing with humiliation. He would try to take starting a game away from me? For playing crappy during one single game? More embarrassment flooded my system, lined carefully with anger.
The idea that I thought we were friends floated right up and center.
But Pipers’ time wasn’t friend time. It never had been. The man who called me Taco and played soccer and softball with me was a completely different person from the one standing before me in that moment.
Learn to compartmentalize your life, he’d said. Do what he did.
The only thing I could do was nod jerkily and accept the ultimatum he’d given me.
I wasn’t going to remind him this was one bad game out of so many.
I wasn’t going to promise anything or apologize.
It hurt my pride, but I balled it up and tucked it neatly into my sternum.
In a voice that I was extremely proud of for how solid it sounded, I said, “Okay. Fine. But maybe next time call me an imbecile when I’m not in front of your girlfriend, would that work for you? ”
When he closed his eyes and began grinding his teeth together, I wondered if I said the wrong thing. It wasn’t until he started scratching at his cheek and then erupted a second later, I figured the answer was: yeah. I had.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he burst out.
I took a step back and gave him a crazy look, because seriously, what else did he want from me? “No.”
“I’m threatening to bench you, and you’re complaining about who overheard?”
I’d bet a dollar that my hair kind of blew back a little bit at his question, but I wasn’t going to puss out.
No fear. “Yeah, I am. If I’m playing bad consistently, then I don’t deserve to start.
That sucks, but I understand. I’m not going to argue with you over an obvious fact.
What I do have a problem with is you being rude to me in front of other people, and you were a dick to her.
Jesus F. Christ. Manners, Germany, ever heard of them? ”
Kulti didn’t hesitate to throw his hands up behind his head. The short brown strands crept through his fingers. “I want to shake you right now.”
“Why? I’m only telling you the truth.”
“Because—” He snapped something in German I thought was the equivalent of fuck. “—you’re going to sit there and let me take this away from you? Just like that?” he growled.
“Yeah, I am. What do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to beg you? Get mad? Throw a fit and stomp off? I understand. I get it. I played one bad game; I’m not going to play two. That’s fine. It’s your tone and choice of where we’re having this conversation that I have a problem with.”
He might have started pulling on the shortest of short ends of his hair in what was a mix of annoyance and frustration. “Yes, goddamn it, get mad! If my coach had ever even hinted at taking me out of a game, I would have lost it. You’re the best player on the team.”
I’d swear on my life that my heart stopped beating. Had he just said what I thought he said?
“You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen, period, man or woman.
What kills me is that you are a complete fucking pushover who’s hung up on worthless words in front of a person that doesn’t matter.
” His cheeks were flushed. “Grow some balls, Casillas. Fight me for this. Fight anyone that tries to take this away from you,” he urged.
His words went through my brain like molasses, clinging and slow. Yet I still didn’t understand. Then again, maybe I did. This was the same man who owned the field each time he went on. Most of the time, each of his plays had begun with him and ended with him. He was a greedy asshole with the ball.
And we were arguing over two completely different things.
Dear God.