Chapter 16 #3
I took a deep breath and gave him a steady look.
“Of course I freaking care about getting benched, but I also care about who you call me an imbecile in front of. Do you think I want a complete stranger thinking I’m some kind of doormat that lets you talk to me like that?
I might be when we’re on the field, but I’m sure as hell not going to let you treat me half as bad as you just treated her, buddy. ”
Kulti looked like I was speaking a completely different language, so I took advantage of it.
“This is a team sport. If I’m not playing my best, isn’t it better for someone who is playing better to take my spot?
” Not that I wouldn’t fight for it, tooth and nail.
I was going to get my shit together and get back into the game, so that no one would take me out.
On the other hand, I didn’t feel the need to promise him that.
I’d show him. Yet everything he was telling me went against my natural instinct.
This was a team sport; there definitely wasn’t an “I” in soccer.
Obviously my response went completely against his natural instinct, because his eyes bugged nearly out of their sockets.
I held out my arms and shrugged.
It wasn’t until he started shaking his head that he finally spoke again. “You have to watch out for you. Not for anyone else, do you understand me?”
I blinked. Apparently he was going to ignore me complaining about the girlfriend thing. Okay.
“No one else is going to watch out for your best interests but you. Just for agreeing with me that you played like you’ve never seen a soccer ball before, I should make sure you sit out the next game.”
What? I never agreed that I played that bad. “But—”
“No buts. You play like shit, and I’m going to give you hell for it, but you should never let anyone take this away from you.”
Amber’s actions seared through my belly, a painful reminder of what I’d already had taken away from me.
Then again, I guess I had let her take it away from me.
I didn’t fight when she’d said, “It’s her or me.
” I’d felt so consumed with guilt for going on two dates with a man who was separated from my teammate, I’d willingly stepped aside and given up my position.
I was a serial monogamist and possessive as hell.
If I’d been her, who knows how I would have felt.
Maybe I could have fought for it. I could have told Amber she was being an idiot because it wasn’t like I had known that jackass was married, much less married to her.
Even then, I hadn’t slept with him. I had kissed someone who I thought was single and seemed like a nice guy.
That was absolutely it. The second man I’d kissed since breaking up with my college boyfriend had been a cheating, lying piece of donkey shit and been married to my teammate.
I hadn’t just backed up the toilet; I’d made the septic tank flood the house.
Two stupid dates had taken away my lifelong aspiration.
I felt my eyes get watery with disappointment in the team and the coaches who hadn’t fought to keep me on.
More than anything, I was disappointed with myself.
I sniffled, then sniffled again, trying to control the waterworks creeping up in my eyes.
It had been years since I cried over leaving the national team.
One month was all I’d given myself to be upset over it.
Since then I’d locked it up, accepted reality, and moved on with the rest of my life.
When something is broken into too many pieces, you couldn’t stare at them and try to glue them back together; sometimes you just had to sweep up the pieces and buy something else.
“Are you crying?”
Clearing my throat, I blinked hard twice, lowering my gaze to the small cleft in the German’s chin. “No.”
His fingers went up to push at my shoulder lightly. “Stop it.”
I lifted my chin and pushed his shoulder right back, sniffling while doing it. “You stop it. I’m not crying.”
“I have two eyes,” he replied, looking down at me with a troubled expression on his face.
Just as I was about to sniffle again, I stopped.
Those green-brown eyes were way too close and too observant.
The last person in the world I would want to show any signs of weakness in front of would be him.
Instead, I let my nose get all watery and avoided wiping it as I stared right back at him. “Obviously, I do too, Berlin.”
The “Berlin” did it.
To give him credit, he settled for giving me a scowl instead of an ugly word for how much of a jackass I was for calling him that. “I’m not from Berlin.”
A fact I was well aware of. He didn’t know how much I knew about him, and I wasn’t about to tell him. Something about that little secret made me relax.
When I looked right back at him with a clear expression and relaxed shoulders, as innocent as I could possibly make myself out to be, Kulti tilted his head back to look up at the dark sky. “Get on the bus, Sal.”
So we were back to “Sal.”
Knowing damn well when it was time to either retreat or answer some question I wouldn’t want to, I took two steps back. “Whatever you say, sir.”
Game?
I flexed my foot inside my boot and typed back: Sure. Same time?
Kulti texted back. Ja.
I smiled at the screen before setting my phone on my lap.
“What the hell are you smiling at?” Marc asked from his spot behind the driver’s seat.
The smile eased itself off my face. “Nothing.”
“Liar.”
I rolled my eyes as the phone vibrated from between my legs. Bringing it back out, I made sure Marc’s attention was back on the road.
Go make a quesadilla.
I started laughing hysterically.
“Goddamn it, Sal!” Marc shouted. “You want me to get into a wreck?”
Despite Marc yelling at me for bursting out so suddenly, it didn’t stop me from cracking up.
HE WAS WAITING on the bench by the time I pulled my car into the park’s lot, headband on, bat leaning against his thigh and a glove on his lap.
I kept my face even, like he hadn’t sent me the most ridiculous text message earlier in the day. “Hi.”
“Sal,” Kulti said my name like he’d been using it forever, standing up with his things in hand. He had on the same variation of an outfit he usually did: white athletic shorts, a plain black T-shirt, and black and green RK signature running shoes.
“Ready?” I asked, eyeing his muscular calves for a split second.
“Ja,” he answered.
I looked up at his face and snickered, but he wasn’t smiling at me.
He was just watching like always. We walked toward the field together silently.
The awkward conversation we’d had during the Pipers’ game a few days ago seemed forgotten.
I understood what he meant and where he was coming from, so I didn’t take it personally.
Not surprisingly, we were split up into two different teams. Most of the players at the park were people we’d played with the last couple of times. One of them was the douchebag who played whack-a-mole with my foot, who was standing off with a couple of other guys, all of them staring at me.
Weird.
An open palm smacked me in the shoulder. “Watch it.” Kulti leaned over to meet me eye to eye, his index finger pointing low in the direction of my shoe.
Definitely. I stared up into his murky green eyes and nodded. “I will. Good luck.”
Instead of saying anything, he walked past me, bumping the side of his upper arm against my shoulder, lightly… playfully.
“Come on, you punk. I wanna start the game before I turn forty,” Marc shouted, waving me onto the side of the field. Our team was batting first.
“That’s like next week.”
He shot me the middle finger.
We lined up to bat and only made it through four batters before we got three outs and had to switch positions.
Six outs later, I managed to get three of six opposing players out, and my team was back playing defense.
It was a fast-moving game with a lot of quick inning changes.
It seemed like I was going to be able to go to practice the next day without a limp.
At least that’s what I thought until I realized how competitive and petty some guys could be.
Not even two batters in I had one of the opposing players clothesline me as he ran to the base while I caught the ball to tag him out.
I landed on my ass and back pretty hard because I hadn’t been expecting it at all—because seriously, who the hell plays like that?
Last week should have been an anomaly. I took a deep breath to control how pissed off I instantly became and how out of breath I was from practically being tackled.
Once I was calm, I shoved him off and gave the jerk a dirty look.
It was one of the guys the idiot from last week had been standing with, also one of the three people I’d tagged out earlier.
I took another deep breath, fighting back a groan as I watched him get up to standing position from his hands and knees. Patience, Sal. Patience.
But it wasn’t working.
Rolling up to sit, I bit back the curse words that were molding to my gums.
Patience. Patience.
I swallowed and clung to the tiny bit of patience I found inside myself.
“I don’t play like that,” I told him in a carefully controlled voice, getting to my feet slowly.
I straightened to my full height, still a good five inches shorter than the man who shoved me to the ground.
I tipped my head up and looked him right in the eye.
He was somewhere around my age and good-looking enough to be an egotistical dick with his gelled hair and trimmed beard.
I’d learned early on playing with my brother, Simon, Marc, and their friends that as a girl—as a person—you couldn’t back down.
Plus, I wasn’t scared of these idiots. Not even a little bit. “Don’t do it again.”