Chapter 24 #2
All right. I had no clue what the hell we were going to do, but I continued toward Cordero’s office.
His secretary was at her desk. She looked like what you’d imagine an older secretary looked like—neat, white hair trimmed short, a button-up sweater layered over a shell-collared shirt.
It was almost easy to believe she was nice.
She wasn’t; at the very least, she’d never been nice to me.
“Hi, Mrs. Brokawski. I wanted to see about talking to Mr. Cordero, please.” Kill them with kindness, right?
The rude old bat looked away from her computer, summing me up and finding me lacking. “You need to schedule an appointment.”
Someone was skipping the pleasantries. All right. “If I could just talk to him for five minutes? That’s it. It’s very important,” I stressed and lied to deaf ears, which had turned away to focus again on the computer screen.
“I already explained, you need to schedule an appointment. He has an opening for Monday at eleven,” she stated.
“There’s no way for me to speak to him today?”
The lady rolled her eyes and wasn’t discreet about it. “No.”
Obviously she wasn’t going to work with me.
“Thank you anyway,” I said before turning around.
I started walking in the direction I’d come from, intending to find the German to let him know he was going to have to be the one to get the rabid badger to let us in.
Before I even left her visual range, Kulti was there walking forward, frowning.
“She won’t let me in to see him,” I explained.
He blinked once, then grabbed my hand, palm to palm, and walked with me back to the secretary’s desk.
Kulti didn’t bullshit around. “I need to speak to Cordero. Now.”
Her slim, wireless frames moved up to see who was speaking. Her entire face changed when she spotted the German. “Mr. Kulti, you should really schedule an appointment—”
“No. I need to see him now,” he cut her off.
The old bat’s eyes swung over to me, and I didn’t miss the wrinkle on her nose. Well, the multiple wrinkles on her nose. “Let me get him for you.”
Exactly fifteen seconds later, Mr. Cordero’s ancient guardian was standing at the doorframe, holding the door wide open and waving us forward. “He’ll see you now.”
The general manager of the Pipers was sitting behind his desk as we walked in, Kulti ahead of me, still holding my hand.
I knew what it would look like, and I didn’t find it in me to care.
Not even a little. The German took the seat furthest away from the door.
I took the other one, watching Cordero, who looked completely undisturbed.
“How can I help you?” the man asked with a distasteful expression.
“I’ll take the job if you let her play the next two games,” Kulti went right out and said it.
My head swung around to gape at him. What?
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one surprised by his words.
Cordero’s eyes widened. “You will?”
“On two conditions. The first is that you let her start,” he stated evenly.
The oldest man in the room seemed to think about it, almost stupefied. “That’s your compromise?”
“One part of it.”
He didn’t want to take the job. He’d told me so. What in the hell was he doing?
“Rey,” I whispered.
The German turned to give me another look—a look that reminded me I had promised to trust him.
Damn it.
“Yes or no?” he demanded from Cordero.
“I…,” he stuttered. “I can’t have you both on the field at the same time. There have been complaints from other players—”
The King raised a hand, shooting me a meaningful long look I wouldn’t understand until after he finished speaking. “I’ll sit out both games,” he offered, watching me while he did it.
For that brief moment, time stopped.
Cordero had no idea what had just come out of Kulti’s mouth. He heard the words, but he didn’t understand the meaning behind them. I heard the words and understood, but… but….
“No,” I told him.
He didn’t once break eye contact with me, confirming that he wanted me to really get what he was implying, what he wanted me to understand. “Yes.”
“Rey. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
The German gave me a hard look, his face both intense and serene at the same time. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
Oh bloody freaking hell.
“You will sit out to let her play?” Cordero asked, surprised, obviously not as oblivious as I had thought.
For Kulti to sit out a game….
With no hesitation and still staring directly at me, the pumpernickel said to the Pipers’ general manager. “Yes. Do we have a deal?”
The other man seemed to only think about his answer for a minute. “Okay. You’ve got a deal as long as your next demand isn’t preposterous.”
I couldn’t help but stare at Kulti. My entire body was zeroed in on him, on his words, on his face, and on that swell in my chest that wanted to squeeze my vocal pipes until they burst.
“Good. The other thing I want is for you to take a look at Sal’s contract.
I’m buying her out, and I need to know how much to write the check for,” the bratwurst explained.
Before I could argue, he made sure I knew he was talking to me and not the general manager. “Don’t argue. You would do it for me.”
“Just because I would—”
“I would do anything for you.” Ahh shit.
I flung my common sense into the air and held my imaginary ovaries out in sacrifice. My heart was pit-pit-patting a beat it had never known before. I was going to have a heart attack at twenty-seven. Holy crap.
Kulti was going to sit out the last two games, and he wanted to buy out my contract for me.
He doesn’t know what he’s saying. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, I repeated to myself, trying my best not to lose it right then and there.
“Cordero, do we have a deal?”
Neither one of us was looking at the weasel, so we both missed his scoff and the incredulous look on his face.
As much as this old idiot was essential to what was happening that moment, it didn’t feel like it.
This was me and Kulti, and Cordero was just background noise to get to where we were heading.
“You want to buy out her contract?” Cordero’s laugh had an edge to it. “You’re more than welcome to.”
If I wouldn’t have been in such a daze over what Kulti had implied, I might have been offended at how easily this asswipe sold me off.
“Not together,” Cordero mocked under his breath.
The thing I would realize later was that I could have argued with him and defended myself.
I could have told him nothing ever happened between Kulti and me.
At least before we went into his office, he’d never been anything but platonic toward me.
Fatherly, brotherly, friendly, Kulti had been all those things throughout the course of our friendship.
But what was the point in trying to convince someone who would believe whatever he wanted to believe otherwise?
Most importantly by that point, I couldn’t have cared any less what one mean little asshole thought about me.
Because Kulti had made one thing known in the minutes that transpired right before he offered to buy me out from the Pipers.
It was the most amazing, most unexpected, most surreal thing ever.
He lo—
I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t even think that he might have real feelings for me.
Holy shit.
Obviously, he was out of his mind and completely misguided. Yeah, he was insane. That was it.
I stared at him in the minutes that followed, only faintly listening to whatever was going back and forth between the two old farts in the room. What the hell was he doing? What was he thinking?
“I’ll have legal contact you later, Ms. Casillas,” Cordero’s voice snapped me out of my trance.
I tried to think back to what he’d been saying before I zoned out, and I was pretty sure he was going to have the legal department call me to sign the contract that would free me from the Pipers.
I didn’t even have a team waiting for me with open arms yet.
Oh jeez. I’d figure it out. It would all work out.
“I’ll be waiting for their call,” I said absently, getting to my feet when the German did.
“I’m ecstatic you’ve decided to join us again next year,” Cordero called out as we exited his office.
Kulti said nothing. It sent off warning signs in my head that I pushed away until we were in a place where I could ask him what in the hell he was thinking agreeing to sign another contract.
Silence was our companion on the way out of the building.
He didn’t touch me. Didn’t tell me how much he cared about me.
He didn’t even explicitly say he liked me.
But I guess he’d done enough already. Right?
We made it all the way to my car and got inside before I broke.
Turning carefully in the seat to face him, the side of my right thigh up against the back support, I gathered my words and sorted them as he watched me the entire time.
When I was ready, I gave myself a pep talk and met his eyes.
“Look, you’re my best friend, and I am so thankful to have you in my life, but you don’t… .” I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t.
“I don’t what?” he asked in a cool tone, those clear eyes locked.
“You know what.”
He blinked. “No. Tell me.”
Yeah, not happening. I couldn’t even put the word in the same sentence with his name. “I know you care about me, but you don’t have to do all this. I can figure something else out. It’s too much.”
The German crossed his arms over his chest, his expression unforgiving. “It isn’t too much, not for you.”
There we went again. Sweet Jesus. “Rey, please. Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why?”
“Because it gives people the wrong impression.”
Those jewel-like eyes narrowed into slits. “What impression is that?”
“You know what impression it makes.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.” Dear God, if this friendship continued, I’d probably have premature hair loss in no time.
“It isn’t an impression. I couldn’t care less what anyone else thinks when it’s the truth.”
Oh hell. “Rey, stop it. Just… stop.”