Chapter 6 #2
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.
“Are 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 hungover, 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.
“Salomé! Salomé Casillas!”
I had been purposely hanging my head low so the journalists peppered 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.”
A website I’d heard of. Okay, that wasn’t too bad.
“What’s it like working with one of the world’s sexiest men?”
Andddddd it was the Hindenburg all over again. Crashing and burning, and then crashing and burning once more.
I blinked at her. “You meant Coach Kulti?” It wasn’t like most women would find Gardner attractive; he was, at least in my opinion, just in an unconventional way. I liked his graying hair, his face was classic, he was in good shape, and he had a perfectly round booty.
But….
Clarissa Owens let out a really feminine laugh. “Oh, you know who I’m talking about, silly. Reiner Kulti. What’s it like being coached by one of the sexiest athletes in the world?”
It took everything inside of me not to look up at the sky and ask for divine intervention.
My mouth opened and closed multiple times, like it was trying to make words magically appear in the place of complete silence.
“Umm… well. He’s our assistant coach, and he was one of the greatest players in our sport, so that’s pretty exciting. ”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Tell us, does he wear boxers or briefs?”
How the hell was I supposed to know? Instead I said, “I… have no idea, but I hope he has something on under his uniform.”
“What kind of interests does he have?”
“The only thing he’s interested in is winning, I think.”
Ms. Owens gave me an exasperated look. “Is he single?”
I blinked at her some more and finally looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was fucking with me. When I looked back at her, I blinked again. “Is this a joke?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
It took a moment before I managed to get myself together.
“Kulti is my coach. He’s the best soccer player to ever play in Houston, in Texas more than likely, and we’re unbelievably lucky to have him here.
” Even if he didn’t do anything, but why kill the illusion?
“I respect him, and so does the rest of the team because he’s a great athlete.
His personal life is his business, and I have no idea what he does when he’s not here, I’m sorry. ”
“Oh. Okay… can you tell me anything else about him that you think the public doesn’t know?”
That he was just as much of a bastard as he’d been made out to be?
Or that he occasionally drank too much at bars and had to be picked up, without ever issuing a thank you in exchange?
I made sure none of those ideas crossed my face as I shrugged at the woman who really was just doing her job.
It wasn’t her fault that people really would want to know things like that.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t. I saw him wearing purple socks one day. That’s as much as I know,” I offered her the miserable piece of knowledge. He’d been wearing royal purple socks, that was a fact.
She gave me a look that said that wasn’t what she was looking for, but she realized that was as good as she was getting from me.
Unfortunately for her, she didn’t know that most of us were unable to give her any juicy gossip.
No one knew anything about the German, except maybe Grace.
Maybe. She was the only one on the team he seemed to ever speak to, but Grace was too professional to ever spill the beans anyway.
We quickly said goodbye to each other and went our own way.
But I couldn’t shake off the annoyance at being asked stuff like that. More than likely, I just couldn’t shake off the fact that they were questions about such a fucking asshole.
I will make you regret it.
Okay, Scarface. Cheese and fucking crackers. Jeez.
I had to tamp down the inner scream that went on inside of me.
Did he have any idea what he’d meant to me when I was younger?
Of course he didn’t. But that was beside the point.
I was where I was because I thought he hung the moon when I was a kid.
Because I thought he was the greatest player ever and I wanted to be him—okay, and be with him, but whatever.
I used to get into arguments with people who talked badly about him.
That’s what it was like. Even now, I defended his skills like an objective unbiased player because you couldn’t argue the statistics. He had been amazing, and there was nothing emotional behind that statement.
He’d been an incredible player above the layer of assholery he wrapped himself in.
Freaking jackass.
“How’d that go?” Jenny asked with a smile when I sat down next to her.
I didn’t bother to hide how I rolled my eyes. “They asked me if he was single.”
She snorted.
“I should have said, ‘No, I met his life partner a few days ago. They’re great.’” I gave her a little smile as I pulled my things out of my bag. “Maybe one day.”
“Yesterday I had one of them ask me if I thought he was preparing for a comeback. Then, I was getting my mail when my neighbor asked, ‘Hi, Jennifer, do you think you could get me tickets to your next game?’ I don’t even know his name!
” she exclaimed. “The day before that, my aunt asked me if there was any way for her to drop by during practice. She doesn’t even like soccer. ”
Jenny wasn’t one to ever complain, so for her to mention it said something.
I settled just for nodding at her. I didn’t trust the words that could potentially come out of my mouth.
“Genevieve told me that her boss said he’d give her a raise if she brought him back something that belonged to you-know-who.”
Not surprising. On the other hand, I was sure that if I gave Marc Kulti’s underwear, he’d probably tell me to take a week off and still pay me my half. “I heard Harlow tell a reporter this morning that she came to play, not talk about her coach.”
We both snorted.
“But what are we going to do? Complain about all the attention? I already told them about the weird emails I’ve been getting about Eric, and they’re trying to turn everything around to work out positively.
Eric told me Kulti was offered some huge deal from a European team, and he turned it down.
They aren’t going to want to risk losing him.
” I thought of the night at the bar again and his threat and felt that familiar bolt of frustration streak down my back before I pushed it away. “Oh well.”
She nodded in resignation. “I hope everyone calms down as the season goes on.”
“Me too.”