Chapter 11 #2
This was exactly what I got for trying. Why did I even bother anymore?
Sure, he’d been nice to my dad by making up for being a freaking bag of nasty dildos, and he’d gotten me out of my crap with Cordero and given me a couple of tips on how to improve some playing skills, but it wasn’t enough.
Not everyone was like this. I’d been nice to thousands of people in my life, and most didn’t act like pricks.
Especially not ones that I’d idolized.
Embarrassment at being snapped at made a knot form in my throat as I got on the freeway. For a second, I thought about turning on the radio to avoid the awkwardness that had settled in the car, but I didn’t. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and it wasn’t me who deserved to feel awkward. He did.
“What exit should I take?” I asked in a controlled voice when we were close enough.
He answered.
I exited and then asked whether to turn right or left.
Step by step, I asked him to tell me when to turn again, and he did. What lane to get in, he told me. Two more turns and I was driving my car down a street I had a client on. Go figure.
Right before an immaculately landscaped two-floor modern monstrosity that seemed to take up two lots, Kulti gestured. “Here.”
I pulled the car closer to the curb and stopped, keeping my eyes forward; it was immature.
I didn’t have to do that. I didn’t have to let him know that what he’d said bothered me, but I couldn’t help it.
In hindsight later on, I’d curse myself for letting him see that he’d upset me, but right then I couldn’t stop myself. I just kept staring out the windshield.
I waited patiently, hands gripping the steering wheel gently.
He didn’t move. He didn’t get out. He didn’t say anything.
I didn’t look at him or ask him to get out of my car. I just waited. I could wait. I wasn’t impatient. Chin up and face relaxed, I outwaited him for what seemed like five minutes but was probably only thirty seconds.
Finally he reached for the handle and got out. There wasn’t a sigh or an apology out of his mouth or even a freaking “thank you for the ride.”
The minute the door was closed, I pulled away. I didn’t peel out or act like a jackass as I tried to get away; I got back on the street and on the way to work like he hadn’t just hurt my feelings.
But he had, a little.
It was enough that I didn’t give a single shit about whether the big house in the family neighborhood was his or not. I didn’t even bother telling my dad about it.
“…LIKE THIS,” he said in that deep voice with a hint of a watered-down accent in it.
I blinked at the ball on the ground and nodded. “Okay.”
“Yes?”
Scratching at my neck, I nodded again. “Got it.”
Maybe he expected me to jump for joy or kiss his feet for working with me for the third time, but I couldn’t find it in me to drag enough of a shit together to care that he had singled me out again.
After having the weekend to cool off, I’d come back to practice with my head straight yesterday.
Needless to say, that included me deciding to avoid Kulti as much as possible.
I had better things to waste my time and energy on, and jackasses with short tempers and no manners weren’t at the top of my list.
I managed to make it through one whole practice without expending any calories on him.
Then today he decided to jump into the middle of a five-on-five game I was playing.
To be an adult, I really watched what he did and listened.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to do more than that.
I lifted my head and gave him an affirming nod, my face neutral.
Moving around him, I went back to where I’d been and gestured to the defender I was playing against that we should restart. We did.
Fifteen seconds later, Kulti interrupted us again. His long legs ate up the turf as he stopped right between us. “You’re doing it wrong,” he said, showing me what he wanted me to do differently.
I nodded and went back at it.
Another fifteen seconds of uninterrupted playing time went on before he stopped us again. “Watch. You’re not watching,” the German insisted.
I was watching. I was watching him very carefully.
“All right, I got it,” I said as soon as he’d finished his demonstration.
The other player shot me a look that I returned.
Not even ten seconds later, “Twenty-three! What the hell was that?” exploded out of Kulti’s mouth.
My hands clenched at my sides, and I asked myself, why? Why it’d been decided that this asswipe would make an appearance in my life ten years too late?
Taking a deep breath to steady my frustration, I put my hands on my hips and slowly faced him. “Please tell me what I did wrong because I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said before I could even comprehend the fact that words had come out of my mouth.
Catching him so off guard must have been a testament to how much he was not accustomed to people talking back to him, or at least not accepting his word as something holy to be treasured.
Those light-colored eyes narrowed on me, and his eyelids dropped just enough to shield the interesting shade. “You would have a clearer shot if you….” He broke off his words as he quickly changed the foot he was leading with and turned around with the ball.
I looked at him and asked someone, somewhere for patience. “Wouldn’t it be better if I passed the ball?” Of course it’d be better; I was asking a hypothetical question.
A question that he obviously didn’t understand by the way he shook his head in response. “No.”
No?
“If you have the shot, take it.”
I glanced at Genevieve, my teammate who was standing off to the side watching us, and then looked back at Kulti. “I’m not sure I’ll have it.”
“Unless you’re not paying attention or you suddenly can’t move your feet, you’ll have it,” he ground out in an irritated tone.
Fighting the urge to pinch my nostrils, I squeezed my fist tighter.
“All right. Whatever you say.” Whatever you say for me usually meant yeah, sure, and then I’d end up doing whatever the hell I wanted anyway.
He was wrong. What he was telling me to do was too risky, and it was selfish.
But, whatever. I knew how to pick my arguments.
For some reason, he didn’t look appeased by what I said at all.
It was almost as if he knew I was just saying the words to get him off my back, which I was, but he didn’t know that.
At least he shouldn’t. He didn’t say anything else, and a minute later, time for our game ran out.
Another ten players headed out onto the field for their practice game.
I watched and shouted out encouragements, Harlow receiving some of them.
As much as I tried not to pay attention to Kulti, I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t stop that game to make any suggestions.
Of course not, I thought almost bitterly.
Sometime later, practice ended and I found myself walking to my car. I was debating whether to try and catch a yoga class that night or just do some serious stretching at home, when I happened to look up and find someone standing by the driver side door of my car.
Only it wasn’t just someone. It was the German.
My muscles immediately tensed at the sight of him leaning so casually against my beloved car.
I took a calm, casual breath and tried to push my emotions down as I kept walking. Kulti had his duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, his hands tucked into the pockets of his white polyester workout shorts. He looked exactly like he had a dozen other times on a magazine cover. Show-off.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t affected in the least bit.
I felt smug and disinterested. Mostly I didn’t find myself giving a single crap that Reiner Kulti was standing by my car. Not anyone else’s, mine. He wasn’t the first guy I’d seen doing it, and he wouldn’t be the last.
My face didn’t betray me as I closed the distance between us. I didn’t think about the fact that I’d ripped my headband off as soon as I finished cooling down, that I hadn’t tweezed my eyebrows in a week or taken care of my upper lip.
My muscles were tight from exercise, I felt strong mentally, and that was more than enough for me.
Kulti’s lake-colored eyes stayed locked on my face as I walked right in front of him to pop my trunk and drop my things inside. I hadn’t finished slamming it shut when I said, “I have to get to work. Do you need something?”
“My driver isn’t here.”
So that’s why he’d gotten into the back seat the one day I saw him getting into his car and why he’d hitched a ride with me the day before.
I left my hand on the trunk and looked at him over my shoulder, at his short hair, his stern face, his full mouth. Yeah, I still didn’t care. “Okay. Do you need to borrow my cell?”
“I need a ride,” he said in his low voice. What was I? Driving Miss Daisy? “Could you give me one?” he asked.
Was this real life? Was this really happening? “You want me to give you a ride again?”
To give him credit, he didn’t break eye contact once. “It would be appreciated.”
It would be appreciated. My eyes almost crossed in response.
“I have to get to work,” I told him in a calm voice because it was the truth.
Sure, I was meeting Marc at a house about a mile away from Kulti’s, but he didn’t know that.
Also it wasn’t like spending one-on-one time with an ungrateful jerk was at the top of my list of things I wanted to do.
The look he gave me in response said that he didn’t exactly believe me. At all. For one second, I felt guilty for lying. Then I remembered how I’d tried being friendly with him time and time again and for what? To get snapped at? I didn’t owe him a thing.
The corners of his mouth tightened, and a noticeable deep breath made its way out of lungs that used to carry him across the length of a full-sized soccer field effortlessly. The “please” caught me totally off guard.