Chapter 19 #4
The kicker was that my dad genuinely did sound hurt.
Not much, but enough that I felt guilty I hadn’t said anything to him about my friendship with the Bratwurst King of the World.
Dad was my best friend. I usually told him everything.
While I would never say I loved one parent more than the other, my dad and I had always had a special relationship.
He’d been my buddy, my champion, my co-conspirator, and my backup for as long as I could remember.
When my mom had tried to force me to play every other sport besides soccer, Dad had been the one who argued that I should do whatever I wanted.
So his words were enough to wipe the smile off my face as I leaned into him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I wasn’t even sure we really were friends. At first he was just kind of an asshole, and then we became friends.”
“Hmph.”
“I’m serious, Dad. It’s just weird. I had to think about him pooping for the first two months so I wouldn’t stutter every time I was around him.”
That made him crack a small smile.
“We played soccer together a few times, I took him with me to play softball with Marc and Simon, and he took me to the doctor a week ago,” I explained, surprised he hadn’t seen the pictures of us that had been posted on Kulti’s fan websites.
And even when my dad’s favorite athlete in the universe was within walking distance, the number one man in my life put me first. “What the hell did you go to the doctor for?” he snapped.
Ten minutes later, I’d told him everything—mostly. From the softball game that had gone wrong, to Kulti taking me to the doctor, to the conversation with Mr. Cordero, and finally to the German showing up to my place that morning.
Dad was shaking his head by the end, anger apparent in his eyes. “Cabrónes. We’ll sue them if they do anything,” he said, still hung up on Mr. Cordero.
What was it with these men and suing people? “We’ll worry about it later. I didn’t violate any terms of my contract, so I don’t think they can do anything.” I really hoped. “You-know-who told me not to worry about it.”
His eyes narrowed, but grudgingly he nodded.
“Ready to see your true love?” I asked with a smile on my face.
Dad smacked me on the back of the head lightly. “I don’t know why we didn’t put you up for adoption,” he said, getting to his feet.
I shrugged and followed him out of the room, noticing how slowly he was walking and the way he looked around the corner like he expected someone to pop out of nowhere and scare the crap out of him.
In the kitchen, we found Kulti sitting at the small round table crammed into the corner of the room, a plate of watermelon, jicama, celery, and broccoli, with a glass of water in front of him.
My mom was digging in the fridge for something.
The German stood up and extended a hand out to my dad, not saying a word.
And my poor starstruck dad glanced at him, and in a way that wasn’t at all like his usual self, timidly stuck his hand out—only slightly trembling—and clasped Kulti’s.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Casillas,” Kulti said in flowing Spanish, keeping eye contact with my dad.
I had to pinch my nose when my dad nodded rapidly in return, sucking in a loud breath when their hands broke apart.
Coming up from behind, I squeezed my dad’s shoulders and whispered in his ear about how he needed to imagine him pooping, before taking a seat next to the German and sneaking a piece of watermelon off his plate.
Dad grabbed a seat next to me and across from Kulti, looking everywhere but at The King. This was the same man who didn’t know how to behave in a movie theater, much less church. Loud, outgoing, opinionated, and stubborn with a temper that was well known… he sat quietly in his chair.
This was exactly what I’d been worried about with bringing Kulti to San Antonio.
I wanted to spend time with my parents, not have my dad so freaked out he refused to talk.
I wasn’t going to embarrass him by pointing out how weird he was acting in front of the German, and I decided to try and show a little patience.
We, or at least I, were going to be here for the next three days; Kulti and I hadn’t talked about whether he’d figure out another way to get back to Houston, but the fact he hadn’t mentioned leaving hadn’t escaped me either.
So, we’d see how it’d go.
Kulti nudged the plate in my direction, and I smiled as I took a piece of jicama. Then it hit me.
“Where’s Ceci?” I asked my parents.
Dad raised his eyebrows, but it was my mom who answered. “In her room.”
Of course she was. There was no way in hell she didn’t know I’d gotten home. The little pain in the ass.
“Who is Ceci?” Kulti asked, holding a piece of broccoli in his hand.
“My little sister.”
He blinked.
I shrugged. What else was I going to say? That my sister hated my guts during different moon cycles?
Fortunately, he didn’t ask anything else. I knew Dad took it personally when Ceci acted like a turd, and then my mom would get mad that we weren’t more understanding and patient with her. I was patient with her. I hadn’t punched her yet despite the dozens of times she’d deserved it.
My mom took a seat at the table and started asking if we had any plans for tomorrow, and then saying how my aunts and cousins wanted to see me.
Pretty soon it was close to ten and I was yawning up a storm, wondering how the hell my dad hadn’t cracked a single sigh when I knew damn well he was used to going to bed early, too.
The silence was just weird, with me trading looks with Kulti and my mom while Dad avoided everyone’s eyes.
All right, I’d had enough.
“You want me to show you where you can sleep?” I asked the German.
He nodded.
There was only one guest bedroom, and since my little sister wasn’t even going to bother coming out to tell me hi, I guess sleeping in her room was out of the question.
As Kulti followed me out of the kitchen and we passed the small living room with its hard couch that had been bought for durability rather than for comfort, I felt my eye twitch a little.
That thing was unforgivable, but there was no way I was going to banish my friend to that cloth-covered rock.
What had once been my brother’s room long, long ago, had been painted and converted into a guest room for whoever was in town.
My parents weren’t fans of buying new things if the old things still worked, so I knew exactly what I’d be walking into.
Ceci’s and my old furniture back when I’d lived with them before college.
Bunk beds.
It was a full-sized frame at the bottom and a twin at the top.
I almost smiled when Kulti didn’t even blink an eye at the accommodations.
“Welcome to Hotel Casillas.” I held my hand out in presentation mode, letting him take in the black metal bunk beds, the thirty-something-inch flat-screen mounted on a dresser, and the various posters and articles of Eric and me on display that my parents had moved in there after Ceci had ranted her mouth off.
She couldn’t live with our achievements constantly in her face, or something like that.
She acted like we’d been given what we had. Ha.
“Natural talent” and genetics only went so far.
“Where are you sleeping?” he asked, dropping our bags on the floor.
“Umm….”
“In there,” my dad piped up as he walked past the bedroom; his was at the end of the hall. Like he’d been talking all night, he said over his shoulder, “?Buenas noches!”
Sleep in the same room with him? The two times I’d brought my ex with me, Dad had made him sleep in the living room, but with Kulti over?
I seriously doubted my age had anything to do with why he was throwing us together in the small bedroom.
If he would have known I was bringing him, I’m sure he would have taken the twin mattress out.
Typical.
I could have argued, but did I really want to sleep on the floor in my parents’ bedroom or squeeze onto the couch? No thanks.
“You mind if I sleep on the top one?” I asked.
Those hazel-green eyes took in the bed, and I could see either amusement or something similar in the way he looked at it. He shook his head, still eyeing it. “No. You can have the bottom one.”
“You’re too tall for the top one,” I explained to him. “Take the bottom. The mattress is newer too.”
He gave me a side-glance and nodded before scooting our bags deeper into the room and then crouching down to dig through his.
“There’s a bathroom right next door. Get whatever you want from the kitchen; my house is your house.
Everyone sleeps solid, so you won’t bother anybody.
” I drummed my fingers on my leg, trying to figure out if there was anything else I needed to tell him.
There wasn’t. “I want to see if my sister is up before I get ready for bed.”
The German just nodded and mumbled something I didn’t completely understand.
My little sister’s bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom door. The slit beneath the door was lit up, and the television was loud enough for me to hear it, so I knocked pretty loud. “Ceci?” I rapped my knuckles. “You up?”
No answer.
“Cecilia?” I knocked again. Still nothing.
“Ces, seriously?”
There was no response. I wasn’t delusional enough to think she’d fallen asleep with the television on. I knew my sister. She couldn’t sleep with any light. She was just being a little shit. Again.
I’d never done anything to her. I’d never given her a hard time, discouraged her, or said anything mean.
Maybe I’d been wrapped up in my career for all her life, but I’d been there as much as I could.
From the moment she was old enough, maybe around six or seven, she’d turned into the fucking “woe is me” devil.
I had to take a deep breath and let out a deeper sigh to not let her bring my mood down. She wasn’t going to open the door, and I wasn’t going to beg her either.