Kulti

Chapter 23 #3

“Now you know it’s bad when Reiner Kulti is on the field checking on his player,” the other anchor said in a mocking voice.

The scene changed to another clip just as the camera zoomed in on Kulti grabbing my hand, placing his free palm right next to my head. His mouth opened, and his face was distressed....

That warm, fuzzy feeling I associated with the German when he was at his nicest, pulsed through my veins.

“Don’t you ever pass out on the goddamn field again.”

I turned my body back to face Kulti, who was sitting there looking unbelievably uncomfortable. “You were worried about me.” I pressed my lips together. It wasn’t the right time to smile, so I wouldn’t.

Part of me expected him to explode, but the creepy controlled tone he used was even worse than the vicious temper hidden in that fantastic body. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

“You were the last one to come visit me,” I told him in a low voice.

His head jerked back, a scowl on his face. “I made myself go for a run to calm down enough so I wouldn’t show up here and yell at you. I wanted to wring your neck, Sal.”

“I didn’t even do anything.” I wasn’t sure whether to think this was funny, sweet, or annoying because it seemed like he was pretty much blaming me for being in Melanie’s way. “I thought you’d be proud of me for surviving getting hit by a player that size.”

Then he went for it, and I just sat there and took it. “You scared the hell out of me!”

An image of a lion with a thorn in his paw flicked through my head, and by some miracle I didn’t smile. “You’re yelling,” I stated very calmly, eating up his reaction.

“Of course I’m yelling! I was yelling at you when you were pretending to be dead on the field, taking ten years off my life,” he snapped, his face going red at the cheeks.

“I thought….” He shot me a sharp look that almost alarmed me.

“Don’t ever do that to me again. I’m too young to die of a heart attack. ”

Holy crap, he’d really been worried. I loved it. I loved it so much I snorted despite the sharp pain that spiked through my head. “I would say claiming you’re too young is a bit debatable, don’t you think?”

The German tilted his head up and cursed something low and long in German. “You were brought to this planet to give me an ulcer, weren’t you?”

Oh my God. That made me burst out laughing, which hurt like hell because my poor head felt so tender, but I couldn’t stop, and I didn’t want to.

“Why are you laughing? I’m not making a joke.”

My whole body was shaking as I laughed, but somehow I managed to wheeze out, “You make it sound like I was sent from an alien planet to ruin your life. Jesus, Rey. Don’t say stuff like that right now, my head hurts too much.”

“Stop that,” he demanded. “You’re going to make it worse.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and made myself calm down.

It took longer than necessary for me to get it together, but I managed.

Eventually. Finally sobered up, I smiled at him, coughing with the laughter left over in me.

“It really means the world to me that you got all riled up worrying over me.” I couldn’t stop smiling.

And he noticed. “This isn’t meant to be funny. Why are you smiling?”

“Because.”

“What?”

I rolled my lips over my teeth and gave him an even look.

“I watched this one game where your teammate, Keller, got tackled and had four of his vertebrae dislocated. The camera zoomed in on you, and you were retying your cleats or something. I don’t know why I just remembered that.

Two of my favorite things about you were that you never gave a single shit what happened to anyone else on the field, and that you never missed games unless you couldn’t walk.

It’s impressive, really. It makes me feel really special that you care about me. ”

“I care about things,” he argued.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Winning.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Okay.”

“My fish.”

His fish. Jesus Christ.

Kulti blinked slowly and didn’t say anything for a long time, even as I made sure to keep watching him with an expectant look on my face. When he finally answered, it caught me off guard.

“You.”

Me.

Wait. Me?

I was pretty sure I was beaming down to my soul. The words just kind of came out of me, unrestrained and unblemished. “Your friendship means the world to me too, you know?”

He didn’t break eye contact as he reached back and grabbed the fruit arrangement, finally deciding to share. I took it from him and looked it over, taking a chocolate-covered strawberry off in the process of my inspection. “Did you get a discount on this?”

“No.” He paused. “Why?”

I slanted a look at him before taking a bite of the berry. “Half of the fruit is missing.”

He reached forward and took a grape that was being used as a flower-shaped pineapple’s stigma. “Nothing is missing. I ate it.”

This man. I squeezed my eyes shut to keep from laughing.

He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

An hour or so passed, and he still hadn’t left by the time the next nurse came in to check on me. “Ms. Casillas, how are you—”

The poor lady shut her mouth, her eyes widening at the sight of the German sitting in the chair with his feet right next to mine. Her swallow was visible as she darted her eyes back and forth between the two of us.

“Oh, ah, I had no idea you had a visitor.” She cleared her throat.

“It is past visiting hours, but—” She cleared her throat again, her cheeks turning bright red.

“—I can keep a secret as long as you’re quiet.

” In her early thirties, she was young and pretty.

Her eyes kept switching back to him, suddenly jumping in place a little.

She left a few minutes later after doing a quick check to make sure I wasn’t exhibiting any signs of imminent death. “If you’re planning on taking an extended nap while you’re here, that chair in the corner has a footrest that comes out and it reclines.”

I waited until we were alone before asking, “Are you planning on staying?”

His answer was to toe off his sneakers, revealing bright white socks. I guess I could take that as a good sign. “Have you heard anything from your agent?”

“Nothing new. Someone is supposed to be giving me a call next week from a team in Sweden that seems interested.” A flutter went through my belly. Sweden. I still hadn’t wrapped my head around it.

“Which team?” he asked casually. I told him the name, and he nodded. “That’s a good one.”

I didn’t miss the fact that he’d done research on the teams—or clubs, as they were called overseas. I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.

“What about France? Germany?”

“I know she heard back from two teams in Germany, but she hasn’t said anything else about it, and France, I have no idea.

” I wiggled my toes beneath the thin blanket I’d used to cover myself up in the freezing cold room.

I suddenly remembered what I’d told Franz about Amber.

I’d yet to tell Kulti the story, and it made me feel guilty.

Here he was after worrying about me and apparently spending the night, and he didn’t know the truth. “Rey?”

“Taco.”

“Remember when you heard Amber calling me names, and I didn’t want to tell you why?”

Kulti was still staring at the television when he answered. “I know why.”

Say what? My head throbbed in response to his statement. “You do?”

“Yes, something about that woman with the horse teeth throwing a tantrum because her husband is a liar. You left the team.” He glanced at me.

“Now that we are on the topic, I have to tell you how much of an idiot you were. That situation wasn’t your fault, and the coach should have let her go instead of you.

You’re faster, you make better decisions, and your ball-handling is much better.

” He sounded so nonchalant through his speech; I couldn’t wrap my head around everything he said.

I was still hung up on the fact that he freaking knew.

“How did you find out?” It was supposed to be a secret, damn it.

He lifted a shoulder. “My manager knows everything.” Yeah, my mouth opened in disbelief. “She heard about it?”

“She makes an effort to know everything before convincing me to do something. She did her research on the team, and I’m assuming she found out then. Don’t frown at me. Secrets don’t exist for her; I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew all the bad things every player on the team has ever done.”

My cheeks went hot, and I tried to rationalize what he was implying.

“You could have asked me. I would have told you,” I grumbled.

Refusing to look at me, he replied, “You were taking too long.”

Dear God. I was going to murder him. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Yes. I already said you were an idiot for not fighting them, but there is nothing I can do about it now. If someone ever did that to you now, I would feel differently about it. That will never happen again, understand?”

For some strange reason, his defense had me beaming. It didn’t matter anymore. It was in the past and… well, he didn’t think what I’d mistakenly been accused of was a big deal. Why should I? Maybe it was time to leave Amber and her idiot husband behind. Hopefully I’d have a fresh start.

I took a deep breath and took in his side profile, cute nose, perfectly proportionate chin, and his beard stubble. “What about you? Made any decisions yet on what you’re going to do?”

He swung those light-colored eyes over to me. “No. I haven’t decided anything.”

I watched him out of the corner of my eye. “Have the Pipers asked you to re-sign?”

“Yes.” He glanced back over at me, smiling that baby grin. “Do you believe the term ‘fuck off’ would be an appropriate answer?”

I cracked a smile and reached over to squeeze his shin. “I think I like it.”

His phone was ringing again.

“If you don’t answer it, I’m going to,” I threatened him, not straying from keeping my eyes on the scenery outside.

“Neither of us is answering,” he said what I had already come to assume after the fourth time his phone had rung since I’d gotten released from the hospital.

What seemed like every five minutes, the trauma had started all over. Beep, beep, beep. The most boring ringtone ever created had been on a constant loop.

“Who’s calling?” I finally asked.

“My publicist. Cordero. Sheila.”

Oh brother. “You mean Sheena?”

“Yes. Her.”

“What do they want?” No one had called me.

The only person I had spoken to was Gardner, to let him know that the doctor had come in that morning and said I was free to go.

But it had taken hours to get discharged.

Holy crap. The team had flown back without me, a van dropping my things off before heading to the airport.

Gardner had said he’d let Kulti know what was happening since he apparently decided to miss the flight and catch the next one with me.

He sighed. “They don’t want us to get on the same flight together.”

That had me turning in the cab’s old leather seat. “Why?”

He made a face that said how stupid he thought this all was. “The photographs.”

The photographs if someone realized who he was. I wasn’t anything special to look at, no one would recognize me, but he was a different story.

It was my turn to sigh. “I can sit by myself.”

“Don’t start, Sal,” he grumbled, still not looking my way.

“What? I get it. It would be less crap for them to deal with.”

That had him glancing over, his mouth set into a firm line. “This isn’t ‘crap,’ and I’m not going to pretend like we don’t know each other. I’m not a child, and neither are you.”

Jumping to agree to their terms so quickly made me feel like a guilty asshole.

I hated saying he was right, but it was the truth.

What did I have to hide? I looked at the hazel-green orbs staring at me and remembered that this was the person who had spent the night in a chair too small for him and woken up every time the nurse checked on me.

That made me feel like that much more of an asswipe.

For one brief moment, I asked myself what the hell had I gotten myself into. This was the equivalent of being scared of heights and getting a job window-washing skyscrapers.

But as I took in his thirty-nine-year-old face that had been such a huge aspect of my life when I was younger and had somehow become an ever larger figure now that I was a lot older, I accepted the fact that there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for him.

I wasn’t positive whether to let that make me feel weak or to accept it for the gift it would have been if I let myself think of it that way.

I had a man I respected that respected me, and he didn’t care if the world knew we meant something to each other.

Our friendship hadn’t been given to either one of us; we had worked at it.

On top of that, I felt something for him, even if he was an egotistical, arrogant, stubborn pain in the ass.

He was my egotistical, arrogant, stubborn pain in the ass.

So, yeah, I wasn’t about to let someone—anyone—cheapen our friendship. That person sure as hell wasn’t going to be Cordero either.

“I’m sorry. You’re right.” The only thing I didn’t want and wouldn’t want, would be to get stared at. That was all. A thought entered my head. “Does your publicist hate us hanging out together?”

“My publicist hates most things, schnecke. Don’t worry about him.”

That wasn’t super reassuring but all right.

I smiled at him. I guess his publicist could sign up on the long list of “People Who Aren’t Fans of Sal.

” Someone had told me once that you couldn’t make everyone happy, and I’d kept that close to my chest for a very long time.

Once you reluctantly accepted that people were always going to judge you no matter what, it got a little easier to deal with having people dislike you.

A little.

“Why are you frowning? Is your head bothering you?” Kulti asked in a worried tone.

Yeah, there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do for him. Not that I would ever admit it out loud.

I repeated that to myself the instant the first person recognized Kulti at the airport.

I kept repeating that to myself when a security officer was forced to lead us into a special room to wait until boarding began.

When I became overwhelmed at the people craning their necks to get a good look at the German, I told myself that this was all part of it.

My face got all red because he wouldn’t let me walk ahead and pretend like I didn’t know him.

This was all part of being friends with the German.

But it definitely sucked, and I wasn’t a fan.