Kulti

by Mariana Zapata

  I hated lying, but at least I had promised to visit the doctor and stay in bed.

  “I see.” He took a couple more steps in, his eyes looking to the small kitchen and the counter island where I had two barstools in lieu of a table.

  I stifled a yawn. “Are you okay?”

  Kulti inspected me from head to toe, frowning. “I’m fine. I came to make sure you were alive.”

  I had a brief flashback to the night before, when he’d rolled down the window as his car sat idling in the driveway, ordering me to take something for the pain. “I’m fine. I feel like roadkill, but I’m all right.”

  “You missed practice. You’re not fine.”

  He had an excellent point. “I have a doctor’s appointment at noon, just to make sure nothing is broken.”

  His expression darkened as he walked around me to head into the kitchen. He stopped after taking two steps and looked over his shoulder, his gaze going to my legs. “Do you ever wear pants?”

  “No.” I had shorts on, damn it. Plus, this was Houston. No female wore pants in the summer unless they had to.

  He looked for a second longer, glanced up at my face, and then continued his journey into the kitchen. “Do you have tea or coffee?”

  I pointed. “Both.”

  He made an indiscriminate noise as he searched my kitchen cabinets.

  All right. “Well make yourself at home. I’m gonna go shower and put on some pants, I guess.” I might have given him a dirty look at the mention of putting on bottoms, but he wasn’t paying attention. His back was turned.

  Thirty minutes later, I was freshly showered, my teeth brushed, my hair… well, up in something that could be considered a bun, deodorant applied, jeans that could have passed for leggings and wearing a real bra on, I made an appearance back in the living area of my garage apartment. Kulti was sitting on the couch, drinking from a black coffee mug with an owl picture on it and watching television.

  The fact that the man I’d had on my wall for nearly a decade was sitting on my couch, drinking coffee because he’d come by to check on me, didn’t really hit me much. I wouldn’t say it was normal, but I wasn’t choking up to talk to him or freaking out that I hadn’t dusted in a couple of weeks. It was just… okay. No big deal.

  No big deal that Reiner Kulti was sitting here, hanging out.

  “Are you hungry?” I was starving. By this point in the day, I’d normally already be on my second meal.

  “No,” he replied, still not turning around from his focus the television.

  I eyed him and started looking through my freezer for something easy to cook. There were some frozen turkey breakfast patties, fruit and a whole grain baguette. The frozen fruit I set aside to blend into a smoothie as I got the rest of it ready. Kulti didn’t say anything as I made my meal, but I knew he was fully aware of what I was doing.

  When I was done, I had a blender filled with a weird smoothie of almond milk and leftover frozen fruit. I poured two drinks and put my makeshift breakfast sandwich on a plate.

  “Here,” I said, holding a glass over his head from behind.

  He took it from me without a word, setting the glass on the coffee table. Stiffly, I took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, plate on my lap, smoothie on the coffee table and sat there watching the survival show on the screen. Kulti manned the side table as I ate my food, making a mess all over myself, because it hurt too much to try and have manners.

  “Why do you have so many recordings of this show?” he asked, browsing through my DVR.

  “Because I like it,” I told him. Though, okay, it was only the partial truth. I did like it. I also thought the two guys who tried to survive in different conditions and environments were really attractive.

  Kulti made a humming noise but clicked on the oldest episode at the top. I definitely wasn’t going to complain.

  Not even fifteen minutes into the show, the German completely turned his entire body in my direction, his face suspicious.

  I set the plate on my lap and blinked. “What?”

  “You like them or the show?”

  Oh brother. Marc had laughed hysterically when I admitted how hot I found the two men—they were in their early forties, both graying, one at an early stage of hair loss, but I didn’t care. They were really attractive and the whole survival thing only helped. What did I have to be ashamed about? “Them, mostly.”

  Kulti’s facial expression didn’t change, but his tone said it all. “You’re joking.” He couldn’t believe it. What was the problem? They were both good looking.

  “No.”

  He blinked those green-brown eyes at me. “Why?” he asked, like I’d just told him I drank my own pee.

  I picked the plate up and held it directly under my mouth before taking a bite of my sandwich. “Why not?”

  “You are young enough to be their daughter,” he ground out. “One of them doesn’t have hair on half his head.”

  I took another bite of my food and watched him carefully, not even thinking it was weird that he seemed so outraged at who I found attractive. “First off I doubt they’re old enough to be my dad, and secondly I could care less about a bald spot.”

  Kulti shook his head slowly.

  Okay. “They’re both in good shape, have nice smiles and nice faces.” I glanced at the screen. “And I like their beards. What’s wrong with that?”

  His mouth gaped a millimeter.

  “What?”

  “Do you have father issues?”

  “What? No. My dad’s great, jeez.”

  His mouth still hadn’t closed that tiny gap. “You like old men.”

  I bit both my lips, eyes wide. I’m sure my nose flared a little bit. How close to the truth he was, and it almost made me laugh. Instead, I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say old, merely… mature?”

  Kulti stared at me for so long I started laughing.

  “Stop looking at me like that. I don’t think I’ve ever been attracted to guys my own age. When I was younger…” I’d been in love with you, I thought but didn’t say out loud. “I thought they were dumb and then it just stuck,” I explained.

  He still didn’t say a word.

  “Quit it. Everyone has a type. I’m sure you do.”

  Kulti blinked. “I’m not attracted to senior citizens.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. You don’t like older men or women.”

  He ignored my jab at him being attracted to men. “I don’t have a type,” he said slowly.

  Yes, he did, and I knew exactly what it was. “Everyone is attracted to certain things, even you.”

  Those hazel-green eyes blinked at the speed of a moving glacier. “You want to know what I’m attracted to?”

  I was thirty seconds too late to realize that I didn’t want to know after all. Did I want to hear him spout off prerequisites I didn’t fit? No. Hell no. While I completely understood his place in my life, that didn’t mean I wanted to be the antithesis of Reiner Kulti’s dreams. My pride could only handle so much.

  But it wasn’t like I could back-down by that point. Gritting my teeth, I nodded. “Go for it since you think I’m such a weirdo.”

  “I like legs.”

  Legs? “And?”

  His eyes narrowed just barely. “Confidence.”

  “Okay.”

  “Nice teeth.”

  Hmm.

  “A beautiful face.”

  My eyelid may have started twitching.

  “Someone who makes me laugh.”

  The twitching went into overdrive. “Are you making stuff up?” Because, really? Kulti laughing? Ha.

  “Is there something wrong with my list?” he asked with a stony even glare.

  “There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it if you weren’t randomly blurting stuff out. Someone who makes you laugh? I feel like you’re going to start describing a unicorn after that.”

  He prodded at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “Just because I’m not attracted to women old enough t
o remember the last Great War, doesn’t mean my list is made up,” Kulti said.

  Oh my God. That made me burst out laughing. “You make it sound like I hit up retirement homes for dates. Those men are probably only a couple years older than you are, so think about that, creaky knees.”

  And that got his mouth to close. “You are the most insolent person I have ever met in my life.”

  Smiling, I took a bite out of my sandwich.

  What felt like five minutes later, Kulti finally turned his attention back to the television, one cheek pulled back like he was biting down on.

  When the episode was over, I got up slowly and took my dishes into the kitchen, grabbing Kulti’s right along the way. “I have to leave in thirty. If you promise not to steal anything that you could easily afford on your own, you can stay here and watch more TV.”

  There was a pause as he scrolled through the DVR recordings. “My driver is downstairs. He can take us.”

  Us? My plate clattered into the sink. “You want to come?”

  “I have nothing else to do.”

  That wasn’t the first time he’d said something along those lines. I walked back around the couch and carefully sat down, eyeing him. I knew what I was about to ask was completely out of my league, but whatever. “What exactly do you do all day?”

  It was an honest question. He didn’t have to have a normal job, but I figured he had other things to keep him busy. He had a few projects, some businesses I’d heard about throughout the years, but apparently he also had a lot of time to spare. So what did he do when he wasn’t at practice?

  He kept his attention forward, but I could see the way the shoulder closest to me tightened. His answer was simple. “Nothing.”

  “You have nothing to do?”

  “No.” He amended his answer, “A few emails and phone calls, nothing significant.”

  “Don’t you have businesses and other stuff?”

  “Yes and I have managers that handle everything so that I don’t have to. I’ve minimized my obligations recently.”

  That sounded… awful.

  “You could do things if you wanted to,” I offered lamely. “Community service, get a hobby…”

  Kulti shrugged his shoulders.

  That didn’t help me feel any less weird about how bored he must be. Not having things to do drove me nuts. How could it not drive him crazy too? To stay in his house all day…

  I suddenly remembered the night I picked him up from the bar. All right, so maybe he didn’t stay in his house all day. Regardless, a lot of things suddenly made sense. Why he played softball, asked me to play soccer with him, why he was in my apartment.

  This sense of obligation stirred in my chest. But I didn’t say anything or do anything. Mainly because I wasn’t planning on forgetting what he’d admitted.

  There was such a thing as too much too soon, wasn’t there?

  Leaning back against the couch for a few more minutes, I kept the thought in my head. “In that case, you’re going to have to grab one of my hats before we leave.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my doctor is a fan of yours.” He had a framed jersey in his office.

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “Your picture will be all over the internet before you leave,” I explained. “Then everyone will ask what you were doing at a doctor’s appointment with me, and the next thing I know everyone will say I’m pregnant with your baby.”

  Kulti huffed. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He was right. I could remember at least a few times over the years that some tabloid or magazine reported that he’d impregnated someone he’d been seen with. They speculated on a new relationship every time he stood next to a woman.

  Then there had been his divorce.

  It’d been bad. Bad. People had put a timeline on his marriage from the moment pictures had been released, which at the time, I thought had been one of the worst days of my life. My first love—this asshole who now called me Taco now—had married some tall, skinny, beautiful bitch.

  All right maybe she wasn’t a bitch, but back then you couldn’t have paid me money to think otherwise.

  Exactly one year after his huge spectacle of a wedding, his divorce papers to the Swedish horror-flick actress were filed. Rumors of them cheating on each other, of him starting and ending relationships before things were finalized, talk of an insane pre-nuptial agreement, flooded tabloids and entertainment channels alike. The real kicker had been that the team he’d been playing for that year hadn’t even qualified for the finals. People had ripped Kulti apart. I mean, ripped his ass open.

  While I’d initially forced myself not to follow his career, not to look him up on websites, or even pay attention when his name was brought up, it’d been impossible to ignore all the drama, despite how much I wanted to.

  Then he’d come back the next season and won a championship.

  I hadn’t watched or paid attention to the European League that year, or the two following. By that point, I was too focused on myself and my career. Reiner Kulti had become someone who had nothing to do with me.

  “That’s the price of fame, huh?” I asked, feeling a stab of pain right through my chest. It really shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. It was weird how even now, when I was fully aware there would never be anything between us, my body still had a severe possessive streak in it. He’d gotten married to someone, and pledged his life to another person.

  Bah. I didn’t have time for this crap.

  Kulti’s cheek ticked like he was remembering everything he’d been through too. It wasn’t like he was a talkative forthcoming person to begin with, but when he answered with one word, I figured it was still a touchy subject for him. “Yes,” was the only thing he said.

  All right. I cleared my throat and sang under my breath, “Tough shit, frankfurter.”

  There was a pause before he let out a snicker. “Sal, I don’t know how you haven’t gotten elbowed in the face yet.”

  I opened my mouth and pressed the tip of my tongue behind my upper teeth for a second. “One, at least I tell you things to your face and not behind your back. And two, I have gotten elbowed in the face. Multiple times.” I pointed at a scar right smack on my cheekbone, then the underside of my chin and lastly right above my eyebrow. “So, suck on that, pretzel face.”

  To be fair, he was fast, but I also wasn’t expecting it.

  The couch cushion hit me right in the face.

  * * *

  “Sal, I haven’t you see here in forever,” the receptionist on the other side of the window said as I handed her a clipboard with my paperwork, driver’s license and medical card.

  “You make it sound like that’s not a good thing,” I told her with a smile.

  She winked. “We’ll call you in for your x-rays in a few.”

  I nodded at the older woman and smiled at the couple waiting patiently behind me. I walked back to my seat in the corner of the room where the German was sitting with the television remote in his hand, flicking through channels on the mounted flat-screen. I muffled a groan as I sat, my hands gripping the armrests on the journey down.

  He was eyeing me, only slightly shaking his head.

  “What?”

  He looked down, whether at my hands or the v-neck T-shirt I had pulled on I wasn’t sure, and then returned his gaze to my face. “You.”

  “Be quiet. The last time I took time off from training was when my grandfather died. I don’t play hooky without a good reason.” I blew a long breath out of my mouth and stayed upright, back straight, hands braced to help me up when they called my name.

  He reached over and smacked the side of my knee with the back of his hand. “I’ll be back.”

  I opened my mouth and let a huge grin take over my face, the action halting him halfway up. The only reason I didn’t laugh was because it would hurt, but I still snorted. “Okay, Arnold.”

  Kulti didn’t look particularly impressed. “He’s Austrian, not Ge
rman, you little shit,” he deadpanned, his face saying I was annoying him, but his eyes said thought I was a little funny.