Kulti

by Mariana Zapata

  And then… “Where was your assistant coach tonight?”

  “I wasn’t told,” I replied.

  “Are the rumors regarding an inappropriate relationship between the two of you affecting your game?” someone else asked.

  I bristled on the inside but managed to smile. “I would be distracted if there was something for me to be distracted about, but my only focus this season, like every other season, has been winning. That’s all.”

  “So you’re denying that there’s something going on with you and Kulti?”

  I’m in love with him and he thinks he feels something for me, I thought to myself but instead said, “He’s my best friend and he’s my coach. That’s the only thing I’m confirming.”

  All I got in return were blank faces from the people hoping for something more dramatic. If only they’d been around earlier when I’d received and given the sweetest little kisses in the world from the man in question.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said and made my exit, hustling past the other family members and fans who were waiting by the press. I shook some hands, gave a few hugs and waved at people I recognized.

  It was that damned Corona cap I spotted first, as far away from the media as possible; next to him were my parents, Marc and Simon. It was my dad who saw me approaching first. He came rushing toward me, his face glowing. Dad grabbed me in a big hug and said the words that he used every time I made him exceptionally proud.

  “You could have scored at least two more goals.”

  “Next time,” I agreed, hugging him back.

  My mom was next.

  “You’re not leaving yourself open as much. Good job.”

  Finally after my mom let me go, Kulti stepped forward before Marc or Simon could. He put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes holding mine steady and only the faintest hint of a smile on his mouth.

  “Yes, oh wise one? What words of advice do you have for me?”

  That small smile blossomed. “Your parents said it all.”

  * * *

  “Buenas noches, amores,” my mom said goodnight to both my dad and I before disappearing into my bedroom. My parents were spending the night.

  Dad leaned back against the couch and sipped the beer he’d bought on our way home. Our group of six had all gone out to eat immediately following the game. He waited until the bedroom door clicked shut before saying, “Now can you tell me why Kulti wasn’t coaching tonight?”

  The fact he’d made it almost five hours until finally breaking down and asking why the German had sat in the stands was amazing. I had to give him credit for holding onto the question so long when it had to be eating him up inside. “Yes.”

  He exhaled, and I had to fight the urge to take the bottle from him and take a swig.

  “He sat out today so that I could play. He’s sitting out the final so I can play then too,” I explained slowly. “The other girls have been complaining about how he’s playing favorites, so…” The last month of my life suddenly came down on my shoulders again, and all I could do was shrug helplessly.

  Dad stared and then stared a little more. One of his eyelids started fluttering a little. “Tell me what happened.”

  I did. I told him about how I’d been cleared to play, but how they’d initially said I was going to be benched.

  Dad gulped down half the bottle in response. He looked about ready to pop. If anyone understood the magnitude of what Kulti’s actions meant, he did. “Sal…”

  “Yes?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He gave me a look. “You know what you need to do.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know.”

  God, was this what talking to me was like? “Dad… I… I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think about all of it. We’re in completely different leagues. I’m me; he’s him. It would never work.”

  He nodded, seriously. “I know. You’re too good for him, but I’ve taught you better than to be so conceited.”

  Oh God. Why did I bother? I started cracking up. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Jeez.”

  He smiled over and pressed the cool glass of the beer bottle to my knee. “Does he know about your little obsession?”

  I gave him an ‘are you kidding me’ look that had him chuckling in response.

  “I want to see them.”

  “See what?”

  “Your chicken wings,” he deadpanned.

  I groaned.

  He took it to another level when he started squawking.

  “I’ve always known you were insane.”

  Dad snorted. “I thought you were a tiger, hija mia.”

  There he went. Leave it to my dad to bring up exactly what I’d been worried about. Had I really lost my guts? “I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t even know why he thinks he has feelings for me either, Dad. What am I supposed to do? He’s doing all these things and saying stuff, when he’s never even given me the idea that he thinks of me as anything more than a friend. What am I supposed to do?”

  He gave me that look that said he wasn’t impressed that I was asking for his opinion. “Do you really want me to tell you?”

  I nodded.

  “When I met your mom, I knew exactly who she was. Everyone knew who she was. I’ve told you before, I didn’t talk to her first, she came up to me.” Dad smiled gently at the memory. “I didn’t have anything to offer her. I didn’t even finish high school and your mom was La Culebra’s daughter. It didn’t matter how many times I told her she could find someone better; she never left. If it didn’t matter to her that we would never be rich, then why should I push her away? I loved her and she loved me, and when you have love, you find a way to make things work.” He pressed the bottle to my knee again. “You can have anything you want in the world. Anything you’ve ever wanted, you’ve worked for, and I know that you know that. ‘I can and I will,’ remember?

  “I’ll tell you this, too. I knew something was going on when you showed up at the house with him. No man is going to go visit your family because he’s bored. No one would spend so much time with you if he didn’t want more, and my birthday was months ago, Salomé.” He pointed at his heart. “Think with your heart, not your head. I’ve never known you to not take every opportunity you’ve ever been presented with. Don’t start passing on them now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Where’s Coach Kulti?”

  “He’s taking time off for the rest of the season,” Gardner answered before walking off.

  I stretched my arms up over my head to really get a good stretch into those shoulder muscles always nagging me. All the while pretending like I didn’t hear the group talking twenty feet away.

  “He’s been here all season, and now he’s decided to take time off?”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Really?”

  “I bet Sal knows what’s going on.”

  “Duh, she knows. I’m sure they spent last night together.”

  A couple of my teammates giggle-laughed. Whores.

  “You know, I heard she went by Cordero’s office and he gave her an ultimatum: Stop seeing him or he’d trade her.”

  “No way! What’d she say?”

  “Oh, I have no idea, but I think that’s why they were planning on benching her in the semi-final the other night. If that would have been me, and they told me I wasn’t starting, I don’t even know what I would’ve done. But not Sal, she just stood there. I didn’t see her bat an eyelash.”

  “No shit. She’s never upset; I don’t think she feels anything. I know I’ve never seen her cry.”

  Yep, still not looking.

  “Me neither. Her entire life revolves around playing. She’s a robot or something.”

  And that was my cue to zone the group out. To zone every single girl I’d at one point or another helped, including Genevieve.

  A robot. They though
t I was a robot.

  I took a breath.

  Everything was fine.

  I only had one more game to go. That was it. Five more practices to get through before the season was over.

  What was that saying? When life gives you lemons, go to a taco stand.

  * * *

  When I pulled into the driveway that day, there was a mountain bike off to the side, and next to it was the German. The Audi was nowhere in sight.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” I said, getting out. “I took a yoga class at the gym already; otherwise I would have come home and made you do some with me.” I wasn’t even joking either. His butt in downward dog… God help me. It seemed to be one of the only things that could cheer me up lately.

  Kulti dusted off said bubble butt as he got to his feet. “I’ve only been here an hour.”

  From anyone else, the comment would have sounded like he was impatient, but he didn’t look anxious at all. “Did you ride your bike all the way over?” I asked, eyeing the black mountain bike I’d never seen before.

  “Yes,” he said, taking my bag from me. “I bought it this morning.”

  I followed him up the stairs and handed him the keys to open the door. He left my bag in the exact same place I usually had it and set my dad’s hat on the appropriate hook. My dad had said I wasn’t allowed to ever wash that damn Corona hat.

  “I’m going to hop in the shower. I’ll be back out soon.”

  In no time, I was in and out. By the time I made it back, he was on the couch watching television. I grabbed a protein bar and took a seat on the other end.

  Kulti tilted his head and raked his gaze from my face down, down, down to land on the white tank top I’d put on over a clean sports bra, and then kept right on burning a visual path to my thighs. He took a quick breath I almost missed. Those amber eyes slid back up to my face.

  “What is it?” I scrunched up my face, expecting the worst.

  “Do those freckles go everywhere?”

  He was talking about the freckles on my chest and my stupid, stupid nipples reacted as if he were calling them to attention. “Umm…”

  A tendon in his neck flexed, and Kulti gave me what could have been considered a grimace. “I’ll behave.” A shaky sigh made its way out of his chest and reached straight into mine. “I need to tell you what my lawyer said.”

  “Is it bad news?” With my luck lately, I shouldn’t expect any different.

  “No. She looked over your contract, drew up our own, and she’ll be sending that to Cordero tomorrow with a check to buy you out.”

  There were so many keywords in one sentence. Leaving the Pipers was really happening. Jesus Christ. “That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  It would all be over soon. The reminder that Kulti was paying to get me out of the Pipers made my stomach feel just the slightest bit weird. It was happening. Oh man. “I—“

  “Don’t say anything about your contract.” He shot me an even look. “I had no idea how much it was worth, and frankly, it was insulting once she told me the number.”

  To him it would seem like chump change. Well, to most professional athletes it would definitely seem like nothing. What could you do? I enjoyed playing, and I made ends meet with what I did with Marc. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t need a luxury car, a massive house or name-brand things to make me happy. But it was the thing he said about how I would do it for him if the tables were turned, that kept me from kicking up a huge stink. He was right. I would buy him out if he were in my shoes, so I wasn’t going to be a huge hypocrite about it. Maybe I could pay him back somehow later on.

  “Has your agent heard back from any of the teams?” he wanted to know.

  I shook my head. “No. She told me to be patient. Chances are, I won’t get any offers until the season is over, so we’ll see.” I gave him a brave smile that I only partially felt. “I’m going to try not to worry about it. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If not, then… I’ll figure something out. This isn’t the end of the world.”

  “It isn’t,” he agreed.

  I sighed and decided to change the subject. “Everyone was asking where you were today.”

  Kulti snickered. “I was very disappointed not to be there,” he deadpanned, which made me laugh.

  “Yeah, right. What did you do instead?”

  “I bought my bike and went for a long ride,” Kulti explained.

  He triggered my memory, and I suddenly remembered what I’d been meaning to ask. “Hey I kept forgetting to bring it up, but where did you go those two days you missed practice? When I texted you and you didn’t respond. Thank you for that, by the way.”

  “I was home.” Kulti glanced up at the ceiling.

  “So you were just ignoring my text messages?” The fact he didn’t even try and bullshit me made me respect him a little more.

  He lowered his gaze to side-eye me. “I was furious with you.”

  If I remembered correctly, I’d done the same thing when I’d been angry with him for being weird in front of Franz and Alejandro. Bah. I reached over and patted his knee. “Well like I told you in my text, I’m sorry for what I said that day. I was frustrated, and I didn’t mean it.”

  “I know that now.” He blinked. “You aren’t a quitter, and I wouldn’t let you give up anyway.”

  Talking about those nearly back-to-back conversations made my eye twitch. “Don’t be a dick and accuse me of sleeping with your friend then.”

  Kulti made a face that was almost remorseful. Almost. “I was… agitated. I didn’t like the idea of you spending time with him in secret. It bothered me.”

  I’m not sure why it took me so long to understand what had upset him, why Franz and I practicing bothered him so much. Was this real? If he wasn’t full of crap about what he was saying, a lot of things finally made sense. Why he was so adamant about us not going on dates with other people when Sheena had suggested. The face he made when I’d told him about my ex.

  “I don’t like the idea of you being with another man.”

  I will not smile. I will not smile. “I wouldn’t like the idea of you spending time with another woman and not telling me about it either.” There, I said it. I just went right out and said it. All right. I cleared my throat, bit both my lips at the same time and shrugged. “There isn’t anything wrong with that. I thought you were just being an asshole about Franz. I sure as hell don’t like thinking about you being with other women, or even being reminded of your ex-wife, if I’m even allowed to say that. I know I don’t look like the women you’re usually interested in, or dress like the women you used to date, but you know that and you’re still here. That has to count for something,” I told him honestly.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he claimed.

  “You can say that all you want, but you told me that you are the way you are and you’re never going to change, so I’m going to tell you the same thing. I am the way I am, and I’m never going to change either. I wasn’t built for a whole bunch of drama, Rey. Everything going on right now, this is it. I’m maxed out. I want a steady, stable life. When I commit to something, I’m in all the way. I don’t share, or even play around with the idea of infidelity. You’re my friend right now, but I don’t want something to happen that makes me want to move on with my life. I don’t want to be forced to pretend like these last few months haven’t happened. You mean too much to me.”

  Maybe I was expecting him to get all smug about what I said, but he didn’t. Instead, that intense expression that usually lived on his face reached a different level. He gave me one of those stares that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “You say that as if there were anyone else in this world I would want. You have no idea what I feel for you.” He blinked and spat out something I never would have expected. “There is no gray area for me where you’re concerned. I don’t share, and I expect nothing less from you.”

  I… what in the hell do you say to that? What? What could you possibly say? It was psycho
sure, but it didn’t bother me. I’d been the teenager that drew mustaches on his ex-girlfriends’ faces for months when their pictures would come up in magazines I looked through.

  I swallowed and stared at that lightly lined face, at his crow’s feet and the lines under his eyes. He was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. It was plain and simple.

  “You never said or did anything to let me know you saw me as more than a friend,” I explained, making sure we were eye-to-eye.

  The German didn’t look exactly appeased by my observation. He licked his lips and leaned back against the couch, eyeing me with an expression that was part aggravation and part something else. “What would you have done if I’d said something?”

  The hell? “Not believed you.” Why would I? We’d been so hot and cold; I never understood what the hell was going through his head.

  He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “That’s your reason. What would I gain from telling you the first moment I realized you were meant to be mine? Nothing. You’re supposed to protect what you love, Sal. You taught me that. I didn’t wake up one day and know I didn’t want to live without your horrible temper. I saw so much of me in you at first, but you aren’t like me at all. You’re you, and I will go to my grave before I let anyone change any part of you. I know that without a doubt in my mind. This,” he pointed between us. “This is what matters. You are my gift, my second chance, and I will cherish you and your dream. I will protect both of you.

  “I’ve been waiting, and I will keep on waiting until the time is right. You are my equal, my partner, my teammate, my best friend. I’ve done so many stupid things that you’ve made me regret—things I hope you will forgive me for and look beyond— but this, waiting a little longer for the love of my life, I can do.

  “You are the most honest, warm, loving person I know. Your loyalty and friendship amazes me every day. I have never wanted anything more in my life than I want your love, and I don’t want to share that with anyone. I haven’t done a single thing in my life to deserve you, schnecke, but I will never give up on you, and I won’t let you give up on me.”