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I grinned at him before reaching forward to thump him on the shoulder. “Trust me; I’ve had the urge to punch you in the face a time or five.”
“There’s that temper again. A nice girl would never think about punching someone,” he said with that stupid smirk. “How many people have you punched before?”
“No one,” Jeez Louise, “in at least ten years. I’ve thought about it a hundred times but I haven’t actually gone through with it. Come on.”
He gave me a look that easily replaced a raised eyebrow, making a point about methinkingabout doing things again.
Asshole. “It’s too obvious and you know it. There’s no way to get away with it.”
The German nodded in agreement. “True. How many players have you elbowed before?”
“Enough,” I answered truthfully, knowing that my number would still and forever be a fraction of his.
“You have the most fouls on the team,” Kulti noted, which surprised the shit out of me. “More than Harlow.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Yeah, but it’s not because I elbow people left and right. I haven’t done that since I was a kid and got kicked off a league for it,” I explained to him with a grin.
“Such a great deal of anger for such a small body.” A small smile cracked his lips. “Your parents? What did they think?”
“My mom chewed me out about it. My dad did too, but only when she was around. When she wasn’t, he’d high-five me and tell me the other girl had it coming.” We both laughed. “I love that man.”
Kulti smiled gently, taking a step back only to grab two bowls out of the cabinet. I shot him a look as I poured half of the popcorn into each one and followed him around to the couch, where we took the same seats we’d left. Knowing that I was pushing my luck, I went for it anyway. “What about your parents? Did they go to your games?” I remembered when I was younger at the height of his career, cameras would zoom in on an older couple in the stands, pointing out that they were Reiner Kulti’s parents.
“My father worked quite a bit, and once I went away to the academy, it was too far from home. They went to as many games as they could, watched more on television,” he said around a mouthful of popcorn.
Well that was more than enough information to press for the day. What he didn’t say was that his parents didn’t go to a lot of his games when he was younger, but once he was older, they went whenever he paid. At least that’s what I assumed from the way he worded it. “It worked for all of us.”
I’m positive I didn’t imagine the bite in his words. Obviously, I needed to steer the topic into safer territory.
“One more question and I’ll quit being nosey.” He might have nodded, but I was too busy eating popcorn to be sure. There was no way I could ask him with a straight face. “Did you blow that game against Portugal before you retired or were you really sick?”
His response was exactly what I expected: he threw a pillow at my face.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next twoweeks went by normally. Practices went well, Harlow and Jenny finally came back from their national team obligation, and the Pipers won the next two games in the season. I worked, exercised and Kulti came over nearly every night. We’d watch television, or get pissed off at each other playing Uno or poker, which he taught me to play. A couple of nights he showed up when I was about to start yoga. He’d help me move the couch and did it with me.
It was all fine, fun and easy.
I loved routines and knowing what to expect most of the time.
There were only two downsides, and they both revolved around females.
The girls on the Pipers gave me weird looks and said things when they thought I wasn’t listening. It took everything inside of me some days to ignore them, and other days I’d just smile at them and remind myself that I could go to sleep easily at night knowing that I hadn’t done anything to be ashamed of. Some days were easier than others, but as long as we kept playing well as a team, I’d suck it up and keep my big mouth closed. Harlow on the other hand, didn’t have any problem telling the younger girls to mind their own businesses and focus on soccer and not spreading gossip. She did it without once asking me anything about what was happening with Kulti.
The emails had picked up again. It had started as only a message or two from the German’s female fans, but in no time picked up to three or four. By the time the picture my dad had taken of all us at dinner began being circulated, they were so frequent that I stopped reading emails from people I didn’t recognize. I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t want to. The less attention I brought to myself and Kulti, the better, I figured.
“Holy shit.”
I turned around to see what the sixth grade teacher was ‘holy shitting’ over, and I froze.
Seriously, I froze.
“Holy shit,” I repeated the exact same words that had just come out of the other woman’s mouth.
It was the German walking across the middle school field, which would have been a ‘holy shit’ moment to begin with if I wasn’t already used to seeing him all the time. But there were the two men walking alongside him. One was another German who I’d seen play plenty of times growing up, and the other a Spaniard who I’d met before and happened to have a cologne commercial running on television.
They pooped. They all pooped. Every single one of them.
