Page 41 of Kulti


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“Twenty-three, what kind of a slow pass is that? Are you even trying?” he belted.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled up and my mouth might have dropped open just a little.

But I pushed.

He kept going. “Twenty-three,this.” “Twenty-three,that.” Twenty-three, twenty-three, twenty-three…

Shoot me in the face, twenty-three.

There wasn’t affection in his tone, much less pride.

Every single time I looked at him when he called my number, his face was set in a rough expression. Glowering. He was glowering at me. That handsome, handsome face was staring at me with an expression that was definitely not very nice.

Good God.

I stood up straight, wiped my sweat off and just glared right back at him. I could deal with this jack-off that had been mean to my dad. At least that’s what my bones said.

“He hasthe worst batting skills I’ve ever seen. No joke. He looks like a lumberjack out there with his bat six feet high and his ass in a different zip code than the rest of his body,” Marc said with a shake of his head as he steered the vehicle onto the freeway. We were on the way to our next jobs—two big houses in a neighborhood called the Heights.

“Worse than Eric?” I asked because as fantastic as he was at kicking a ball and chasing after it, he was pretty shitty at most other sports.

The grave nod Marc gave in response said it all. If the softball player he was talking about was worse than my brother, God help everyone on their team. “Jeez.”

“Yeah, Sal. It’s that bad. He isn’t scared of balls coming at him—“

We both looked at each other the second the two words were used together and we burst out laughing.

“Not that kind of ball,” my friend laughed loudly. “There’s no excuse for being that bad.”

“It happens,” I noted.

He shrugged in reluctant agreement and continued with his story about the new player that had recently joined in on their weekly recreational softball games. “I don’t know how to tell him he’s terrible. Simon said he’d say something, but he wimped out, and most of the time there’s barely enough people to split into two teams,” he said, eyeing me.

So subtle.

I’d played on and off with him for the last two years when I could. While I couldn’t play soccer officially or not-so-officially in any team way besides with the Pipers during the season, no one said I couldn’t join in on the occasional softball game, as long as it wasn’t ‘official.’ That was the keyword I could twist and distort from my contract.

Right as I started to say that I could join in on a few games, my phone rang. On the screen, ‘Dad’ flashed.

Holding my phone up, I told Marc who was calling and answered. “Hey, Pa.”

“Hola. Are you busy?” he replied.

“On my way to a job with Marco Antonio,” I said, using my family’s nickname for him. “Y tu?”

“Okay, I was just calling you quick. I’m going to pick up Ceci from school; she has early dismissal. I wanted to know though, do you think you can get us two more tickets for the opening game? Yourtiois going to be in town that day and he wants to go,” he said slowly.

My uncle wanted to go to a game, but he just didn’t want to pay. What was new?

“I’m sure I can get two, but I won’t be positive until later today, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fine. If you can’t, don’t worry about it. He can afford two tickets. Cheapskate. Call me later when you’re off and tell Marco I said he’s buying me a beer at the game.”

I snorted and smiled, and an instant later I realized I hadn’t brought up the incident with the German. My face flushed and my neck got hot. “Dad, hey. I’m sorry about the open house. If I had known he’d be such an asshole, I would have warned you. I’m really sorry—“

He hissed on the other line, and I didn’t miss the perplexed look Marc shot my way from the other side of the truck’s cab. “Mija, you have no idea how many times someone’s been that way with me. I’m fine. I’m over it now. People are like that because they don’t know any better, but I do.”

“He had no right to act like that. I was so mad, I went up to him and called him a bratwurst,” I admitted aloud for the first time since the incident.

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