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“You know I don’t like to lose.” With a smile, I eyed Kulti and tipped my head over to Marc. “Marc, Rey. Rey, Marc, again. Just in case you didn’t remember.”
Extending out his free hand, my brother’s friend shook my coach’s hand and I swear—Iswear—I saw Marc eye his palm like he was never going to wash that bad boy again. We were going to need to have a talk, seriously. He was just as bad as my dad.
“Is there room for us?” I asked.
“Yeah, except I’m positive no one is going to agree to let you both be on the same team together.” A familiar arm was thrown over my shoulders. “I want to be on his team this time.”
I groaned and tried to elbow him in the ribs. “Traitor.”
“You ladies ready to play?” Simon called out from where he’d quickly gotten surrounded by multiple people.
To no one’s surprise, Kulti and I were chosen for two separate teams, in a way that told me the captains for the week had planned it, before we arrived. A look passed between the two of us that was a mix of a smirk and a grin. Splitting up into our respective teams—my team was playing defense and I’d been assigned second base—I suddenly felt like we were two boxers circling each other, or two rams about to go head to head.
This was going to be fun.
“Tag him! Tag him!” someone yelled.
It was the last inning, with only one out to go. I was playing second base, and a ball had been hit straight at first base. The player on first was barreling toward me as the first baseman ran up behind him.
One of my legs was braced behind me, the other one out in front so I could tag the runner out, if the first baseman didn’t get him first. I should have recognized the look on the guy’s face—pure determination. I was just a girl in front of someone insistent on not getting out. Muscles contracted, my hand was out to catch the ball in case first baseman decided at the last minute to throw it.
But he didn’t.
A second later the runner was on me, one foot stomping down on mine, in an attempt to make it to second. What did I do? I got the hell out of the way, even though it was too late to avoid the heavy-ass shoe on my instep.
Holy freakingshitttt.
A giant puff of air escaped my mouth, and pain flared up through my foot and shin. It was one thing to get stepped on and another to have an elephant-sized foot try and trample me.
“Out! He’s out!”
“Are you blind? He made it!”
Hands gripping my foot over my shoe, I looked up at the sky and breathed through the pain while I tried to convince myself that I was fine. Some of the players were arguing about the call, but I stood off to the side cradling my freaking foot.
“Are you going to live?”
Breathing out through my nose, I looked just slightly down to see Kulti standing in front of me, his thinner bottom lip pulled into a straight line. “I’ll be fine.” Yeah, that didn’t sound convincing at all.
From the shape his eyebrows took, he didn’t believe it either. “Put your foot down.”
“In a minute.”
“Put it down.”
I should and I knew it, but I didn’t want to.
“Now, Sal.”
I gave him a look that said just how much I disliked it when he got bossy and set my foot down anyway, gingerly, gingerly, gingerly—
I groaned, grunted and whimpered just a little at the same time.
“You’re done,” he ordered.
Yeah, we were. I needed to ice myself because there was no way in hell it wasn’t going to bruise spectacularly. Marc and Simon were two of the people arguing about the outcome of the game, those assholes not giving a crap that I’d gotten practically crushed.
“Losers,” I called out. Sure enough, they both looked up. Ha. “I’m leaving now. I’ll call you later.”
