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He sat back against the bench and adjusted the ice-pack on his knee, his attention steady, and his words careful. “You play how I like. You don’t hold back.”
“Didn’t you tell me yesterday that I think too much when I have the ball?”
His biceps flexed against the back of the seat. “Yes. You play better when you follow your instincts and not your head.”
Was that a compliment? I thought it might be.
“What about Grace, though? I thought you two were friends.”
Reiner Kulti gave me a look. Yes, I was nosey and no, I wouldn’t apologize for it. “Her husband and I have known each other for a long time. He was a trainer in Chicago when I played there. She and I aren’t on speaking terms anymore. Even if we were, I would not have asked.”
Because of what he’d said to the girls that day? Maybe that question was pushing it, so I dropped it and just nodded in understanding.
The part-time model, who once upon a time appeared half-naked in underwear ads, blinked his long eyelashes at me. “I owe you my gratitude. I never thanked you for what you did that night at the hotel. Most people would have handled the situation differently. I—“ his eyes moved from one of mine to the other, gauging me, “—appreciate it. Greatly.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, though now that we were on the topic I wanted to ask why he’d gotten drunk in such a public place. It was probably a little too soon, so I kept my mouth shut. Wiggling my toes, I sat back against the bench, his hand brushing my shoulder and sighed. “And thank you for the ice pack. Hopefully tomorrow I can walk.”
His index finger nudged me. “You will.”
What he wasn’t saying was that I had to. How the hell else would I explain that I’d taken a hoof to the instep? Accidentally? That definitely wasn’t believable.
That didn’t mean I wanted to have him telling me what to do all the time. “Are you going to boss me around even when we’re not on the field?”
He didn’t even blink before he answered. “Yes.”
Chapter Fifteen
The next dayalmost immediately after warming up, the German who had shared his ice pack the day before, sidled up next to me discreetly. With his arms crossed over his chest as he prepared himself to rip us new assholes, he asked in a voice so low only I could hear, “Your foot?”
I crouched down and retied my shoes. “It’s bruised.”
Kulti looked unimpressed when I glanced up, like I was a total baby for succumbing to something like bruising. “I have oil that will make it go away faster,” he mumbled his reply. “Find me after practice.”
I almost choked on my saliva. No joke. Somehow by the grace of God, I managed to get out, “Okay.”
But of course nothing with him was easy. If playing softball outside of practice hours was our dirty little secret, then we were going to keep it that way. “Deal with it until then.”
Ding, ding, ding. There was the man I knew and… respected?
Meh. Something like that.
“I will.”
He nodded. “I know.”
I’d been playing for myself for so long because I loved it, that it took a moment to recognize the flare of pleasure I got from someone else believing in me. Like a flash flood, his words from yesterday filled my veins and had me forgetting about the pain in my foot. He might not ever say it to my face, but the fact was Reiner Kulti had sort of worried about me.
How about that.
Like most injuries, the worst didn’t come until two days later.
Within eighteen hours, what had started as a pinkish mark had reddened to a rusty color. After forty-eight hours, the pain had peaked. At least I hoped it had peaked. I could put pressure on my heel and the outside of my foot, but if I tried to walk flat-footed… fuck me. I wasn’t a complete sucker. I handled pain and played around it all right most of the time. While I definitely wasn’t a masochist, I’d adapted that ‘mind over matter’ mentality years ago. If you didn’t think you were sick, you weren’t sick.
So I had iced the crap out of my foot every chance I had after practice and even during work. I applied the arnica oil that Kulti had handed me like it was steroids after practice, all sneaky-like, and kept off it as much as possible.
And every single time that flash of pain shot up my shin, I cursed the day that little fucker at our rec game was born. I hoped he fell face first into a pile of fire ants. There, I said it, and I had no regrets.
When our next match came, before heading to the stadium I drank some turmeric tea and popped two painkillers in the car. I hoped to make it through the next few hours without getting caught. It bothered me so much that I didn’t even care that we were playing New York, when usually I’d be restless beforehand, almost dreading it.
