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And we were arguing over two completely different things. Dear God.
I took a deep breath and gave him a steady look. “Of course I freaking care about getting benched, but I also care about who you call me an imbecile in front of. Do you think I want a complete stranger thinking I’m some kind of doormat that lets you talk to me like that? I might be when we’re on the field, but I’m sure as hell not going to let you treat me half as bad as you just treated her, buddy.”
Kulti looked like I was speaking a completely different language, so I took advantage of it.
“This is a team sport. If I’m not playing my best, isn’t it better for someone who is playing better to take my spot?” Not that I wouldn’t fight for it, tooth and nail. I was going to get my shit together and get back into the game, so that no one would take me out. On the other hand, I didn’t feel the need to promise him that. I’d show him. Yet everything that he was telling me went against my natural instinct. This was a team sport, there definitely wasn’t an ‘I’ in soccer.
Obviously my response went completely against his natural instinct, because his eyes bugged nearly out of their sockets.
I held out my arms and shrugged.
It wasn’t until he started shaking his head that he finally spoke again. “Youhave to watch out for you. Not for anyone else, do you understand me?”
I blinked. Apparently he was going to ignore me complaining about the girlfriend thing. Okay.
“No one else is going to watch out for your best interests but you. Just for agreeing with me that you played like you’ve never seen a soccer ball before, I should make sure you sit out the next game.”
What? I never agreed that I playedthatbad.
“But—“
“No buts. You play like shit and I’m going to give you hell for it, but you should never let anyone take this away from you.”
Amber’s actions seared through my belly, a painful reminder of what I’d already had taken away from me.
Then again I guess I had let her take it away from me. I didn’t fight when she’d said, “It’s her or me.” I’d felt so consumed with guilt for going on two dates with a man who was separated from my teammate, I’d willingly stepped aside and given up my position. I was a serial monogamist and possessive as hell. If I’d been her, who knows how I would have felt.
Maybe I could have fought for it. I could have told Amber she was being an idiot because it wasn’t like I had known that jackass was married, much less married to her. Even then, I hadn’t slept with him. I had kissed someone who I thought was single and seemed like a nice guy. That was absolutely it. The second man I’d kissed since breaking up with my college boyfriend had been a cheating, lying piece of donkey shit and been married to my teammate. I hadn’t just backed up the toilet; I’d made the septic tank flood the house.
Two stupid dates had taken away my lifelong aspiration.
I felt my eyes get watery with disappointment in the team and the coaches who hadn’t fought to keep me on. More than anything, I was disappointed with myself. I sniffled, then sniffled again, trying to control the water works creeping up in my eyes. It had been years since I cried over leaving the national team. One month was all I’d given myself to be upset over it. Since then I’d locked it up, accepted reality and moved on with the rest of my life. When something is broken into too many pieces, you can’t stare at them and try to glue them back together; sometimes you just have to sweep up the pieces and buy something else.
“Are you crying?”
Clearing my throat, I blinked hard twice, lowering my gaze to the small cleft in the German’s chin. “No.”
His fingers went up to push at my shoulder lightly. “Stop it.”
I lifted my chin and pushed his shoulder right back, sniffling while doing it. “You stop it. I’m not crying.”
“I have two eyes,” he replied, looking down at me with a troubled expression on his face.
Just as I was about to sniffle again, I stopped. Those green-brown eyes were way too close and too observant. The last person in the world I would want to show any signs of weakness in front of would be him. Instead, I let my nose get all watery and avoided wiping it as I stared right back at him. “Obviously, I do too, Berlin.”
The ‘Berlin’ did it.
To give him credit, he settled for giving me a scowl instead of an ugly word for how much of a jackass I was for calling him that. “I’m not from Berlin.”
A fact I was well aware of. He didn’t know much I knew about him, and I wasn’t about to tell him. Something about that little secret made me relax.
When I looked right back at him with a clear expression and relaxed shoulders, as innocent as I could possibly make myself out to be, Kulti tilted his head back to look up at the dark sky. “Get on the bus, Sal.”
So we were back to ‘Sal.’
Knowing damn well when it was time to either retreat or answer some question I wouldn’t want to, I took two steps back. “Whatever you say, sir.”
Game?
