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But it wasn’t working.
Rolling up to sit, I bit back the curse words that were molding to my gums.
Patience. Patience.
I swallowed and clung to the tiny bit of patience I found inside myself. “I don’t play like that,” I told him in a careful controlled voice, getting to my feet slowly. I straightened to my full height, still a good five inches shorter than the man who shoved me to the ground. I tipped my head up and looked him right in the eye. He was somewhere around my age and good-looking enough to be an egotistical dick with his gelled hair and trimmed beard. I’d learned early on playing with my brother, Simon, Marc and their friends that as a girl—as a person—you couldn’t back down. Plus, I wasn’t scared of these idiots. Not even a little bit. “Don’t do it again.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Marc’s voice came from somewhere in my peripheral vision before he appeared. Close enough, he shoved a hand between our bodies and moved the stranger back a foot. “Dude, we don’t do that shit. You especially don’t do that shit to her, so watch it or your ass is out of here. That goes for all of you.”
The tension was like a thick mist over the field, as the guy finally took another two steps back and nodded. Anger buzzed through my ears as I watched his stupid head retreat.
A hand whacked me in the stomach hard, and I didn’t have to look down to see that it was Marc, leaning over to get in my face. “I thought we talked about you taking risks,” he hissed.
I blinked and felt my nostrils flare. “His friend stomped on me last week and now this ass-wipe went WWE on me. What did you want me to do? Sit here and take it?”
We both knew he was part of the trio who had taught me as a child that it was acceptable to shove my elbow into the soft spot beneath people’s ribcages and sometimes in their kidneys, if it was needed. It wasn’t until I was a little older playing in a league that my coach had finally explained that it wasn’t right… even if it got the job done.
With a sigh, Marc’s dark eyes stared into mine. “Of course not, but you know the last thing I want is for you to get hurt because these pussies get their panties in a wad.”
“I know, but that was bullshit.”
A strained smile stretched wide across his mouth. “It is bullshit, but sometimes I want to push you to the ground, Sal, and I love you. Chill out. We’ll let the air out of his tires in a couple of weeks, when he isn’t expecting it.”
Bah.
I snorted, and then I snorted again. He was such a great person in my life, more like an illegitimate bastard brother than a friend, really. I kissed the tips of my fingers and followed up by smacking his cheek with them in a light slap. “I love you too, but I don’t know if I can wait a few weeks.”
With a roll of his eyes, he straightened up and scowled. “Try. Keep the anger in check, mini-Hulk.”
I rolled my eyes right back at him, took another breath for control, collected what remained of my patience and held it close to my heart. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kulti at the sideline, one foot forward, his hands down at his sides, those muscular forearms flexed. I noticed even his calves were taut. His jaw was locked as he stood there, ready for who knows what. But he didn’t move. He didn’t say a word, and I was still too pissed to put together his body language.
Was it an accident? I highly doubted it, but I’d played with rough people in the past, and I’d let them get away with maybe an elbow or a shoulder if it let them sleep better.
But still, he was a fucking asshole.
Then it happened again.
A few minutes later, once the teams had switched positions, I was running—not full speed—toward third base after stealing second. Just as I was coming up to the base, someone from behind me sped up, and completely unnecessarily, shoved me forward as he attempted to tag me out.
I went flying, straight on a mission to eat a whole bunch of dirt.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been able to stop myself, but with the added push, I had too much momentum going. The image of falling awkwardly on my knee or ankle, and the possibility of tearing something flashed through my brain. There was no graceful way to stop without really hurting myself. So I went forward, hands up in the sloppiest slide that wouldn’t break a wrist, and I belly-flopped. I mean,belly-floppedand still skidded a bit.The fall was hard and painful. It reminded me of that time I dove off the platform when I was a kid and knocked the wind out of myself, almost feeling like I might have cracked a rib.
But the point was, I fell, I slid. I’d been shoved. And I was not okay with it, especially not when the silly, stupid man decided to stand over me, six feet of douche-bag supreme.
My stomach burned, and my lower ribs ached as I tried to push up to my hands and knees.
Holy shit.
I sucked in a breath and hissed it right back out, one hand going under my shirt to palm the skin that I knew was scraped to hell.
Before I could even successfully sit up on my knees, the culprit had been shoved to ground. I mean he wasshovedhard. It wasn’t Marc, and it wasn’t Simon. It was Kulti standing with his back to me. Kulti had pushed the full-grown man to the ground.
Reiner ‘The King’ Kulti stood over the fucking weasel, straddling his body in a squat. “You coward,” he spat.
Literally, I saw saliva coming out of the German’s mouth as he said words in his native language, which I didn’t understand but got the gist of. They weren’t friendly, not at all.
“You’re pathetic.” Honestly, I thought he was going to slap him and was only slightly disappointed when he didn’t. His face kept moving lower and lower until I was sure the blood rushed to his head.
