Kulti

by Mariana Zapata

  Forget that I’d tried to be nice to him, that I’d driven him home and never insisted on knowing why he had me take him instead of his driver or a taxi or Gardner or Grace, or just about anyone else that had more of a relationship with him than I did.

  In the words of my brother, I did it to myself. I brought the attention of a perfectionist down on me, and there was no one else to blame for it.

  * * *

  The next two weeks of my life could be summed up in three keywords: physical and emotional hell.

  Any kind of bond I’d formed with Kulti had been shattered the day I pressed him for answers in my car. Proceeding to give him shit for using his injury as an excuse was just the icing on the cake.

  Since then I hadn’t given him a single ride home. I wasn’t surprised after that initial first practice, following what I would call Interrogation Day, when he took ripping me a new one to a totally different level.

  Seriously.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Listen to me!”

  Blah, blah, blah, fuck, blah, blah, blah, something-something-shit, blah, blah, blah.

  But my favorite thing that came out of his mouth was “Is that how girls play soccer?”

  Oh man.

  I’d heard that one before. It still got me every time.

  But if what he wanted, was for me and the team to show him just how girls played, he got his wish. We were all out for blood. Most of us had grown up playing with boys and from experience, we all knew their asses got kicked just easily as other ladies did.

  I couldn’t remember the last time any coach had been on top of me with such a vengeance. There wasn’t anything friendly about the things that came out of Kulti’s mouth. It was all business. All tough-love, I’m-going-to-break-you-down-to-get-what-I-want love.

  Each day was worse than the one before. Gardner didn’t say anything. He patted me on the back and told me to hang in there.

  It got hard to keep my head up and brush off the ugly words. I tried my best to focus on the things that came out of his mouth that had knowledge beneath them, but it wasn’t easy. Toward the end of the first week Jenny, the world-class athlete, was the one who panted out, “What did you do to him?” after Kulti yelled at me for passing the ball to another player when he felt like I should have taken a difficult shot instead.

  What could I tell her? Nothing. I couldn’t tell her anything without bringing up that I’d driven him home a few times. “I have no idea,” I told her.

  “Did something else come up with Eric?”

  “No.” I’d been getting fewer and fewer messages about Eric and Kulti over the course of the last few weeks. I seriously doubted that the team photos with us standing by each other had anything to do with it, and Sheena hadn’t brought up anything else about releasing clips from the press conference I’d done with Gardner at the beginning of the season.

  Jenny scrunched up her face, wiping at her neck with her shirt collar. “Bring him a cupcake or something then Sal, because this is getting out of control. I don’t know how you haven’t started crying yet.”

  That’s how bad it was. My whole body was tight before practice began and it stayed that way afterward. Marc went out of his way to tease me more often to get me out of my exhausted funk.

  It barely helped.

  And then, I finally had enough.

  * * *

  “If you would have—“

  If I would have. If I would have done something differently, we could have won by five points instead of one.

  He was being unfair and everyone knew it. Did anyone say anything though?

  Of course not. No one wanted to be the one getting their ass chewed out, and I couldn’t exactly blame them.

  Most importantly, did I say anything? Nope. I stood there as Gardner and Kulti went back and forth over what we could have improved upon in our last preseason game. I stayed quiet as Kulti hung the weight of an almost-loss on my shoulders and nodded when I was supposed to.

  He was right. I did miss a few opportunities. I wouldn’t deny it.

  But so did half the members on our team. Yet did anyone bring that up? Gardner made some generalizations, but he didn’t name anyone directly even when it was obvious someone had messed up big time. He didn’t get a kick out of embarrassing players, and instead would pull a person aside and talk with them.

  And this fucking frankfurter…

  I swallowed the fucking bratwurst bitch, sauerkraut shit, German pieceofshit Chocolate Cake insults, which were all throwing a party in my mouth. They each begged me to let them come out and play.

  Inside, oh my God, inside I was raging and trying to talk myself out of doing something that would land me in jail. I wouldn’t cut it. I enjoyed being outside too much.

  “Sorry guys,” I said in a deceptively calm voice once Kulti had finished his rant.

  Harlow and Jenny’s faces stood out at me from the semicircle we were standing in. Harlow looked like she was on the verge of laughing, and Jenny looked like she was contemplating how quickly she could grab me in case I decided two to fifteen years behind bars wasn’t that long.

  None of the girls said a word.

  Our post-game meeting finished soon after that, leaving a clammy awkward feeling in the air that I’m sure I was responsible for.

  Like a sane rational person, I grabbed my things and casually went about preparing to leave. Harlow gave my arm a squeeze as she walked by me, not saying anything, but I felt like she was giving me her blessing—her inner fearlessness. Jenny crept over to me and wrapped her arm around my shoulders and in a low voice said, “Salamander, please don’t make me visit you in jail. Orange isn’t your color, and I don’t think you’re cut out to be some lady’s… you know… bitch.”

  Leave it to Jenny to make me lose focus. I laughed and wrapped an arm around her waist. How did she know me so well? “I swear I’m not going to do anything violent.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  She didn’t exactly look like she really believed me, but eventually she dropped her arm. “Please.” Jenny looked me right in the eye as she pleaded.

  I couldn’t help but smile at her and nod. “Promise.”

  Her eyes dropped low but she eventually nodded. “See you tomorrow?”

  I assured her I would, and she bid me goodbye. The area had mostly cleared out by then, but the person I was looking for was still there. Taking a deep breath, I calmed my nerves and told myself I was doing the right thing. I couldn’t keep doing this crap with him.

  I wouldn’t. I knew exactly what I needed to do to resolve it.

  There he was standing, just as I finished sending Marc a text letting him know I’d be late. Standing at the curb where I’d picked him up time and time again. He wasn’t expecting me to come up behind him. Or maybe he was, except possibly with a knife in one hand.

  “I can’t do this with you anymore,” I warned him. I wasn’t having any of this being-discreet crap. I stood there and I faced him. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that my face was flushed, I was sweaty everywhere. There was a slight chance that I might smell too, but I had to get this out. Now. I pointed at the field behind us. “Come on.”

  Kulti reared back, his face scrunching up. “What are you talking about?”

  I waved him onward more insistently. “Come on. I’m not going to be your punching bag the rest of the season. You and me, whoever makes it to seven first, wins.”

  His bottom lip dropped and he blinked. Then he blinked again, confused.

  “Come on.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Come on,” I repeated.

  “Twenty-three, no.”

  “Kulti.” I waved him forward, giving him one more chance to do this the easy way.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  All right. I sniffled and took a deep breath. “And you’re being a coward.”

  That might have not been the smartest thing to say because t
he next thing I knew his shoulders stiffened, and his mouth had slammed closed. Well I couldn’t say I hadn’t gotten the job done. “What did you say?”

  “I said you’re being a chicken.” I did it. Holy shit, I called Reiner Kulti a chicken and a coward, and there was no coming back from it. In for a penny, in for a pound, I told myself. “Come on. What are you scared of? You know you’re better than me. I know you’re better than me, so let’s get this over with. Play me so you can get over this crap.”

  “I’m not doing this with you, little girl,” he stated evenly, his jaw gritting.

  Little girl.

  Could I have let it go? Sure. Of course I could. But I hadn’t been lying when I said I couldn’t do this with him any longer. All that repressed anger he had, and the frustrations he took out on me because I unfortunately had so much knowledge of him, the tension was out of this world. It wasn’t like I’d forced him to tell me the truth, but regardless we couldn’t keep this hateful dance up.

  “Yeah, we are.”

  “No, we are not.”

  Clenching my hands together, I was about two seconds away from going Super Saiyan on his ass. “I know I’m going to lose, Kulti. I fucking hate losing, but we’re doing this anyway, so let’s get it over with.”

  He raised both hands into the air and scrubbed his palms over the back of his head. Jesus Christ, he was tall. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re a pain in my ass,” he snapped.

  It was my turn to blink at him. “You think I’m going to beat you, don’t you?”

  He rolled his eyes upward as he huffed. “Hell hasn’t frozen over.”

  Based on his tone, I wasn’t sure if he really thought so or not. Or maybe I was just being egotistical. Maybe. But I knew that I needed to set my ego aside and make him do this. Some part of my gut recognized that it was necessary, so I needed to do everything possible to make this happen.

  Even if it meant pissing him off.

  I tipped my chin up at him and looked right into those light-colored eyes. “Then quit being a pussy and play me.”

  Yeah, that did it.

  “I am not a pussy.” He took a step forward. “I can and will kick your ass.”

  Whoa. I held my hands up and guffawed. “I said you were going to win, sauerkraut, I didn’t say you were going to kick my ass.”

  That look I recognized all too well crossed over his features, and I was honestly torn between shivering in fear and… well I wasn’t going to say it, or even really admit the other emotion. He had the look of the old Kulti—the borderline psychotic competitor.

  Oh my gosh, he was going to wipe the floor with me.

  And then I almost laughed because, really? I wasn’t about to bend over and let him win. Please.

  Something flared within my chest, and I let the fire of competition burn in my heart. “Let’s do this.”

  And we did.

  John the Baptist, Mary Magdalene and Peter Parker all spewed out of my mouth at some point.

  It was one thing to have watched him play from the safety of my television or from the stands. To a certain extent, it was an advantage because I knew how he played almost as well as I knew my own game; the kind of moves he tended to stick to, his tells. My body was instinctively aware without me really thinking about it, that he faked leading with his right foot before switching to his left. I knew his tricks.

  And yet…

  Two years of not playing barely slowed him down. Barely. I was fast and he was just as fast, if not faster. His legs were a lot longer than mine, and he ate up the turf like no one’s business. There was a reason this man was an icon, why he’d been the best for so long.

  But fuck that. I wasn’t going to let him win without a fight. I kept what I knew about him in the front of my brain, and I moved my legs as fast as I could. I tried to out-think him and play smarter more efficiently. The ball stayed as close to me as possible. Later on I would wonder if it really looked like we were playing ‘keep away’ from each other or not.

  He cornered me at one point and managed to get the ball. While he did it, he shouldered me a little more than was necessary. I mean he was a foot taller and at least fifty pounds heavier, yet he was playing as rough as my brother and his friends did. I’d been playing with the boys since I was a kid, and they’d missed the memo that said I was a girl seven years younger than them. Apparently, Kulti had too.

  “Playing a little rough, aren’t you?” I asked as I ran up behind him, trying to block him from getting a clear shot of the goal.

  He looked up at me from under his eyelashes. “Are you whining?”

  I huffed. Asshole. “No, but if that’s how you want to play, then that’s how we’ll play.” Between the people I played with for fun and Harlow, I could take it.

  We ran after each other for what felt like forever. I’d steal the ball from him; he’d steal the ball from me, over and over again. Sweat poured down my face, arms and lower back. He was breathing hard—had he ever breathed hard before?

  It was a miracle that he was playing pretty sloppy, and I think that’s the reason why he didn’t manage to score. I wasn’t egotistical, I knew I was good, but I wasn’t as good as he was. But I watched and I learned. That was all I ever wanted.

  “You’ve had like… eight opportunities… to score…on me…” I huffed.

  His back was to mine, butt pressed to my hip. “And… you’ve…. had three…if…you’d known what you were—doing!” He kicked the ball up high and tried to do a header to get it in. My miracle was obviously still in effect because he didn’t score.

  We both hauled ass for the ball, and I might have slammed my body up against his pretty rough, but whatever, he could take it.

  “I know what… I’m doing…” I pushed my shoulder into his chest and took the ball away from him.

  Back and forth, we went chasing and stealing, chasing and stealing, until I was breathing hard from the spike of adrenaline. We played aggressively, battling it out. In a real game, you knew how to keep your energy perfectly balanced. You had ninety minutes to get through, and you couldn’t wear yourself out within the first fifteen.

  You also had ten other people on the field to move the ball back and forth.

  My morning run and practice had already taken their toll. Playing with Kulti made every muscle feel that much more intense, even the backs of my knees were wet with sweat.

  But when his breath was in my ear and his body was right behind me, I could hear and feel the exhaustion radiating from his own body. I smiled.

  “Getting winded?”

  He grunted but didn’t respond; a second later, I realized why. In a move that was Reiner Kulti at the height of his career, he stole the ball from me and powered toward the goal using the advantage of his long legs. I saw it coming but I still didn’t slow down as I ran to catch up.

  With a swift kick I didn’t have a chance of blocking, the soccer ball flew through the air in a sharp powerful line. Perfect. It was a perfect shot.

  I smiled and shook my head despite the fact that under normal circumstances, I would have been pissed off I was down a point.

  But that had been beautiful.

  And when Kulti turned around with the most smug triumphant smile I would probably ever see, and that was saying something considering I’d played against some pretty egotistical people, it pleased me. It went straight into my sternum because it was so… him. It wasn’t the blank indifferent man I’d seen so many times over the course of the last month.

  “One-zero, Taco,” he said like I was an idiot and had no idea what the score was.

  Just like that, that pleased feeling in my chest that had appreciated the joy of his brief triumph disappeared.

  Had he…?

  “Taco? Really?” I wanted to laugh, as demeaning as the nickname was, but I’d kind of asked for it, hadn’t I?

  He shrugged in acknowledgment.

  I waved him on. “All right, pumpernickel. Come on, six more to g
o.”

  * * *

  Yeah, we only made it to four-three, and even then it was a miracle we hadn’t keeled over.

  “You look like you could use a break.” How the hell I managed to get that out in one sentence, I had no idea. I was wheezing. He was wheezing. When the hell was the last time I’d breathed like that? Never?

  Kulti was soaked in sweat, and on top of that, his face was a little pale. “I’m fine.”

  Fine? He looked like he wanted to puke. I’d also noticed that his right quad was pulsing. Why I noticed that, why I’d even looked down there, I had no idea. But I wasn’t going to think about it either.

  “Positive?” I stuck my tongue as far out of my mouth as I could and took a deep breath to calm down. Ugly, but it worked, and my lungs thanked me for it.

  He rolled his eyes but kept struggling to catch his breath. Jeez. Were we really playing that roughly? “Unless… you want to.”

  I did. I did want to. I had no idea how I was going to push a lawnmower even if it was self-propelled. This was too much, and I’d been stupid for putting myself through it. But fuck if I was going to admit it. “I do if you do.”

  His cheeks were puffing full and empty, reminding me of a frog. “You’re… losing. I don’t care.”

  I was losing and that sucked, but later on, I could pat myself on the back for hanging in there as long as I had. So I shrugged at him.

  He lifted his eyebrows in return but didn’t agree to anything.

  “You choose.” Please say yes. Please say yes.

  Kulti took a deep inhale through his nose. “You look like you’re about to pass out,” he noted.

  Asshole.

  I was losing and, apparently, I looked like I was going to pass out. Please, compliment me more.

  I hoped his knee was sore later.

  “I don’t think you should overdo it either.” I smiled, biting back my words. “Since you haven’t played forever and all.”

  His started chewing on the inside of his cheek from the way his facial muscles moved.