Kulti

by Mariana Zapata

  What was it with these men and suing people? “We’ll worry about it later. I didn’t violate any terms of my contract, so I don’t think they can do anything.” I really hoped. “You-know-who told me not to worry about it.”

  His eyes narrowed, but grudgingly he nodded.

  “Ready to see your true love?” I asked with a smile on my face.

  Dad smacked me on the back of the head lightly. “I don’t know why we didn’t put you up for adoption,” he said, getting to his feet.

  I shrugged and followed him out of the room, noticing how slowly he was walking and the way he looked around the corner like he expected someone to pop out of nowhere and scare the crap out of him. In the kitchen, we found Kulti sitting at the small round table crammed into the corner of the room, a plate of watermelon, jicama, celery and broccoli, with a glass of water in front of him. My mom was digging in the fridge for something.

  The German stood up and extended a hand out to my dad, not saying a word.

  And my poor star-struck dad glanced at him, and in a way that wasn’t at all like his usual self, timidly stuck his hand out—only slightly trembling—and clasped Kulti’s.

  “Nice to see you again, Mr. Casillas,” Kulti said in flowing Spanish, keeping eye contact with my dad.

  I had to pinch my nose when my dad nodded rapidly in return, sucking in a loud breath when their hands broke apart. Coming up from behind, I squeezed my dad’s shoulders and whispered in his ear about how he needed to imagine him pooping, before taking a seat next to the German and sneaking a piece of watermelon off his plate.

  Dad grabbed a seat next to me and across from Kulti, looking everywhere but at The King. This was the same man who didn’t know how to behave in a movie theater, much less church. Loud, outgoing, opinionated and stubborn with a temper that was well known… he sat quietly in his chair.

  This was exactly what I’d been worried about with bringing Kulti to San Antonio. I wanted to spend time with my parents, not to have my dad so freaked out he refused to talk. I wasn’t going to embarrass him by pointing out how weird he was acting in front of the German, and I decided to try and show a little patience. We, or at least I, were going to be here for the next three days; Kulti and I hadn’t talked about whether he’d figure out another way to get back to Houston, but the fact he hadn’t mentioned leaving hadn’t escaped me either.

  So, we’d see how it’d go.

  Kulti nudged the plate in my direction and I smiled as I took a piece of jicama. Then it hit me.

  “Where’s Ceci?” I asked my parents.

  Dad raised his eyebrows, but it was my mom who answered. “In her room.”

  Of course she was. There was no way in hell she didn’t know I’d gotten home. The little pain in the ass.

  “Who is Ceci?” Kulti asked, holding a piece of broccoli in his hand.

  “My little sister.”

  He blinked.

  I shrugged. What else was I going to say? That my sister hated my guts during different moon cycles?

  Fortunately he didn’t ask anything else. I know Dad took it personally when Ceci acted like a turd, and then my mom would get mad that we weren’t more understanding and patient with her. I was patient with her. I hadn’t punched her yet despite the dozens of times she’d deserved it.

  My mom took a seat at the table and started asking if we had any plans for tomorrow, and then saying how my aunts and cousins wanted to see me. Pretty soon it was close to ten and I was yawning up a storm, wondering how the hell my dad hadn’t cracked a single sigh when I knew damn well he was used to going to bed early, too.

  The silence was just weird, with me trading looks with Kulti and my mom while Dad avoided everyone’s eyes.

  All right, I’d had enough.

  “You want me to show you where you can sleep?” I asked the German.

  He nodded.

  There was only one guest bedroom and since my little sister wasn’t even going to bother coming out to tell me hi, I guess sleeping in her room was out of the question. As Kulti followed me out of the kitchen and we passed the small living room with its hard couch that had been bought for durability rather than for comfort, I felt my eye twitch a little. That thing was unforgivable, but there was no way I was going to banish my friend to that cloth-covered rock.

  What had once been my brother’s room long, long ago, had been painted and converted into a guest room for whoever was in town. My parents weren’t fans of buying new things if the old things still worked, so I knew exactly what I’d be walking into. Ceci and I’d old furniture back when I’d lived with them before college.

  Bunk beds.

  It was a full-sized frame at the bottom and a twin at the top. I almost smiled when Kulti didn’t even blink an eye at the accommodations. “Welcome to Hotel Casillas,” I held my hand out in presentation mode, letting him take in the black metal bunk beds, the thirty-something-inch flat screen mounted on a dresser and the various posters and articles of Eric and me on display that my parents had moved in there after Ceci had ranted her mouth off. She couldn’t live with our achievements constantly in her face, or something like that. She acted like we’d been given what we had. Ha.

  ‘Natural talent’ and genetics only went so far.

  “Where are you sleeping?” he asked, dropping our bags on the floor.

  “Umm—“

  “In there,” my dad piped up as he walked past the bedroom; his was at the end of the hall. Like he’d been talking all night, he said over his shoulder, “Buenas noches!”

  Sleep in the same room with him? The two times I’d brought my ex with me, Dad had made him sleep in the living room, but with Kulti over? I seriously doubted my age had anything to do with why he was throwing us together in the small bedroom. If he would have known I was bringing him, I’m sure he would have taken the twin mattress out.

  Typical.

  I could have argued, but did I really want to sleep on the floor in my parent’s bedroom or squeeze onto the couch? No thanks.

  “You mind if I sleep on the top one?” I asked.

  Those hazel-green eyes took in the bed and I could see either amusement or something similar in the way he looked at it. He shook his head, still eyeing it. “No. You can have the bottom one.”

  “You’re too tall for the top one,” I explained to him. “Take the bottom. The mattress is newer too.”

  He gave me a side-glance and nodded before scooting our bags deeper into the room and then crouching down to dig through his.

  “There’s a bathroom right next door. Get whatever you want from the kitchen, my house is your house. Everyone sleeps solid so you won’t bother anybody.” I drummed my fingers on my leg, trying to figure out if there was anything else I needed to tell him. There wasn’t. “I want to see if my sister is up before I get ready for bed.”

  The German just nodded and mumbled something I didn’t completely understand.

  My little sister’s bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom door. The slit beneath the door was lit up and the television was loud enough for me to hear it, so I knocked pretty loud. “Ceci?” I rapped my knuckles. “You up?”

  No answer.

  “Cecilia?” I knocked again.

  Still nothing.

  “Ces, seriously?”

  There was no response. I wasn’t delusional enough to think she’d fallen asleep with the television on. I knew my sister. She couldn’t sleep with any light. She was just being a little shit. Again.

  I’d never done anything to her. I’d never given her a hard time, discouraged her or said anything mean. Maybe I’d been wrapped in my career for all of her life, but I’d been there as much as I could. From the moment she was old enough, maybe around six or seven, she’d turned into the fucking ‘woe as me’ devil.

  I had to take a deep breath and let out a deeper sigh to not let her bring my mood down. She wasn’t going to open the door, and I wasn’t going to beg her either.

  More disappointed than aggra
vated, I went back to the bedroom I was apparently sharing with Kulti just as he was coming out, a toiletry bag in his hand. It was easy to forget how much taller than me he was, how much bigger in general too, but I didn’t notice it much then either, especially with my little sister acting like a jackass pulling away my focus.

  He went into the bathroom while I grabbed clean underwear, a regular bra I could slip out of once I was under the sheets, my nightshirt and my own toiletry bag out of my duffel. I could shower once the German was done. While I was at it, I pulled out some clothes for my run the next morning. On a piece of paper by the television, I jotted down the Wi-Fi password. Just a few minutes later, he came back into the room and his face a little damp, but everything else the same.

  “I’m going to shower. The TV remote is on the dresser, and the Wi-Fi password is by the TV, all right?” I asked, already edging around him to go to the bathroom so I could take a shower. It’d be a miracle if I didn’t fall asleep inside, but I was so used to showering at night I wouldn’t feel comfortable going to bed without one.

  “I’m fine,” he said putting his things back into his bag.

  “Okay, I’ll be back, then.”

  Less than fifteen minutes later, I’d blown through one of the fastest showers in history, brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas. Back in the room, Kulti was sitting on the edge of the full-sized bed in a thin white undershirt, the lower part of his bicep visibly wrapped in some kind of plastic, and his jeans were still on. He looked up as I entered the room and gave me an expression that was mostly a smile as he peeled off a sock.

  “Are you fine?” he asked after I dropped my pile of dirty clothes by the door and crouched to grab a pair of knee-high socks from my bag.

  “Yeah, why?” I straightened, making sure that my double extra-large T-shirt, basically a muumuu, wasn’t tucked into the waistband of my underwear.

  He peeled off another sock. “You’re mad over your sister,” he said casually, tossing the two surprisingly long pieces of cloth onto my pile of clothes.

  I started to argue with him, telling him I was fine, when I realized that I’d be lying and he’d know it. I threw my own pair of clean, striped socks up to the top mattress, my bare toes wiggling in the carpet. I didn’t have the cutest feet in the freaking universe, I mean they weren’t ugly, but they’d been through hell and back with me. It wasn’t often barefoot.

  “Ah, yeah. I’m a little mad she decided to hide out in her room,” I sighed, scratching my cheek with a sad smile. He had leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his forehead furrowed. Reiner Kulti on my bunk bed. What a vision. “It’s rude and I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll get to meet her tomorrow.”

  The German shrugged like he was completely indifferent about whether or not he got to meet Ceci, and I couldn’t blame him. Why would he care? “If she’s going to upset you, I would rather not. She sounds like a brat.”

  “She’s not a brat,” I defended her. “She’s just… a pain. It’s been hard for her to grow up with me and Eric. We’re close—my brother and I, but there’s almost seventeen years between the two of them. There are ten years between me and her, and she almost killed my mom during the delivery, but we don’t ever talk about that,” I added, imagining Kulti bringing up the subject to get a rise out of her.

  “She’s the only one that’s never shown an interest in soccer so she thinks everyone is disappointed in her for being ‘normal.’” I snickered. “She says it like it’s a bad thing. You know how it is, how much you have to give up. It isn’t like what we do is easy or anything.”

  His eyes drilled into me, straight into my chest. In understanding? In kinship? I wasn’t positive until he nodded slowly, solemnly, like he was remembering every single thing he’d sacrificed in his life for the dream he no longer had. “No, it’s not an easy life, Sal. Most don’t understand that.”

  “Right? I get enough crap from other people; I don’t want it from my sister too. I just want her to be happy. I could care less if she’s good at soccer or not. Anyway, my mom likes to say that you always fight with the people you love the most, so oh well. My dad and I are always bickering about something. I guess she’s right.” I walked over to the ladder on the side of the bunk beds, hands gripping the sides of it. “You have a brother, right?” I asked, knowing damn well he definitely had a brother, an older one.

  “Yes,” he answered, scooting back further onto the bed. Something weird stirred in my chest watching him sitting on my bed in his pants, thin shirt and big bare feet. It was so homey, so natural. For so long I’d had to remind myself that he was just a regular man, but seeing him there like that really nailed it home.

  It was so cute. He was so cute.

  “I haven’t seen him in three years,” he added unexpectedly.

  I looked at him through the rungs of the stairs. “Jeez. Why?”

  “We’ve never been close. He has his own life and I have mine.“

  How lonely did that sound? Sure I wanted to strangle my sister sometimes, but she was usually in a good mood at least a handful of times a year. “Not even when you were little?”

  Kulti hunched his shoulders up casually, settling back against the two pillows propped on the wall. “I left my parents’ home when I was eleven, Sal. I haven’t seen them for longer than a month at a time since then.”

  The ‘holy shit’ was apparent on my face, it had to be. I’d known he’d gone to some soccer academy before his career took off, but he’d been eleven when he left home? That was one of the neediest times in a kid’s life. He’d been so little. Jesus.

  “You were there all the time?”

  He nodded.

  “Didn’t you ever… get lonely?”

  Kulti studied my face. “At first, but you get over it.”

  Get over it? At eleven? Good gracious. Where was the nurturing?

  “Do… you still see your parents?” I asked, not sure whether I was going into territory he didn’t want to get into or not.

  A small sharp snicker came out of his mouth. “My mother called me a few days ago saying she’s ready for a new house.”

  I had to fight back a wince. Him buying it for her was implied, wasn’t it? “It’s nice that you take care of her.” I trailed off, not really sure if it was nice or not, or whether he genuinely wanted to provide for them. Because I mean, who demands a new house? Where the hell do you get the balls to do that?

  He blinked and confirmed my suspicion that he might have been getting forced into buying his mom a house. Feeling uncomfortable that I had brought up something a little sensitive, I reached forward and ran my index finger up the sole of his foot, surprised when he jerked it away violently.

  I stood there and watched him with a big dumb smile on my face. “You’re ticklish?”

  With both knees now to his chest he scowled over. “No.”

  “Ha.” I laughed. “That’s cute.”

  He didn’t look like he was amused.

  I gripped the bars and smiled over at him before climbing up to the bunk bed, conscious to keep my long T-shirt tucked between my thighs on the way up. “Will you get the light or should I turn it off? I’m ready to go to bed but you can leave it on, it won’t bother me. The remote is by the dresser.”

  “I’ll get it,” he said, the mattress making some creaking noises as I heard him settle in.

  Getting comfortable, I pulled the sheets up to my chin and rolled onto my good shoulder, facing the wall. “All right. Night, Rey. Wake me up if you need something,” I yawned.

  From below, the German said, “Goodnight, schnecke.”

  “You’re not calling me a shithead or anything, are you?” I yawned again, drawing the sheet up higher to cover my eyes.

  “No,” he replied simply.

  “Okay. If you want to go home tomorrow or if you’d rather stay in a hotel if you aren’t comfortable, let me know, all right?”

  “Yes.”

  One last lion-like yawn made my chest expand wide. “Okay. Nigh
t, night.”

  He might have said “Goodnight” again, but I was pretty much out the second I finished talking.

  * * *

  I crept down the bunk-bed stairs when the room was still dark. It didn’t matter if I set an alarm; more often than not, my body just knew it was time to get up. As quietly as I could I fumbled around for my clothes, barely able to see. I pulled my nightshirt up over my head…

  Then the fan light came on.

  I froze. I froze there in my underwear, wearing nothing else.

  “What are you doing?” Kulti’s sleep-thick voice asked.

  Well then. I could freak out and make a big deal out of standing there mostly naked, or I could take it like a champ and make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal that I was topless and in one of my oldest pairs of value-pack panties.

  “I’m going for a run,” I said slowly in a whisper, still not moving an inch. “Go back to sleep.”

  There was a pause and then the mattress started creaking. I knew beforehand what he was going to say. “I’ll come.”

  Oh dear God.

  I went to my knees as fast as possible and now that I was able to see, pulled my sports bra on as fast as lightning just as the shrill squeak of what had to be Kulti getting off the bed warned me my time was up. I didn’t even let myself think that he’d probably caught a glimpse of side boob. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen hundreds of boobs before but these were mine. Wearing a sports bra was one thing, boobs flopping freely was another.

  I yanked a racer-back tank on before standing up, already holding my running shorts in one hand, ready to pull them on as soon as possible. But I sure as shit wasn’t going to bend over and put them on with my butt facing him.

  Except just as I turned around, I stopped. Because the German was facing me, watching me as he stood there in boxer briefs. Only boxer briefs. Was his face all sleepy? Maybe, but I sure as hell wasn’t looking at his face when I turned around. All I saw were his flat six-pack abs and square pecs, the low rise of his heather-gray boxer briefs and wood.

  The morning wood tucked against his thigh.