His head moved, his mouth edging closer toward my ear. Those big, muscular arms tightened around me. “You could never disappoint me.” Did his voice sound strange or was I imagining it? “Not in this life, Sal.”
Yeah, that didn’t help at all. Jesus Christ. My nose turned into a running faucet. “Is this real? Are you real? Am I going to wake up tomorrow and see that the season hasn’t even started and these last four months have been a dream?” I asked him.
“It’s very real,” he said in that same strange voice.
What a wonderful thing and a very sad thing at the same time.
I could hear footsteps getting louder around us as they echoed in the hallway, but I couldn’t find it in me to give a single microscopic shit who was approaching and what they would think.
“I really wanted to win.”
His answer was to rub my back, his fingers sliding beneath the thick straps of my sports bra.
“I hate losing,” I told him like he didn’t completely understand, pressing my face deeper between his pecs. “And they think I don’t care that we lost. Why would someone think I’m a robot?”
Kulti just kept right on rubbing, his fingers cool and rough on my damp skin.
I sniffled. “And now you’re stuck here, and I didn’t even win. I’m so sorry, Rey.”
His fingers burrowed even deeper under my sports bra, the seams popping in protest of what he was doing as his palm lay flush against my skin. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.”
Say what? I reared my head back enough to look at his face, indifferent to how much of a wreck I had to be. “But you told?—”
Kulti’s face was gentle. His eyes were brighter than ever. “I have so much to teach you, Taco,” he said with a flick of his eyebrow. “Unless you have something in writing, there would never be proof of an agreement to begin with.”
This ruthless shit. I should have been shocked that he lied to Cordero, but I wasn’t. Not at all. I laughed, but it was one of those laughs that you let out so you didn’t keep crying. “You’re such an asshole.” But I loved him anyway.
His mouth tipped up, just barely. “Ready to leave?”
I nodded, cleared my drowning throat, and took a step back. “Let me get my things first. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
I hesitated for one second as we turned and spotted some of thegirls staring. They must have been the group that just passed us. This hard ball of resolve formed in my belly, and I slipped my fingers through Kulti’s.
Screw it. The season was over. I was done, tapped out. I grabbed his hand, and he smiled.
We’d taken maybe eight steps when he asked, “Who called you a robot?” in such a sweet, sincere voice it was easy to believe it was a casual question.
But I knew him too well, and by that point, I didn’t even care. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” he replied in that same tone. “Was it the same player who told Cordero about you calling me a bratwurst?”
I stopped walking so abruptly it took him a step to realize it. “You know who told him?”
“The nosey one. Gwenivere,” he replied.
“Genevieve?” I coughed.
“Her.”
My eye. My eye twitched. Freaking Genevieve? “Your manager told you?”
He nodded.
I swallowed. Unbelievable. What a backstabbing bitch.
Holy shit.
“Your face says enough,” he said, tugging me back to continue walking. “I’ll wait for you out here.”
