I bit back a groan and stood up with a sigh, already looking through my dresser for a pair of pants. “Can you call him a cab?” Please, Jesus. Please.
“I asked the bartender who checked his ID, and he said it wasn’t a Texas driver’s license. He either wasn’t paying attention or doesn’t care who he is,” Marc explained. “I don’t think he has any car keys on him either.”
If I was drunk, famous, and what seemed like mainly alone in a foreign country, would I want someone looking through my pockets? Or, I don’t know, videotaping me when I wasn’t at my best? Definitely not.
Pulling my pants up, I sighed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
I SHOVED my phone back into my pocket with a tired and slightly frustrated sigh. Sheena hadn’t answered her phone, and neither had Gardner; then again, what had I been expecting? It was almost one in the morning, and apparently, I was the only idiot that left their ringer on overnight.
The warm yellow lights from inside the bar made me sigh again. What the hell was I doing? A man I hardly knew was sitting inside, drunk and possibly on the verge of making an ass of himself if people realized who he was. I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that if he were recognized, people would brush it off. That wasn’t how people worked. I could already envision the videos being uploaded and going viral and all the hell that would come from it.
Was it totally unfair? Of course it was. Most people had too much to drink at some point or another, and no one ever thought twice about it.
Shit.
I sighed and threw the door open, not thinking about the fact I was in gray six-dollar sweatpants and an old, stained sweatshirt that I’d thrown on over the baggy shirt I usually slept in. Marc must have been keeping an eye out for my car because he was waiting at the door for me. In a T-shirt and jeans, he looked like a cleaned-up version of the man I spent nearly every afternoon with. He was showered, his hair was styled, and he had his nice set of glasses on, so that was pretty fancy. He had a striking resemblance to RickyMartin when he wasn’t dressed in his work clothes. Dark hair, dark eyes, tan skin, and he was just... well, pretty.
“Over here,” he said, waving me toward a booth in the back. The figure hunched over the table was unmistakable, at least to me. That shade of short brown hair was the same I’d been seeing in person for the last two weeks. It was definitely Kulti. The fact he didn’t have on any team-related clothing like the polo shirt he had on earlier in the day was a small blessing, I guess. His beanie was slouched pretty low on his head, another bonus.
For the first time, I thought,what the hell was he doing getting drunk at a bar in Oak Forest?This side of town was predominantly a middle-class neighborhood that had slowly been getting taken over by the upper middle-class with small houses being demolished and bigger, near-mansion-like homes taking over. It was a family neighborhood, not one you’d expect a rich single man living in.
“I’m sorry,” Marc said over his shoulder.
“No, it’s okay. You did the right thing calling me.” Well, I still wasn’t convinced that was true, but… if it were Harlow calling me because she needed a ride home after drinking too much, I would have gotten her without thinking twice about it. Hell, if any of the girls on the team felt desperate enough to call me for a ride home, I would have been there. We were a team. That’s what you did. When you played on a team with people who held grudges against each other, it was a lot harder than it needed to be.
Sigh.
“All right.” I eyed Kulti and tried to guess how much he weighed. If I could throw him over my shoulder, I could probably carry him out, but that wouldn’t exactly be inconspicuous. I tapped on his arm. Then I tapped on his arm some more. Nothing. Next, I shook his arm.Nada. “Hey, you, wake up,” I said, shaking him some more.
And still nothing.
I sighed. “Help me carry him out to the car.” Marc didn’t even blink; he just nodded.
For a moment, I thought about whether his tab was open or not, and then I decided he could figure it out in the morning when he was sober.
“Ready?”
Marc and I dragged my coach across the seat and got him to the end of the bench. Squatting down, I peeled away the arm that was plastered to the table and lifted the heavy weight to put it over my shoulders. Over the top of Kulti’s head, I watched Marc do the same thing.
How did I always let myself get dragged into this crap? “Ready?”
At the count of three, we stood up. Well, Marc and I stood up, and Jesus Christ. I was used to people jumping on top of me, but it was never deadweight. It was also never someone almost a foot taller leaning up against me.
I huffed, and I heard Marc make a light grunting sound. He was used to lugging around bags of soil, grass seed, and mulch, so that said something. Somehow we managed to circle around and slowly make our way toward the door. I ignored the patrons who were watching us, interested and disapproving at the same time. Whatever. Keeping my eyes forward, I focused on making sure to take as much of Kulti’s weight as I could to save Marc the hassle. My rear passenger door was unlocked, and we slowly finagled the big man into the seat, letting him slump over onto his side.
Good enough.
I rubbed my eyebrow with the back of my hand, closing the door with my hip at the same time. “I tried to call Coach Gardner, but he hasn’t answered, so I’m not sure whether to take him back to my place or take him to a hotel, I guess.”
He gave me this look that said, “Good point.”
“Are you going to stay with him?”
Stay with him? I glanced in the back seat and shrugged. “I don’t know. You think I should?”
Marc lifted his shoulders too, looking into the car as well. “If it was you I was picking up, I’d say yes because it’s you. If it was Simon, I’d pretend I dropped the call because he’s a grown man that shouldn’t have gotten messed up.”
I understood his point. He’d heard me tell him day after day that I hadn’t spoken much with my coach. “I’ll figure it out, I guess.”
