“SEE YOU LATER!”
Jenny winked at me just as her phone rang and she took off toward her car. I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck with a sigh. Marc was already waiting for me at our next job, and I was incredibly tired. Insomnia had kicked me in the ass hard the night before, and I’d stayed up way too late watching half a season ofSupernatural.
Grabbing my bag off the grass, I swung it over my shoulder, ignoring the pain that shot through me at the movement. Most of the girls had left already after practice finished, but I’d stayed and talked to Jenny about having dinner and a movie on Saturday. We hadn’t spent too much time together off the field since practices had begun, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hung out with another girl outside of practice. Maybe when I’d gone to the mall with Ceci almost two months ago?
I was busy trying to remember the last time I’d spent time with someone who wasn’t Marc or Simon, my brother’s other childhood friend, when I came up to the tall man standing at the curb in the parking lot. It didn’t take more than a single brain cell to recognize who it was, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the hell he was doing.
He ignored me as I walked past him. To be fair, I didn’t make an effort to say anything to him either on the way to my car. But Idropped my stuff off in the trunk and got inside, still watching the German at the curb as he looked at his phone and then held it up to his face, over and over again. In between he looked around the lot and went right back to the phone again.
I pulled out of the spot and thought about whether I’d feel bad if I kept going or not when he could have needed help. How many times had someone helped me when I needed it, damn it? Nerves squeezed my stomach as I pulled up alongside the curb and rolled the passenger window down, leaning over the center.
“Do you need help?” I asked, hesitantly.
Kulti looked up from his phone, the skin between his eyebrows already wrinkled in either annoyance or confusion that someone had stopped to do something so preposterous as to ask if he needed help. Once he saw that it was me, he just blinked. His eyebrows didn’t smooth out or anything like that, but with one last glance at his phone, he looked at me again.
I widened my eyes but kept my gaze on him. “Yes? Or no?”
He gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. “Could you give me a ride?”
Could I…?
An extra-nice person wouldn’t have asked where, but I had to get to work. “Where to?” I asked slowly.
“I believe it’s called Garden Oaks” was his answer. “Do you know where that is?”
Of course I did. Marc and I worked there every other week usually. Garden Oaks was a nice neighborhood not exactly too far or too close by, and it was just that: a neighborhood. A quiet sort of expensive neighborhood—at least for my taste,and the exact area where I’d picked him up from the bar. It wasn’t where the superwealthy resided. On my income, there was no way I could ever afford to live there unless I had five other roommates.
I smiled in response and nodded, pushing away my curiosity at what exactly he was doing in Garden Oaks. “Okay. Come on.”
He gave me a curious look but didn’t ask anything. Instead he got into the passenger seat, wordless and stiff. As soon as he was in, I was pulling out of the parking lot.
Was I taking him home?
The only answer to my mental question was silence, obviously. I hadn’t used the radio in forever and hadn’t plugged in my phone to the car’s stereo system in the distraction of having Reiner Kulti in my car. My dad was probably going to shit his pants when I told him.
Damn it. Poop. Poop. Poop.
I cleared my throat and made sure to keep my eyes on the road. “Do you need to call a towing company or something? I have a service on my phone in case of car trouble you could use.”
His attention was focused on the view outside the window. “No.”
All right. “Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“I said no,” he replied forcefully enough that I felt it in my chest.
Jesus freaking Christ. All I was trying to do was help. What a prick.
Suddenly angry with myself for making an effort to be nice to someone who obviously didn’t want it, I clenched my mouth and kept my eyes forward.
This was exactly what I got for trying. Why did I even bother anymore? Sure, he’d been nice to my dad by making up for being a freaking bag of nasty dildos, and he’d gotten me out of my crap with Cordero and given me a couple of tips on how to improve some playing skills, but it wasn’t enough. Not everyone was like this. I’d been nice to thousands of people in my life, and most didn’t act like pricks.
Especially not ones that I’d idolized.
Embarrassment at being snapped at made a knot form in my throat as I got on the freeway. For a second, I thought about turning on the radio to avoid the awkwardness that had settled in the car, but I didn’t. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and it wasn’t me who deserved to feel awkward. He did.
“What exit should I take?” I asked in a controlled voice when we were close enough.
He answered.
