“Good morning,” Gardner replied.
Phyllis said something that was probably “Good morning.”
The German grunted, “Morning.” This stupid expression crossed his eyes, and I pretended to ignore him as I kept on walking. Well, it was more of a limp than a walk.
My limp only got more pronounced after the first half an hour of practice. It got so bad that I started daydreaming about actually taking an ice bath. I mean, who dreams about an ice bath?
The cherry topping on my sundae of pain happened when I jogged by Kulti. He shouted after me, “Are you planning on running any faster today, Casillas?”
It took everything inside of me not to flip him off with both my middle fingers.
Practice wasn’t the best. I was sore all over; my hamstrings were too tight, my shoulders were a little sore, and I was tired. Yesterday had been too much. So yeah, I dragged ass. It didn’t help that everyone pointed it out. Two hours felt like ten, and by the time the equipment was put away, I was beyond struggling. But I’daccomplished what I had set out to do, hadn’t I? I’d gotten Scrooge to sort of smile, and he hadn’t talked a whole bunch of shit to me.
I might have lost our one-on-one, but I’d won the real battle.
I shouldn’t have been surprised when I heard a snicker. “You seemed to be struggling today.”
Slowly pushing up to my feet from the crouching position I was in, I instantly rolled my eyes at Kulti’s statement. He stood a few feet away, having pushed one of the heavy metal obstacles off to the side of the field.
“Oh, I’m perfect. How are you feeling?”
His mouth went into a straight line that said exactly how full of shit he thought I was. “Wonderful.”
So full of shit. “Oh yeah? I thought I saw you favoring your left leg a little bit, but I guess not.”
As if bringing it up made it hurt more, his leg jerked at the same time his eyes narrowed. Voice flat and dry, he said, “My leg is fine,” but he still had that funny look in his eye. As if he was only barely frustrated with his knee hurting—or in his case “not hurting.”
I purposely glanced at his knee and said, “Huh,” before looking right back at his face.
Tipping my chin up, I stared him right in the eye. He seriously had the most intense face I had ever seen. His gaze was unflinching and solid. If someone could have light sabers in their eyes, it would be him. He had the demanding stare that boxers and fighters seemed to perfect when they were face-to-face with their opponent during weigh-ins.
Wait a second. Why was he looking at me like I was his enemy?
For one brief second, the idea bothered me. Later on, I’d wonder if I was just so subconsciously bored that having Kulti look at me like I was a real opponent was exciting. But then… I’d take it.
I smiled at him,no, smirked at him. I was pleased with myself.
His nostrils flared in response, and he just kept right on staring, head held high, neck elongated. He was such a proud asshole.
And as much as I would have enjoyed standing there, staring at him, I knew how important it was for me to do something about my body pain. I let my smile grow bigger and then took a few stepsbackward. “I’ll see you later, Coach.” Two more steps backward, I eyed his leg. “Keep off your leg.”
It wasn’t like he needed me to tell him what to do. Ha. I bet that was irritating.
Sure enough, he was a master at being just as equally irritating. “Make sure you ice down. I don’t need you being useless again next practice.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth and nodded. “You got it.”
THE NEXT DAY his limp was worse. Despite the ice bath I’d taken—which should be said even if you’ve taken one a hundred times before, it never stops sucking a massive amount of donkey nuts—I was still in pain everywhere.
And when Kulti spotted my bowlegged walking, just as I noticed how he kept taking weight off his left leg, we each just gave each other dirty looks.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Are we going to win or are we going towin?”Grace, the Pipers’ captain, belted out at the top of her lungs.
The in our circle was tangible—more than tangible. It went straight into my bones, into the very center of me. In each of us there was anticipation, joy, eagerness, and even a little violence that made up the wattage coming out of our group.
On the evening of our first game of the regular season, there was blood in the air.
