He only missed a single beat. “Fine.” Was that disappointment in his eyes?
Oh hell. I thought it was.
I watched his face while I suggested, “I have some friends that play recreational softball. They’re all pretty good and sometimes I play with them. They’re having a game tonight. We could go.”
He blinked at me.
“My contract says I can’t play any type of regulation soccer on a team, but it doesn’t say anything about any other sport,” I explained.
He seemed to mull the thought over for a minute, and I was pretty convinced that he was going to tell me to screw off, but out of the blue he nodded. “Fine. Text me the address and the time.”
Was this for real? “I don’t have your phone number,” I kind of croaked out.
“Give me yours.” He had his phone out of his pocket a split second later, and I rattled off my number. Another long moment later, he nodded. “Now you have it.”
It didn’t hit me until much later what exactly he said and what it implied.
I had Reiner Kulti’s phone number, for one. And I was going to text him, two.
But three seemed to be the one that really snuck into my chest cavity; he had asked me if I wanted to play with him.
He had asked me to play. With him.
Instead, he was going to play softball with me and a few of my friends. Huh.
SEVEN P.M. AT HERSHEY PARK. I’ll wait for you by the bathrooms near the parking lot.
I checked my phone one more time to make sure the message really had gone through. Then I checked it again to make sure I hadn’t missed a text in response. I hadn’t.
With my bat, glove, and bottle of water in one hand and armpit, I fidgeted with my headband with the other. I’d accidentally grabbed a thick one from my glove box, which fit over my ears, and those made me feel a little claustrophobic. I messed with it some more as I looked around the nearly full parking lot. It was only five minutes before seven, and Kulti still hadn’t shown up.
It then hit me again with the same strength it had the first time, Kulti was coming to play softball, only after he’d asked if I wanted to play soccer with him. Why hadn’t he asked anyone else to play with him?
Well, I was probably the most aggressive forward on the team, so we had that in common. Harlow didn’t count because… she was a defender, right? I was the fastest. Without really tooting my own horn, it was a fact. So really, who else would he play against? My style was the closest to his, and he’d enjoyed beating me the first time.
So there. No big deal.
I was an obvious choice.
Plus, maybe he had asked someone else? I doubted it, but you never knew.
Possibly another minute ticked by, and I looked around the lot again, anxiously. I was nervous. Why was I nervous?
For Kulti’s sake I’d already decided not to tell anyone who he was. I wasn’t positive how they would all react, especially Marc and Simon, or even if they’d let him play, and I didn’t want him feeling under a microscope from the start. I was going to tell them he was my friend who had recently moved to Houston.
That wasn’treallya stretch, I figured.
The headlights of a car illuminated my body for a split second before the car pulling into the lot turned and then finally took a spot one row down. It was the same nondescript, plain black sedan that wouldn’t have called my attention, even with the Audi emblem on it.
Of course he’d be in an Audi.
I smirked to myself as a long body folded out of the vehicle’s back passenger door, slamming it shut before heading to the back and grabbing a bag from the recently opened trunk. His tall, lean body seemed even more imposing without his team T-shirt or polo. The graceful lines of muscle that lined his shoulders and arms for the first time since he quit playing soccer full-time were delineated perfectly in the shadow of the setting sun. What I really caught a good eyeful of though was the wide headband he had on that looked similar to mine, matting down his short hair and making him look like a different person. Not like himself at all, unless you really knew who you were looking at. The length of his hair on top of his larger frame and facial hair was an excellent disguise.
Poop. Poop, poop, this is your coach, stupid, poop.
He gave me what could have been considered a smile, if you closed your eyes and looked sideways, the minute he spotted me standing there, which was almost immediately.
“Hi,” I greeted him.
