“No.”
I kept on going. If I didn’t pay attention to him, then I couldn’t confirm anything.
They figured out who were going to be the team captains by a process of guessing numbers. The winners were one man I’d played with a few times before, whose name I thought was Carlos, and the other I didn’t know. After an intense game of rock paper scissors, Carlos got to pick first. He immediately looked over and waved me forward. “I’ll take Sal first.”
“What a suck-up,” Simon said as I walked by him, an affectionate smile on his face. “I’m Sal, and I play professional soccer. Look at me,” he added in a high-pitched girly voice right before kicking me in the butt.
The other captain called Simon’s name, and I swatted his leg away with a laugh.
Each person was chosen until the only people left were Kulti, a girl I’d played with before, and another guy. Marc had been picked for Carlos’s team too, and I could see him making faces, tipping his head over in Kulti’s direction not very subtly. Finally understanding what was going on, Carlos pointed at the ex-star and said, “I’ll take him.” I would forever hold on to the fact that he’d gotten chosen almost last for what had to be the first time in his life .
I couldn’t help but snicker to myself. When I caught Marc’s eye, he slid me a sneaky evil grin that had lost its surprised pallor. For allI knew, Kulti could suck just as much at softball as my brother did, so I really wasn’t sure what Marc was excited about. This could go horribly.
As we circled together once the other girl had been chosen, gear was grabbed and we got ready to play. I looked at Kulti and said in a low voice, “I should have asked you before, but do you know how to play?”
From the expression on his face, you’d think I asked him if he knew what a yellow card was. Sheesh.
I held up my hands in a peace offering. “Just asking.” There was one more thing, in case he happened to be really good with a bat and a glove. “Look, this is for fun, all right? I don’t think they can handle your superhuman skills, so tone it down a little. Yes?”
His pleased little baby grin said everything, and he finally nodded once in acceptance. “Fine. We’re going to win anyway.”
“Duh.” Like anything else was even a possibility. I put my hand up and shoved his shoulder before I even realized what I was doing, and I froze. Then I snatched it back and frowned. “Ahh, sorry.”
Anddd this was awkward.
I didn’t know what I was expecting him to do, but flashing a grin at me so wide I swore my heart stopped, wasn’t it. I’d seen him win championships on television before, of course he’d been smiling then, but… what just came across his face so abruptly was beyond unexpected.
All I did was stare dumbly back at him for a moment, long enough to look like a complete idiot, before I forced myself to rememberpoop,and I grinned back at him.
“Sal! We don’t have all day. Get your ass over here!” Simon called from somewhere behind me.
I met Kulti’s eyes once more, flashed him a smile like the one that had since melted from his face, and made my way over to the rest of the group. Marc was looking back and forth between my coach’s headband and mine, the expression on his face smooth and curious. It wasn’t until he swallowed what looked like a grapefruit that I could tell he was dying on the inside, and when his eyes shot over to me, it was confirmed.
“I like to play shortstop,” Carlos, the team captain for the game, announced.
A couple other men spoke up and announced the positions they thought they were good at. This had me rolling my eyes because everyone thought they were good at the popular positions. It happened every single time. All you had to do was nod and smile, and eventually things worked out fine. I wasn’t impatient, and I didn’t mind playing the positions no one else liked.
Carlos looked at the four of us: Marc, Kulti, another man I didn’t know, and me. “You guys fine with playing outfield and second?”
I was only a little surprised when Kulti didn’t pipe up and voice his opinion, but when it was silently and unanimously agreed that we’d play whatever, those green-brown eyes met mine, and a smirk covered the lower half of his face.
Two seconds later, we were positioned across the field. I was in the outfield, and so was he.
Approximately ten minutes later, Simon was screaming off the sidelines, “This is horseshit!” after I’d caught the third out, following Kulti’s first catch, and a second one that he’d sent flying to third base with time to spare. Who would have known he’d have an arm on him?
We switched to batting, and not much changed. Kulti knocked the ball close to the fence to make it to third base on one run. I hit the ball far enough, allowing the player on first base to cross home. I ran fast enough and made it to second.
Thirty-five minutes after that, the other team captain was practically foaming at the mouth, yelling at our team captain about how they needed to pick different players for the next game.
“They”—he pointed at Kulti and me, who had surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, played like we’d been teammates for years—“can’t be on the same team together!”
So maybe it was a little unfair. A little.
I mean, this was softball and we were soccer players. I’d been a tomboy most of my life, and I happened to be good at most sports.I’d never been a great student, I always chose practicing over studying, but you couldn’t have it all unless you were Jenny.
It just so happened that Kulti was good at catching and throwing a ball. Whatever.
I never played all-out during “fun” games of any type; first, I couldn’t afford to get hurt, and second, I didn’t like to dominate the games when I was fully aware that the people who played did it to unwind. They didn’t need my competitive butt ruining it. Even Kulti hadn’t run as fast as we both knew he was capable of, but at 50 percent, he was still leaps and bounds better than the average man. He ran slower, held back, and I noticed he really did try to give other people a chance.
