Kulti(113)

Jesus Christ.

“Hola, Señora Casillas,” Kulti said in his perfect Spanish, continuing on in it, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me.”

Who was this man with manners? I watched him, not really surprised at how polite he was but… a little bit caught off guard.

A small slow smile crossed my mom’s face, pleased with his introduction. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she said, thankfully avoiding anything like I’ve heard so much about you or something really incriminating. Mom finally looked over at me, not switching back to English. “I was wondering why your dad shut the door and walked into the bedroom. He’s in there now. Go find him while I get Reiner a drink.”

So she decided to go with Reiner. How about that.

I gave him a small smile as he stood there with our bags in hand. “I’ll be right back. You can leave the bags there, I’ll move them later.”

He gave me what I was starting to call his ‘shut up Sal’ look.

I smiled at my mom and gave her another hug despite the fact she was more focused on the man next to me. “I’ll get him out of there.”

Sure enough, the bedroom door was closed when I came up to my parents’ room. I knocked on it twice before saying, “Dad? I’m coming in. Don’t scar me for life.”

Sitting on the edge of his bed, with his head between his knees, was the man who had raised me. His rough dark hands were gripping the back of his head and it took everything inside of me not to start laughing at his mini-panic attack. Choking it all back, I took a seat beside him and put my hand on his back.

“Surprise,” I whispered with only the slightest hint of laughter in my voice.

Slowly, his head turned and I caught one light-green eye staring back at me. “I don’t know whether I want to hug you or beat you,” he said in Spanish.

“You’ve never even spanked me,” I reminded him with a big smile.

Dad managed to scowl with only the small part of his face visible. “No la chingues, hija de tu madre. Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

It should be said that my dad was the second most dramatic person in the family, only outranked by my little sister. Eric, our mom and I were the sane, stable ones.

So yeah, I shook my head at him knowing he was full of crap. “With the way you drive, it’s going to be another car that—“I dragged my thumb across my neck “—gets you not a heart attack, all right?”

Dad tilted his head so that both of his green eyes were visible. I’d always wished I’d inherited his mom’s gene but I hadn’t. None of his kids had. With his super-tan skin, the color always seemed to pop. Lucky dog. Mom had told me once it was the first thing she noticed about him. “With the way you’re treating me, I’m going to end up on blood pressure medicine soon.” He sat up and continued to give me an impertinent look. “You brought him to our house and you didn’t warn me? You didn’t even tell me you were on speaking terms the last time we talked.” He shook his head. “I thought you were my best friend.”

The kicker was that my dad genuinely did sound hurt. Not much, but enough that I felt guilty I hadn’t said anything to him about my friendship with the Bratwurst King of the World. Dad was my best friend. I usually told him everything. While I would never say I loved one parent more than the other, my dad and I had always had a special relationship. He’d been my buddy, my champion, my co-conspirator and my backup for as long as I could remember. When my mom had tried to force me to play every other sport besides soccer, Dad had been the one who argued that I should do whatever I wanted.

So his words were enough to wipe the smile off my face as I leaned into him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I wasn’t even sure we really were friends. At first he was just kind of an asshole, and then we became friends.”

“Hmph.”

“I’m serious, Dad. It’s just weird. I had to think about him pooping for the first two months so that I wouldn’t stutter every time I was around him.”

That made him to crack a small smile.

“We played soccer together a few times, I took him with me to play softball with Marc and Simon, and he took me to the doctor a week ago,” I explained, surprised he hadn’t seen the pictures of us that had been posted on Kulti’s fan websites.

And even when my dad’s favorite athlete in the universe was within walking distance, the number one man in my life put me first. “What the hell did you go to the doctor for?” he snapped.

Ten minutes later, I’d told him everything—mostly. From the softball game that had gone wrong, to Kulti taking me to the doctor, to the conversation with Mr. Cordero, and finally to the German showing up to my place that morning.