Kulti(115)

Bunk beds.

It was a full-sized frame at the bottom and a twin at the top. I almost smiled when Kulti didn’t even blink an eye at the accommodations. “Welcome to Hotel Casillas,” I held my hand out in presentation mode, letting him take in the black metal bunk beds, the thirty-something-inch flat screen mounted on a dresser and the various posters and articles of Eric and me on display that my parents had moved in there after Ceci had ranted her mouth off. She couldn’t live with our achievements constantly in her face, or something like that. She acted like we’d been given what we had. Ha.

‘Natural talent’ and genetics only went so far.

“Where are you sleeping?” he asked, dropping our bags on the floor.

“Umm—“

“In there,” my dad piped up as he walked past the bedroom; his was at the end of the hall. Like he’d been talking all night, he said over his shoulder, “Buenas noches!”

Sleep in the same room with him? The two times I’d brought my ex with me, Dad had made him sleep in the living room, but with Kulti over? I seriously doubted my age had anything to do with why he was throwing us together in the small bedroom. If he would have known I was bringing him, I’m sure he would have taken the twin mattress out.

Typical.

I could have argued, but did I really want to sleep on the floor in my parent’s bedroom or squeeze onto the couch? No thanks.

“You mind if I sleep on the top one?” I asked.

Those hazel-green eyes took in the bed and I could see either amusement or something similar in the way he looked at it. He shook his head, still eyeing it. “No. You can have the bottom one.”

“You’re too tall for the top one,” I explained to him. “Take the bottom. The mattress is newer too.”

He gave me a side-glance and nodded before scooting our bags deeper into the room and then crouching down to dig through his.

“There’s a bathroom right next door. Get whatever you want from the kitchen, my house is your house. Everyone sleeps solid so you won’t bother anybody.” I drummed my fingers on my leg, trying to figure out if there was anything else I needed to tell him. There wasn’t. “I want to see if my sister is up before I get ready for bed.”

The German just nodded and mumbled something I didn’t completely understand.

My little sister’s bedroom was on the other side of the bathroom door. The slit beneath the door was lit up and the television was loud enough for me to hear it, so I knocked pretty loud. “Ceci?” I rapped my knuckles. “You up?”

No answer.

“Cecilia?” I knocked again.

Still nothing.

“Ces, seriously?”

There was no response. I wasn’t delusional enough to think she’d fallen asleep with the television on. I knew my sister. She couldn’t sleep with any light. She was just being a little shit. Again.

I’d never done anything to her. I’d never given her a hard time, discouraged her or said anything mean. Maybe I’d been wrapped in my career for all of her life, but I’d been there as much as I could. From the moment she was old enough, maybe around six or seven, she’d turned into the fucking ‘woe as me’ devil.

I had to take a deep breath and let out a deeper sigh to not let her bring my mood down. She wasn’t going to open the door, and I wasn’t going to beg her either.

More disappointed than aggravated, I went back to the bedroom I was apparently sharing with Kulti just as he was coming out, a toiletry bag in his hand. It was easy to forget how much taller than me he was, how much bigger in general too, but I didn’t notice it much then either, especially with my little sister acting like a jackass pulling away my focus.

He went into the bathroom while I grabbed clean underwear, a regular bra I could slip out of once I was under the sheets, my nightshirt and my own toiletry bag out of my duffel. I could shower once the German was done. While I was at it, I pulled out some clothes for my run the next morning. On a piece of paper by the television, I jotted down the Wi-Fi password. Just a few minutes later, he came back into the room and his face a little damp, but everything else the same.

“I’m going to shower. The TV remote is on the dresser, and the Wi-Fi password is by the TV, all right?” I asked, already edging around him to go to the bathroom so I could take a shower. It’d be a miracle if I didn’t fall asleep inside, but I was so used to showering at night I wouldn’t feel comfortable going to bed without one.

“I’m fine,” he said putting his things back into his bag.

“Okay, I’ll be back, then.”

Less than fifteen minutes later, I’d blown through one of the fastest showers in history, brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas. Back in the room, Kulti was sitting on the edge of the full-sized bed in a thin white undershirt, the lower part of his bicep visibly wrapped in some kind of plastic, and his jeans were still on. He looked up as I entered the room and gave me an expression that was mostly a smile as he peeled off a sock.