Kulti(116)

“Are you fine?” he asked after I dropped my pile of dirty clothes by the door and crouched to grab a pair of knee-high socks from my bag.

“Yeah, why?” I straightened, making sure that my double extra-large T-shirt, basically a muumuu, wasn’t tucked into the waistband of my underwear.

He peeled off another sock. “You’re mad over your sister,” he said casually, tossing the two surprisingly long pieces of cloth onto my pile of clothes.

I started to argue with him, telling him I was fine, when I realized that I’d be lying and he’d know it. I threw my own pair of clean, striped socks up to the top mattress, my bare toes wiggling in the carpet. I didn’t have the cutest feet in the freaking universe, I mean they weren’t ugly, but they’d been through hell and back with me. It wasn’t often barefoot.

“Ah, yeah. I’m a little mad she decided to hide out in her room,” I sighed, scratching my cheek with a sad smile. He had leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his forehead furrowed. Reiner Kulti on my bunk bed. What a vision. “It’s rude and I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll get to meet her tomorrow.”

The German shrugged like he was completely indifferent about whether or not he got to meet Ceci, and I couldn’t blame him. Why would he care? “If she’s going to upset you, I would rather not. She sounds like a brat.”

“She’s not a brat,” I defended her. “She’s just… a pain. It’s been hard for her to grow up with me and Eric. We’re close—my brother and I, but there’s almost seventeen years between the two of them. There are ten years between me and her, and she almost killed my mom during the delivery, but we don’t ever talk about that,” I added, imagining Kulti bringing up the subject to get a rise out of her.

“She’s the only one that’s never shown an interest in soccer so she thinks everyone is disappointed in her for being ‘normal.’” I snickered. “She says it like it’s a bad thing. You know how it is, how much you have to give up. It isn’t like what we do is easy or anything.”

His eyes drilled into me, straight into my chest. In understanding? In kinship? I wasn’t positive until he nodded slowly, solemnly, like he was remembering every single thing he’d sacrificed in his life for the dream he no longer had. “No, it’s not an easy life, Sal. Most don’t understand that.”

“Right? I get enough crap from other people; I don’t want it from my sister too. I just want her to be happy. I could care less if she’s good at soccer or not. Anyway, my mom likes to say that you always fight with the people you love the most, so oh well. My dad and I are always bickering about something. I guess she’s right.” I walked over to the ladder on the side of the bunk beds, hands gripping the sides of it. “You have a brother, right?” I asked, knowing damn well he definitely had a brother, an older one.

“Yes,” he answered, scooting back further onto the bed. Something weird stirred in my chest watching him sitting on my bed in his pants, thin shirt and big bare feet. It was so homey, so natural. For so long I’d had to remind myself that he was just a regular man, but seeing him there like that really nailed it home.

It was so cute. He was so cute.

“I haven’t seen him in three years,” he added unexpectedly.

I looked at him through the rungs of the stairs. “Jeez. Why?”

“We’ve never been close. He has his own life and I have mine.“

How lonely did that sound? Sure I wanted to strangle my sister sometimes, but she was usually in a good mood at least a handful of times a year. “Not even when you were little?”

Kulti hunched his shoulders up casually, settling back against the two pillows propped on the wall. “I left my parents’ home when I was eleven, Sal. I haven’t seen them for longer than a month at a time since then.”

The ‘holy shit’ was apparent on my face, it had to be. I’d known he’d gone to some soccer academy before his career took off, but he’d been eleven when he left home? That was one of the neediest times in a kid’s life. He’d been so little. Jesus.

“You were there all the time?”

He nodded.

“Didn’t you ever… get lonely?”

Kulti studied my face. “At first, but you get over it.”

Get over it? At eleven? Good gracious. Where was the nurturing?

“Do… you still see your parents?” I asked, not sure whether I was going into territory he didn’t want to get into or not.

A small sharp snicker came out of his mouth. “My mother called me a few days ago saying she’s ready for a new house.”