Kulti(146)

Sorry for what I said. I’m under a lot of stress and I shouldn’t have blamed you for my choices. You’re a great friend, and I won’t just give up on you.

He didn’t respond.

Then Monday came and he wasn’t at practice.

He wasn’t at practice Tuesday, either.

No one asked where he was. I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

I sent him another message.

Are you alive?

No response.



* * *



Two things caught my attention when I pulled into the middle school’s parking lot.

There was a black Audi already there with familiar license plates.

Parked right next to it, was a big white box van.

Unsure whether to feel relieved that Kulti was still alive, or aggravated that the sauerkraut hadn’t texted me back once, I took a deep breath. I pulled into the parking spot, putting my Big Girl Socks on, though my instincts said that he more than likely hadn’t gone out of his way to show up for camp if he wanted to get into an argument.

At least that’s what I hoped.

I’d barely gotten out of the car and popped the trunk to grab my bag and the two cases of bottled water, when I heard steps come up behind me. I knew without turning around that it was him. Out of the corner of my eye, he stopped right beside me and pushed my hands away from the cases, hoisting them out.

“Tell me where to take them,” he said simply as his greeting.

All right. “Their field is in the back. Come on,” I said, shutting the trunk with my bag in hand.

We walked silently across the lot and down the paved path leading toward the field. Three teachers had volunteered and were providing the goals from the school’s existing sports equipment. I spotted two of them already there and made my way toward the table they had set up for registration.

When we stopped in front of them, the man and the woman physically jolted when they realized who was standing next to me.

“Mr. Webber, Mrs. Pritchett, thank you so much for helping out. This is my friend, Mr. Kulti, he’ll be volunteering with the camp today,” I introduced them.

The two teachers just kind of stood there, and it was Kulti that nodded a greeting at them.

“If you can let me know where the goals are, I can start setting up,” I told Mr. Webber, the physical education teacher.

He was looking at Kulti as he nodded absently. “They’re heavy,” he warned, eyes still on the German.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I assured him, only just barely restraining myself from rocking back and forth on my heels.

“I’ll help,” Pumpernickel added, which finally got the teacher going.

Between the four of us, we pulled the soccer goals out and set them up. There were only two, but it was enough. The pre-signup sheet had fewer kids registered than the week before.

I was busy spraying lines on the grass when I spotted Kulti speaking to two female teachers who would be working the registration table. He was gesturing at something on the sheet and they were nodding enthusiastically, which didn’t say much because he probably could have been telling them that he pooped golden nuggets and they would have been excited, based on the way they’d been looking at him.

Hookers.

All right, that wasn’t very nice.

I finished spraying the lines just in time for the first of the kids to start showing up with their parents.

“Are you okay with doing this like we did last week? Only working together this time?” I asked Kulti once I’d approached the registration table where he’d been standing.

He tipped his short brown-haired head at me, his eyes directly meeting mine. “We make a good team, schnecke, it will be fine.”

So now he was back to calling me schnecke, whatever that meant.

I eyed him a little uncertainly.

In return, he punched me in the shoulder, which would have made me smile, but him dodging me at the last camp was still a little too fresh in my thoughts. The facial expression I made—a weak, watered-down smile you gave someone that you didn’t find particularly funny but didn’t want to hurt their feelings—must have said as much, because Kulti frowned. After a beat, his frowned deepened.

The German, who had reportedly gotten into a fight years ago when someone called his mother a whore, grabbed my hand, raised it and hit his own shoulder with it.

What in the hell had just happened?

Before I even had time to think about what he’d done, my oversized bratwurst took a step forward and he did it.

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, bringing me in so close my nose was pressed against the cartilage right between his pectorals.

He was hugging me.

Dear God, Reiner Kulti was hugging the shit out of me.

I just stood there with my arms at my sides, frozen. Completely freaking frozen in place. I was stunned, beyond stunned. Stupefied.