Kulti(174)

I shook my head. “No. She told me to be patient. Chances are, I won’t get any offers until the season is over, so we’ll see.” I gave him a brave smile that I only partially felt. “I’m going to try not to worry about it. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. If not, then… I’ll figure something out. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“It isn’t,” he agreed.

I sighed and decided to change the subject. “Everyone was asking where you were today.”

Kulti snickered. “I was very disappointed not to be there,” he deadpanned, which made me laugh.

“Yeah, right. What did you do instead?”

“I bought my bike and went for a long ride,” Kulti explained.

He triggered my memory, and I suddenly remembered what I’d been meaning to ask. “Hey I kept forgetting to bring it up, but where did you go those two days you missed practice? When I texted you and you didn’t respond. Thank you for that, by the way.”

“I was home.” Kulti glanced up at the ceiling.

“So you were just ignoring my text messages?” The fact he didn’t even try and bullshit me made me respect him a little more.

He lowered his gaze to side-eye me. “I was furious with you.”

If I remembered correctly, I’d done the same thing when I’d been angry with him for being weird in front of Franz and Alejandro. Bah. I reached over and patted his knee. “Well like I told you in my text, I’m sorry for what I said that day. I was frustrated, and I didn’t mean it.”

“I know that now.” He blinked. “You aren’t a quitter, and I wouldn’t let you give up anyway.”

Talking about those nearly back-to-back conversations made my eye twitch. “Don’t be a dick and accuse me of sleeping with your friend then.”

Kulti made a face that was almost remorseful. Almost. “I was… agitated. I didn’t like the idea of you spending time with him in secret. It bothered me.”

I’m not sure why it took me so long to understand what had upset him, why Franz and I practicing bothered him so much. Was this real? If he wasn’t full of crap about what he was saying, a lot of things finally made sense. Why he was so adamant about us not going on dates with other people when Sheena had suggested. The face he made when I’d told him about my ex.

“I don’t like the idea of you being with another man.”

I will not smile. I will not smile. “I wouldn’t like the idea of you spending time with another woman and not telling me about it either.” There, I said it. I just went right out and said it. All right. I cleared my throat, bit both my lips at the same time and shrugged. “There isn’t anything wrong with that. I thought you were just being an asshole about Franz. I sure as hell don’t like thinking about you being with other women, or even being reminded of your ex-wife, if I’m even allowed to say that. I know I don’t look like the women you’re usually interested in, or dress like the women you used to date, but you know that and you’re still here. That has to count for something,” I told him honestly.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he claimed.

“You can say that all you want, but you told me that you are the way you are and you’re never going to change, so I’m going to tell you the same thing. I am the way I am, and I’m never going to change either. I wasn’t built for a whole bunch of drama, Rey. Everything going on right now, this is it. I’m maxed out. I want a steady, stable life. When I commit to something, I’m in all the way. I don’t share, or even play around with the idea of infidelity. You’re my friend right now, but I don’t want something to happen that makes me want to move on with my life. I don’t want to be forced to pretend like these last few months haven’t happened. You mean too much to me.”

Maybe I was expecting him to get all smug about what I said, but he didn’t. Instead, that intense expression that usually lived on his face reached a different level. He gave me one of those stares that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “You say that as if there were anyone else in this world I would want. You have no idea what I feel for you.” He blinked and spat out something I never would have expected. “There is no gray area for me where you’re concerned. I don’t share, and I expect nothing less from you.”

I… what in the hell do you say to that? What? What could you possibly say? It was psycho sure, but it didn’t bother me. I’d been the teenager that drew mustaches on his ex-girlfriends’ faces for months when their pictures would come up in magazines I looked through.