Kulti(70)
It wasn’t like he needed me to tell him what to do. Ha. I bet that was irritating.
Sure enough, he was a master at being just as equally irritating. “Make sure you ice down. I don’t need you being useless again next practice.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth and nodded. “You got it.”
* * *
The next day his limp was worse. Despite the ice bath I’d taken, which should be said even if you’ve taken one a hundred times before, it never stops sucking a massive amount of donkey nuts; I was still in pain everywhere.
And when Kulti spotted my bowlegged walking, just as I noticed how he kept taking weight off his left leg, we each just gave each other dirty looks.
Chapter Thirteen
“Are we going to win or are we going to win?” Grace, the Pipers’ captain, belted out at the top of her lungs.
The energy in our circle was tangible—more than tangible. It went straight into my bones, into the very center of me. In each of us there was anticipation, joy, eagerness and even a little violence that made up the wattage coming out of our group.
On the evening of our first game of the regular season, there was blood in the air.
Months of practice and years of experience, had led each member of the Pipers to this point. We wanted to win and needed to win. The first game was always so instrumental to how each team would treat the rest of the season.
I loved this. It was the endless possibilities, the opportunities and the ability to start all over again, regardless of how our last season went. It was my favorite. Knowing that my parents were there, Marc, Simon and a few other friends that had been along the long path with me, only pumped me up that much more. This wasn’t just about me, this was about it all of them. My parents who had worked so hard to put me through youth leagues, teams, clubs, camp after camp, youth national teams, college, the WPL. Marc and Simon had been with me since I was a little kid tagging along with Eric, who they loved to bully and teach horrible habits to—like elbowing and tripping. They’d played with me almost as much as Eric had.
I was hungry for a win, for all them.
This moment in time was for all of my teammates. It was love. It was perfect.
From the sound of everyone belting out a “We’re gonna win!!!” I wasn’t the only one who felt so deeply about it.
Our arms linked over and around each other, every single female who had made it to this moment, yelled “PIPERS” at the top of their lungs.
We were off.
* * *
“It was a close game—“
That was an understatement. We barely managed to squeak by with a win.
“—but we did it, ladies. Don’t take this for granted—“
Standing together, sweaty and worn out, I bumped arms with Genevieve, a younger player standing next to me, who’d scored the winning goal in the last five minutes of the game. She shot me a huge excited smile that I returned wholeheartedly.
A heavy damp arm wrapped around my neck, in what would have been considered a chokehold, if it had been anyone other than Harlow. It was just the way she hugged me. Her mouth pressed up against my temple, as she spoke low and excited. “We fucking did it, Sally.”
I wrapped my own arm around the middle of her back and squeezed tight, nodding up at her with a grin on my face. “Of course we did,” I whispered back, excitement still thrumming through my veins.
Gardner continued his spiel about setting a standard for the rest of the season and bringing up a few things we needed to work on. Finally after a few minutes, he held up his hand for all of us to try and reach for, and he said, “I’m going out tonight. Who’s coming?”
I wasn’t. My family was in town, and I usually celebrated with them and the rest of the gang. I’d just finished burning hundreds and hundreds of calories playing the entire game; I could fit in a reasonable Mexican meal with a gallon of water all to myself. Jenny was coming with us, like she usually did, on season openers.
A few staff members cheered and claimed that they’d go out with him.
I finished changing in the locker room and met up with Jenny outside, so that we could go find my family. Gardner and his small group were ahead of us, making their way out to the parking lot too. I couldn’t help but notice that Kulti wasn’t with them.
As we crossed the double doors, I spotted a black Audi idling by the curb.
Then I spotted the crowd of people wearing various versions of Reiner Kulti uniforms, close by it. I watched as long as I could, curious to see whether the German would make his way out or not. By the time I got in my car and pulled out of the spot, nothing had changed. I’d spotted Gardner’s truck zipping out of the lot ahead of me.