Kulti(71)

But still, the black Audi hadn’t moved and neither had the people hovering by it.



* * *



A few days later I heard, “Twenty-three!” and wanted to bang my head on an imaginary door.

How many times had my number been yelled in the last hour and a half? My best guess was somewhere between a dozen and twenty. Anything more than two, was too many.

I wanted to punch him in the dick. Any guilt I felt for how he hadn’t played in two years, or how the poor guy wasn’t able to walk to his car after a game without being surrounded by people, didn’t matter at all at that point. Not even a little bit.

Patience, Sal. Patience.

I walked quickly over to where he was and tipped my head back, ignoring the fact that three weeks ago, I hadn’t been able to talk to him in a complete sentence. “Yes?”

“Don’t you have some drills to do?”

“No.” I hiked my thumb back. Twenty seconds had possibly passed since I’d finished them and when he’d called my number. “I’m waiting so I can start stretching.”

Those lazy eyes did that lizard blink. Keeping his gaze on mine for what seemed like a minute straight, he finally lowered his voice and asked, “Do you want to play today?”

Uhh.

I felt like I had stadium spotlights and a dozen cameras on me. I had to fight the urge to look around and make sure I wasn’t getting pranked. My quad gave a pulse of nervous anticipation. “I can’t?” I said it like it was a question, taking in the confused look in his eyes. “You almost killed me the other day. Maybe this weekend?”

He only missed a single beat. “Fine.” Was that disappointment in his eyes?

Oh hell. I think it was.

I watched his face while I suggested, “I have some friends that play recreational softball. They’re all pretty good and sometimes I play with them. They’re having a game tonight. We could go.”

He blinked at me.

“My contract says I can’t play any type of regulation soccer on a team, but it doesn’t say anything about any other sport,” I explained.

He seemed to mull the thought over for a minute, and I was pretty convinced that he was going to tell me to screw off, but out of the blue he nodded. “Fine. Text me the address and the time.”

Was this for real? “I don’t have your phone number,” I kind of croaked out.

“Give me yours.” He had his phone out of his pocket a split second later, and I rattled off my number. Another long moment later, he nodded. “Now you have it.”

It didn’t hit me until much later what exactly he said and what it implied.

I had Reiner Kulti’s phone number, for one.

And I was going to text him—two.

But three seemed to be the one that really snuck into my chest cavity; he had asked me if I wanted to play with him.

He had asked me to play. With him.

Instead, he was going to play softball with me and a few of my friends. Huh.



* * *



Seven P.M. at Hershey Park. I’ll wait for you by the bathrooms near the parking lot.

I checked my phone one more time to make sure that the message really had gone through. Then I checked it again to make sure that I hadn’t missed a text in response. I hadn’t.

With my bat, glove and bottle of water in one hand and armpit, I fidgeted with my headband with the other. I’d accidentally grabbed a thick one from my glove box, which fit over my ears, and those made me feel a little claustrophobic. I messed with it some more as I looked around the nearly full parking lot. It was only five minutes before seven, and Kulti still hadn’t shown up.

It then hit me again with the same strength it had the first time, Kulti was coming to play softball, only after he’d asked if I wanted to play soccer with him. Why hadn’t he asked anyone else to play with him?

Well I was probably the most aggressive forward on the team, so we had that in common. Harlow didn’t count because… she was a defender, right? I was the fastest. Without really tooting my own horn, it was a fact. So really, who else would he play against? My style was the closest to his, and he’d enjoyed beating me the first time.

So there.

No big deal.

I was an obvious choice.

Plus, maybe he had asked someone else? I doubted it, but you never knew.

Possibly another minute ticked by, and I looked around the lot again, anxiously. I was nervous. Why was I nervous?

For Kulti’s sake I’d already decided not to tell anyone who he was. I wasn’t positive how they would all react, especially Marc and Simon, or even if they’d let him play, and I didn’t want him feeling under a microscope from the start. I was going to tell them he was my friend who had recently moved to Houston.