Kulti(74)

“I like to play shortstop,” Carlos, the team captain for the game, announced.

A couple other men spoke up and announced the positions they thought they were good at. This had me rolling my eyes because everyone thought they were good at the popular positions. It happened every single time. All you had to do was nod and smile and eventually things worked out fine. I wasn’t impatient, and I didn’t mind playing the positions no one else liked.

Carlos looked at the four of us: Marc, Kulti, another man I didn’t know and me. “You guys fine with playing outfield and second?”

I was only a little surprised when Kulti didn’t pipe up and voice his opinion, but when it was silently and unanimously agreed that we’d play whatever, those green-brown eyes met mine, and a smirk covered the lower half of his face.

Two seconds later, we were positioned across the field. I was in the outfield and so was he.

Approximately ten minutes later, Simon was screaming off the sidelines, “This is horse shit!” after I’d caught the third out, following Kulti’s first catch, and a second one that he’d sent flying to third base with time to spare. Who would have known he’d have an arm on him?

We switched to batting and not much changed. Kulti knocked the ball close to the fence to make it to third base on one run. I hit the ball far enough, allowing the player on first base to cross home. I ran fast enough and made it to second.

Thirty-five minutes after that, the other team captain was practically foaming at the mouth, yelling at our team captain about how they needed to pick different players for the next game. “They,” and he pointed at Kulti and me, who had surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, played like we’d been teammates for years, “can’t be on the same team together!”

So maybe it was a little unfair.

A little.

I mean, this was softball and we were soccer players. I’d been a tomboy most of my life, and I happened to be good at most sports. I’d never been a great student, I always chose practicing over studying, but you couldn’t have it all unless you were Jenny.

It just so happened that Kulti was good at catching and throwing a ball. Whatever.

I never played all-out during ‘fun’ games of any type; first, I couldn’t afford to get hurt and second, I didn’t like to dominate the games when I was fully aware that the people who played did it to unwind. They didn’t need my competitive butt ruining it. Even Kulti hadn’t run as fast as we both knew he was capable of, but at fifty percent, he was still leaps and bounds better than the average man. He ran slower, held back and I noticed that he really did try to give other people a chance.

But the point was he didn’t like to lose. I didn’t like to lose. So if people weren’t taking advantage of the opportunities opened up to them, well, one of us was going to do something about it. And for some reason, I was fully aware of where he was on the field constantly. He was catching balls and throwing them the entire game.

In the end, we won nine to zero.

Finally deciding to move Rey to the other team, I met those crazy eyes from our positions on opposite sides of the field. He didn’t have to say it and neither did I. This was going to be our rematch. Round two. This might have been a completely different game, but in reality this was going to be me versus him.

That fiery burn I got in my chest during games flared inside of me as we each locked gazes, and I shot him my own bring it smirk.

Was he going to make me eat dirt? Hopefully not.



* * *



“Son of a bitch,” I muttered to myself when Simon’s wristwatch beeped with the time.

Marc trotted up next to me, his face flushed and shocked. “Did we lose?”

I nodded slowly, halfway in a stupor. “Yes.”

“How?” he asked. We never lost, especially not when he and I were on a team together.

“It was him,” I answered. There was no need to point. We both knew who I was referring to.

We both just looked at each other and silently went off to cower in our disappointment. I grabbed my bat, tucked my glove under my arm and stretched. Halfway through a body settled onto the ground next to me, and I knew it was Kulti.

Asshole.

When he didn’t say anything, I felt my frustration race up. When I didn’t find it in me to say anything either, my anger just ticked up a little higher. Eventually he looked over and kept his expression blank. “A coach of mine used to say that no one likes a sore loser.”

My eyebrows went into a straight line. “I find it hard to believe that you listened to him.”

His brown eyebrows went up and a hint of an angelic, serene look took over his features. “I didn’t. I’m only telling you what I have been told, Taquito.”