Kulti

by Mariana Zapata

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

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.

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

“I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings. I only stepped away because Alejandro is… competitive. He wants what he can’t have. It was my mistake inviting him.”

He gave me a sad, determined look. “I don’t want it to take you away as well. You are the least shameful thing in my life, Sal. Understand?”

“I know this isn’t my place to say anything,” the lady gushed once the picture was taken. “I thought the age difference was a little strange, but seeing you together, it makes perfect sense. You two are stinking cute.”

He settled his hands on his slim hips. “You don’t find me attractive? You like older men, you told me so. I’m only twelve—thirteen—years older than you.”

His response? “I haven’t forgotten.” What hadn’t he forgotten?

“The house is tiny, Sal, but I think you’d like it,” he noted.

“I haven’t decided,” he answered in a low voice. “It all depends on a few things.”

Someone made a grumpy noise. “Sal.”

Completely catching me off guard, Kulti, my freaking German with supposedly no conscience, pressed his cheek to the top of my head and wrapped himself around me.

I gave him another hug and felt the weight of his arm settle over my shoulder. It stayed there.

I thrust my hand out at him when I felt the German’s arm clamp down the instant I introduced myself.

“Rey, I want to go home,” I told him firmly. “I want you to come over,” he replied, already turning around.

“Schnecke, did you—” Kulti’s voice abruptly cut off.

I missed the horrified look on Kulti’s face before he came inside and shut the door behind him. I didn’t see him drop to his knees or put his hands on my own, lowering his head so that his forehead pressed to mine. “Schnecke,” he said in the softest, most affectionate tone I’d ever heard. “What is it?”

He smacked my hand away. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to,” he grumbled, returning to dabbing at me.

An exasperated breath later, he’d taken hold of my hands and pulled me up to my feet. “No. You’re fine.”

I totally caught the small smile that crossed Franz’s face as he heard the nickname Kulti called me.

Kulti cocked his head. “You think I could forget about you?”

I missed the glance he took at my mouth. Missed the way he fisted his hand as he pried it off my shoulder. I didn’t see the look on his face when he stared at mine for a brief second.

The last thing I was aware of was the sharp pain that cracked the back of my head. …. …. Sal! Casillas! Schnecke! Goddamn it! Schnecke! SCHNECKE!

Kulti’s breath washed over my mouth, ragged and uneven. His face full of an expression I wasn’t remotely familiar with. And his eyes….

Out of the corner of the screen, two male bodies were seen running onto the field, one overpowering the other in less than a second, long legs pumping faster and faster in a sprint that could have set a world record. The man slid to his knees across the turf, hunching over the body—me—on the ground.

“Don’t you ever pass out on the goddamn field again.”

“Of course I’m yelling! I was yelling at you when you were pretending to be dead on the field, taking ten years off my life,” he snapped, his face going red at the cheeks. “I thought….” He shot me a sharp look that almost alarmed me. “Don’t ever do that to me again. I’m too young to die of a heart attack.”

Kulti blinked slowly and didn’t say anything for a long time, even as I made sure to keep watching him with an expectant look on my face. When he finally answered, it caught me off guard. “You.”

“Your friendship means the world to me too, you know?”

“Do you trust me?” Did I trust him? My head jerked back a little and my eyebrows went up. I better be able to. “Yes.” His nostrils flared as his chin tipped down. He resembled the man I’d admired on the field for so long. “Let’s talk to Cordero.”

“I would do anything for you.” Ahh shit.

It was the most amazing, most unexpected, most surreal thing ever. He lo⁠—

“No.” The expression on his face was determined. “You are the most honest, good thing I’ve ever had. I won’t deny it to anyone.”

He was somber and serious and terrifying. “No. You mean so much more to me, and you know it.”

“I wanted to wait until the season was over. I didn’t want to rush you. A few months are nothing compared to the rest of my life, schnecke.” Kulti nodded, his eyebrows hitching up a quarter of an inch as recognition hit me. “You have no idea what the day of your concussion did to me.”

His face tipped down as his expression turned grave. “I thought your neck was broken. It was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced. Franz called and asked how my schnecke was doing. “My schnecke. My little snail, do you know that’s what it means? It’s a term of affection in my country. My love. My snail. I don’t want to waste more time. I have nothing to hide, and neither do you.”

“I can and I am. When you love something, you do whatever you need to do to protect it, isn’t that right?” He tilted his face down, making sure our eyes were meeting.

“Understand, I would wait for you however long you needed me to, but I hope you don’t ask me to wait any longer than the end of this season.”

“You know, Sal. It’s why we fight and makeup. Why we’ll always fight and makeup. You were the one who said to me that you fight with the people you love the most, remember? You and I fight all the time, see?”

In a split second, he tilted my face just slightly down and we were eye to eye, his breath on my face. Those amazing hazel eyes were closer than they’d ever been. Then he kissed me. Unexpectedly, out of the blue, sudden as a heart attack.

His mouth was warm and chaste, pressing, pecking, one, two, three, four times. He kissed one corner of my mouth, then the other.

His breath rattled in his chest as he pulled back, eyes closed, mouth firm and tight.

Without thinking about it, I put my hand on his chest and felt. I felt the furious pounding beneath all that muscle and bone, just like mine. Excited, racing, sprinting, trying to win like always.

Luckily, he decided to take a step back right then. His lips were pink, his eyes glassy. His nostrils flared as he watched me closely. “Let’s go, yes? Every day this gets more difficult.”

I was still in her arms when I spotted them in the first row. They were on their feet screaming, the white Corona cap had a seat center field with a familiar-looking man wearing a jersey with my number on it right next to him. Next to that jersey was another one of mine, smaller and in a different color. Kulti, my dad and mom.

Finally after my mom let me go, Kulti stepped forward before Marc or Simon could. He put a hand on my shoulder, his eyes holding mine steady and only the faintest hint of a smile on his mouth.

Kulti tilted his head and raked his gaze from my face down, down, down to land on the white tank top I’d put on over a clean sports bra, and then kept right on burning a visual path to my thighs. He took a quick breath I almost missed. Those amber eyes slid back up to my face.

“Do those freckles go everywhere?”

LEMME BREATHE

A tendon in his neck flexed, and Kulti gave me what could have been considered a grimace. “I’ll behave.” A shaky sigh made its way out of his chest and reached straight into mine.

“I was… agitated. I didn’t like the idea of you spending time with him in secret. It bothered me.”