“Why are you being so stubborn about this? That isn’t what I meant.”
That had me letting out a sharp laugh. “If our roles were switched, you really think you wouldn’t say something similar if not worse? Seriously?” He’d tell me to eat shit and kiss his ass for sure, and that was the PG-13 version of it.
He knew it was the truth from the way his tongue poked at the side of his cheek.
I gently tugged my arm away from him, and he let me that time. “Look, I’m not in the mood to talk to you right now. You don’t get to take your anger out on me and expect me to get over it like nothing happened. The fact is, I would never say what you said to me to anyone. I thought we were friends and that’s my mistake. I don’t want to be friends with someone that looks down on me. I really do need to get to work.” I took a couple steps back and offered him a smile that I wasn’t feeling. “I’ll talk to you later.”
I have no idea if or how he responded because I took off. I hadn’t been lying. Marc and I had a lot of work to do.
Istaredat the images on the tablet.
“Is it?”
Was it me in the pictures?Yes, it was. Clasping my hands and settling them between my thighs, I looked away from the photographs that had been taken right outside of my doctor’s building.
The first picture I’d been shown was of me walking alongside Kulti with my head down. The second was of me standing by his car right before getting in, and the third showed me getting in while the German stood a little too close behind.
It was definitely me. There was no denying it; anyone with decent vision could recognize who it was.
So the fact that Gardner, Sheena and Cordero, the Pipers’ general manager, had invited me to a meeting to talk about this had me on edge.
Is it you? Cordero had asked shortly before Sheena slid the tablet over.
It was a trick freaking question and I didn’t like it. Maybe it was a good thing that I wasn’t a liar and that I didn’t have anything to hide. Regardless, I was still on edge.
I looked at the man behind this crap right in the eye and nodded. “It’s me.”
None of them looked remotely surprised. Of course they wouldn’t. Mr. Cordero knew damn who was on the photographs; he just wanted me to slit my own throat with a lie.
Digging my hands a little deeper into the crack between my thighs, I shrugged at them. “He went with me to my doctor’s appointment when I wasn’t doing well.”Doing wellwas vague enough so that it wasn’t a total lie. Keeping my face neutral, I kept my gaze steady on the team’s general manager. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The Argentinian man settled onto his hip, his chair the closest to mine. “’Wrong’ is a bit subjective, don’t you think?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “But in this case, I haven’t violated any terms of my contract or done anything I wouldn’t be upfront with my dad about.”
Well… I had told my dad hardly anything about my friendship with the German. Or anyone else really, but that was mainly because everyone would make a big deal over it and there wasn’t a deal to make, big or small.
A knock on the door prevented anyone from saying another word. Gardner instructed the person to come in, and I couldn’t say I was shocked to see Kulti. His eyes caught mine as he took the seat nearest the door. His face was expressionless, his broad shoulders loose. Still in his clothing from practice, track pants and a Pipers T-shirt, he leaned back against his chair and stared straight at Mr. Cordero. “What’s going on?”
The general manager reached for the tablet on Gardner’s desk and passed it to the German. “These images were released a couple of days ago.”
Kulti glanced at the screen for a second, and only a second before handing the device back with an impatient look. “What’s wrong with them?”
“These are pictures of you and one of the team’s star players on one of the most popular tabloid websites in the world,” Mr. Cordero explained in a cool voice that sounded just shy of crossing the edge into smart-ass town.
In what would begin two of the most unreal moments of my life, Kulti crossed his muscular arms—so lean, I could see veins crisscrossing his forearms and one or two running up his biceps—and shrugged. “What I see is a picture of me taking my friend to the doctor.”
“Your friend?” Cordero asked in disbelief.
“That’s what I said,” Kulti snapped back. His volume was low but there wasn’t any mistaking his irritation with the conversation.
Mr. Cordero turned to me, like I could possibly be handling Reiner Kulti calling me his friend in front of three Pipers staff, well. “You’re friends?” It wasn’t my imagination that he sounded like a bit more of an ass when he’d been speaking to me than he had when speaking to the German. Then again, I wasn’t some country’s national icon.
I nodded at the Pipers’ general manager, my emotions twisted into knots at Kulti’s admission. “Yes.” We were friends when he wasn’t getting on my nerves at least.
“Friends,” he said absently. “What kind of friends?”
Yeah, I wanted to smack him. I mean I knew what it looked like, butseriously?I’d given up so much for the Pipers, and he would think that I’d do something to jeopardize the only part of soccer I really had left? My face flushed red as I tried to talk myself out of saying something that could only hurt my career more than it already had been.