“Salomé—“
Oh dear God. He went with my full name. I braced myself.
“You met Alejandro?” He enunciated each word slowly. The fact he went with the man’s first name said more than enough about how popular he was. It was like ‘Kulti,’ everyone knew him by one name.
“I have a picture to send you!” I immediately shot back before he could give me too much shit.
Dad ignored me. “And Franz Koch?”
I sighed. “Yes.”
He didn’t say anything after that and I sighed again.
“I had no idea they were coming.” That sounded lame even to my ears. “Dad, I’m sorry. I should have called you right after and sent you pictures. Kulti brought them and I was so surprised, I wasn’t thinking clearly. We had a game afterward and… don’t be mad at me.”
“I’m not mad.”
He was disappointed. I knew he liked being in the ‘know.’ He liked knowing gossip before everyone else did, and I had let him down and made him find out that two super-star players had volunteered at my soccer camp through someone else.
“Yourtiosent me the picture,” he said, which explained everything. Dad wasn’t a fan of my mom’s brother.
Bah. “Franz came to our game yesterday and asked to do some one-on-one coaching with me,” I offered him up. “We played for three hours. I thought I was going to die.”
“Only you two?” he asked in a soft voice that was probably still the same volume a normal person spoke in.
“Yeah.”
“He asked you to play with him?”
“Yes. He said my footwork was fantastic. Can you believe that?”
Dad chuffed. “Yes.”
I grinned into the phone. “Well I couldn’t believe it. He asked if I was free tomorrow to play again.”
“You better have said yes,” he grumbled, still trying to hold on to his aggravation.
“Of course I said yes. I’m not that dumb...”
Dad made a noise. “Eh.”
“Yeah, yeah. Dad?”
“Que?”
“He asked me why I haven’t considered playing in a different league.” His words from earlier were wreaking havoc on my brain. “He said I was wasting my time here since I don’t play on the national team.”
The thing about parents, especially ones that loved their kids what some people might consider ‘too much’—if that was even possible—was that sometimes they were selfish. Other times, you could hear the pain it caused them to put their kid’s well-being ahead of their own wishes. So I wasn’t positive how my dad would react to what I was saying. But I knew deep in my heart that my dad had always done what was best for me even if it cost him time, money and even heartache. Sure he’d been all about my brother going to Europe, but Eric wasn’t me.
While I might not be his baby, I was his Sal. We were each other’s best friends and confidants. Dad and I were a gang of two.
I kept going, and I told him about Cordero, Gardner and the Pipers that were talking about me because of my friendship with the German. By the time I pulled into the driveway of my garage apartment, Dad knew just about everything. I wasn’t totally surprised that I felt relieved to get it off my chest.
“I don’t know what to do,” I admitted.
There was no hesitation on his end. “Hijos de su madre,”he growled. “You would never…” Dad let out an exasperated snarl of frustration. “You would never do that.”
I sighed. “What should I do? I haven’t done anything wrong, and a part of me doesn’t want to leave…”