“Is that a yes?” I blinked up at him.
“That’s a stupid question, Sal,” he stated.
But was it a yes?
I didn’t get a chance to ask for clarification because I spotted four kids making their way across the field from the parking lot, and I knew I’d have to put off this conversation for later. I still didn’t completely understand why Kulti had been such a douche the other day with the kids, but he’d apologized, and in his book that was the equivalent of giving me his kidney, so I’d take it and demand an explanation later.
More importantly, what had inspired him to give me a hug right then?
I squeezed his hand and gave him a nod. “Let’s start, all right?”
“Yes.” He didn’t break eye contact with me once. “I brought shoes for everyone. I think it would be best to give them to the kids at the end.”
“You brought…” I shut my mouth and got it together. “In that van? There’s shoes for the kids?”
“Yes. I asked the volunteers to take their size information during registration. There should be more than enough for everyone. I brought nearly every size.”
It’s funny how things work sometimes. It really is.
I had learned and accepted my place in a stranger’s life a decade ago. I’d grown up and accepted what would and could happen, and I had known that there was no future for me and a man who didn’t know I existed.
And then one day, that same man for some reason decided to step into my circle, of all the circles in the world he could have chosen. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we became friends. I knew and understood that procession. I was okay with my place. Friends. Not so simple or easy, but those were the best things in life, the hard things that didn’t fit perfectly, weren’t they?
In one instant, in one kind deed and unexpected gesture, something inside of me woke up. There was a reason I put up with his shit and forgave him for being a dick so quickly.
I was still in love with this man.
I had no right to be. No sound reason to. I liked to think I made wise decisions, but reviving my childhood adoration for him was one of the dumbest things I could ever have let myself do. But, obviously, I couldn’t take it back. My heart hadn’t completely forgotten what it was like to feel this way for him, but no matter how much I tried to pretend otherwise, it had swelled and grown over the years.
Now, I understood. I had loved Reiner Kulti as a kid. I had loved my ex-boyfriend as a young adult, learning and growing. And the Sal Casillas I was today knew that I couldn’t love someone who didn’t deserve it.
It was the shoes for the kids whose parents couldn’t afford them that tied the noose around my neck.
Him bringing his friends to my soccer camps.
Kulti buying my dad the trip of a lifetime.
Calling me his friend in front of people that he genuinely knew he didn’t give a single shit about.
I was in love with this pumpernickel.
God help me, I think I wanted to cry.
I tried to find something to say—anything, and I hoped that my face didn’t say, ‘You are a fucking idiot, Sal.’ Because I was. I really was. There was no escaping the truth when it was looking at you from two feet away, brown haired, bright eyed and six-foot-two-inches tall. I scratched my cheek and fought the urge to look away, to find my breath and sanity wherever it had gone. “I didn’t think your sponsor would do something like that.”
Here’s the thing about the German: he wasn’t one to beat around the bush or play coy or be modest. He looked me right in the eye and said it. “They didn’t. I bought them.”
He…
“Ms. Sal!” one of the teachers by the registration table called out.
“You,” I poked Kulti in the stomach knowing I only had a second before I needed to haul it back to the table. “I don’t know how to thank you—“
“Don’t.”
“Ms. Sal!”
Gaze to gaze with the bratwurst, I told him in a rush, “Thank you.”