“Winning.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “Okay.”
“My fish.”
His fish. Jesus Christ.
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 his face. When he finally answered, it caught me off-guard.
“You.”
Me.
Wait. Me?
I’m pretty sure I was beaming down to my soul. The words just kind of came out of me, unrestrained and unblemished. “Your friendship means the world to me, too you know.”
He didn’t break eye contact as he reached back and grabbed the fruit arrangement, finally deciding to share. I took it from him and looked it over, taking a chocolate-covered strawberry off in the process of my inspection. “Did you get a discount on this?”
“No.” He paused. “Why?”
I slanted a look at him before taking a bite of the berry. “Half of the fruit is missing.”
He reached forward and took a grape that was being used as a flower-shaped pineapple’s stigma. “Nothing is missing. I ate it.”
This man. I squeezed my eyes shut to keep from laughing. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
An hour or so passed, and he still hadn’t left by the time the next nurse came in to check on me. “Ms. Casillas, how are you—“
The poor lady shut her mouth, her eyes widening at the sight of the German sitting in the chair with his feet right next to mine. Her swallow was visible as she darted her eyes back and forth between the two of us.
“Oh, ah, I had no idea you had a visitor.” She cleared her throat. “It is past visiting hours but,” she cleared her throat again, her cheeks turning bright red. “I can keep a secret as long as you’re quiet.” In her early thirties, she was young and pretty. Her eyes kept switching back to him, suddenly jumping in place a little.
She left a few minutes later after doing a quick check to make sure I wasn’t exhibiting any signs of imminent death. “If you’re planning on taking an extended nap while you’re here, that chair in the corner has a footrest that comes out and it reclines.“
I waited until we were alone before asking, “Are you planning on staying?”
His answer was to toe off his sneakers, revealing bright white socks. I guess I could take that as a good sign. “Have you heard anything from your agent?”
“Nothing new. Someone is supposed to be giving me a call next week from a team in Sweden that seems interested.” A flutter went through my belly.Sweden. I still hadn’t wrapped my head around it.
“Which team?” he asked casually. I told him the name and he nodded. “That’s a good one.”
I didn’t miss the fact that he’d done research on the teams or clubs, as they were called overseas. I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up.
“What about France? Germany?”
“I know she heard back from two teams in Germany, but she hasn’t said anything else about it, and France, I have no idea.” I wiggled my toes beneath the thin blanket I’d used to cover myself up in the freezing cold room. I suddenly remembered what I’d told Franz about Amber. I’d yet to tell Kulti the story and it made me feel guilty. Here he was after worrying about me and apparently spending the night, and he didn’t know the truth. “Rey?”
“Taco.”
“Remember when you heard Amber calling me a whore, and I didn’t want to tell you why?”
Kulti was still staring at the television when he answered. “I know why.”
Say what? My head throbbed in response to his statement. “You do?”
“Yes, something about that woman with the horse teeth throwing a tantrum because her husband is a liar. You left the team.” He glanced at me. “Now that we are on the topic I have to tell you how much of an idiot you were. That situation wasn’t your fault, and the coach should have let her go instead of you. You’re faster, you make better decisions, and your ball-handling is much better.” He sounded so nonchalant through his speech; I couldn’t wrap my head around everything he said. I was still hung up on the fact that he freaking knew.