As the days counted down toward the big final game, I became more and more nervous. Kulti hadn’t acted any differently. He hadn’t tried kissing me since that afternoon outside of my car. When he’d come over to my place, we’d do what we always did and in the middle of his visit, he’d ask me how practice went. Twice we went outside and volleyed the ball back and forth, but that had been it. Except for that one night when he said things to me I never could have dreamed up, he’d been the close-mouthed man I was used to spending time with. Before he’d left, he’d promised to give me time and space to think and focus on what was the most important: the final game.
I still couldn’t help but ask myself what was going to happen after the game.
What if I didn’t get on another team? What if I was injured today? What if I blew my knee out in the off-season? Or the next season?
What would I do then?
The logical part of me knew that I was freaking out about nothing. It wasn’t totally unusual. When I was anxious in situations like these, my mind made up a bunch of other crap to stress about too. Of course this thing between Kulti and I was at the top of my list.
It all weighed on my chest like a ticking time bomb.
What if.
What if.
What if.
He nudged my thigh playfully with the back of his balled up hand. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m not worried, I’m just thinking about stuff.”
“Lies.”
I shot him a look and leaned against the seat, thinking and stressing.
He let out a deep sigh. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I bit my lips and took in that soft crease between his eyebrows, the color of his eyes, the way the lines that bracketed his mouth deepened in worry. How could I go back to my life if this thing between us didn’t work out? I’d been young and angry when I’d had a huge crush on the man I only knew on paper and television. It hadn’t been real. But this was real. This Rey was real and kind when he wasn’t a major pain in the ass.
I couldn’t get rid of the apprehensive knot taking a poop in my stomach. This wasn’t a ‘what if’ I wanted to deal with. So screw it. Maybe the best thing to do would be for me to get this worry over with before the game.
“What’s going to happen when I can’t play anymore?” I asked him, shoving my hands between my thighs so he couldn’t see them shaking.
I heard him shift in his seat. The leather creaked and then continued creaking as he settled in. “What are you babbling about?”
“What are you going to do when I can’t play anymore? My knee might only have a few more years left in it. What will happen then?” I asked, eyes going to the roof of the car because there was no way I could handle his face in that moment.
“That’s what’s stressing you out?” His voice was low and too calm.
“Yeah. Mostly. On top of everything else.”
“Sal, look at me.” I let my head drop to the side so I could look at him as he spoke. In a plain white T-shirt with a check mark on it, fitted faded jeans and his favorite pair of black and green shoes, he was almost surreal. It just made what I was asking worse.
I was sitting in the backseat of a car with Reiner ‘The King’ Kulti on the way to the WPL final game, asking him if he was still going to love me once I couldn’t play anymore. Good God. Was I really bringing this crap up now? I changed my mind. I didn’t want to know yet.
I didn’t want to ever know where our limits stood.
“Sal.”
The car slowed to a stop. Behind Kulti’s head, the window showed the outline of the entrance I was supposed to be walking through.
“I’m stressed, I’m sorry. We’ll talk later, all right?”
He looked at me for what felt like a long time but was more than likely just a few seconds before finally giving me a grave nod, excusing me from the hole I’d dug for myself.
I couldn’t breathe, and I needed to focus. My hands were still shaking, and I was more nervous than I’d been since I was a teenager playing in my first U-17 game. Life would still go on regardless of what happened, I reminded myself. Swallowing hard, I smiled at the German. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it,” he responded, his face still ultra-serious.