I didn’t bother to hide how I rolled my eyes. “They asked me if he was single.”
She snorted.
“I should have said, ‘no, I met his life partner a few days ago. He’s great.’” I gave her a little smile as I pulled my things out of my bag. “Maybe one day.”
“Yesterday I had one of them ask me if I thought he was preparing for a comeback. Then, I was getting my mail when my neighbor asked, ‘Hi, Jennifer, do you think you could get me tickets to your next game?’I don’t even know his name!” she exclaimed. “The day before that, my aunt asked me if there was any way for her to drop by during practice. She doesn’t even like soccer.”
Jenny wasn’t one to ever complain, so for her to mention it said something.
I settled just for nodding at her. I didn’t trust the words that could potentially come out of my mouth.
“Genevieve told me that her boss said he’d give her a raise if she brought him back something that belonged to you-know-who.”
Not surprising. On the other hand, I was sure that if I gave Marc Kulti’s underwear, he’d probably tell me to take a week off and still pay me my half. “I heard Harlow tell a reporter this morning that she came to play, not talk about her coach.”
We both snorted.
“But what are we going to do? Complain about all of the attention? I already told them about the weird emails I’ve been getting about Eric, and they’re trying to turn everything around to work out positively. Eric told me Kulti was offered some huge deal from a European team, and he turned it down. They aren’t going to want to risk losing him.” I thought of the night at the bar again and his threat, and felt that familiar bolt of frustration streak down my back before I pushed it away. “Oh well.”
She nodded in resignation. “I hope everyone calms down as the season goes on.”
“Me too.”
Chapter Seven
Practices and lifejust went on for the next few days.
There’d been at least a couple of reporters by the field every morning. It was usually the same ones for a couple of days before the rotation changed and other people showed up. Gardner led practices with the assistance of the fitness coach and one of the other assistants while the infamousfrankfurterdid what he always did: a whole bunch of nothing.
Eventually after a couple of days, I stopped giving a shit about the German—I had other things to worry about—and ignoring him became second nature, even when he wasright there.
Like the day of the team photo.
Safely nestled in the front row with the rest of the under-five-foot-seven players, I had a midfielder on one side and a defender on the other, courtesy of the assistant photographer’s manhandling. Had I forgotten that Sheena had said I should stand by Kulti? Nope. Was I about to say anything to fix what was going on? No way, Jose.
The sun had taken its punishing nature to the next level, the humidity making me sweat in places most people never would, and all I wanted was the water under a canopy too far away to reach in a quick sprint. Standing there defenselessly huddled together was about a hundred times worse than running around having practice before the heat got too bad. Way worse.
“Is this almost over?” the player to my right sighed. She was one of the new additions to the Pipers.
“I think so,” Genevieve, a girl in the row directly behind me, answered. This was only her second season playing in the WPL.
I glanced over my shoulder to see the assistant rearranging the women in the top row. Harlow was standing off to the side, scowling at whatever the woman was saying, and it made me smile. “They’re almost done with the big broads up there, then it should start and it’ll be another twenty minutes tops.”
There was a collective groan from the six people around.
“Casillas!”
Oh hell. No.No. “Twenty-three! You’re in the wrong place!” the photographer yelled from her spot right next to the Pipers’ public relations employee.
“See you later, guys,” I muttered.
It took everything in me to not hang my head and drag my feet toward Sheena, who had appeared out of nowhere. I’d been keeping an eye out for her. Bah. I understood that she was watching out for me, doing me a favor by helping me out of the predicament that the past had gotten me into simply by association. But as I thought about those emails that went unread in my inbox, I decided it was probably worth it to just keep my mouth closed and do what I needed to.
Apparently, none of that mattered. I swallowed, put my Big Girl Socks on and took a deep breath as I walked like a normal sane human in the direction I was being pointed.
“Sal, squeeze in right there one row below Mr. Kulti, next to Miss Phyllis.” Miss Phyllis, the fitness coach who resurrected herself year after year to make sure the team was in shape. It also happened that we were around the same height, so Sheena’s thinking made sense. If you didn’t take into consideration that the human Berlin Wall was at least six inches taller than the player standing next to him.
I threw my shoulders back and pretended like I didn’t notice the way he ignored everything and everyone around him even when I stood less than a foot away.