* * *

“Holy shit.”

I turned around to see what the sixth grade teacher was ‘holy shitting’ over, and I froze.

Seriously, I froze.

“Holy shit,” I repeated the exact same words that had just come out of the other woman’s mouth.

It was the German walking across the middle school field, which would have been a ‘holy shit’ moment to begin with if I wasn’t already used to seeing him all the time. But there were the two men walking alongside him. One was another German who I’d seen play plenty of times growing up, and the other a Spaniard who I’d met before and happened to have a cologne commercial running on television.

They pooped. They all pooped. Every single one of them.

I took a deep breath and looked around the field at the four teachers who had volunteered to help out with the soccer camp that Saturday morning. Four small goals had been set up about half an hour ago in preparation for the twenty kids who had pre-registered.

Dear God, he’d brought these men and he hadn’t said a word about it the last time we’d seen each other. Then again, neither of us had brought up him helping since we had originally talked about it two weeks ago. I didn’t want him to feel obligated to do anything.

Yet here he was with friends. Not just any friends, but them.

There was no way in hell I was being totally cool about this. No way Kulti couldn’t tell I was thrilled. From the way his mouth tightened when he stopped just a few feet away, ignoring the two teachers standing right by me, he knew everything.

I grabbed his forearm as soon as he was close enough and squeezed hard, hoping he could understand everything I was feeling, everything I wanted to say but couldn’t. At least nothing I was able to get out in that instant.

“Hello,” I managed to say in a voice that sounded just like my own and not like I was on the brink of shitting a small pony. “Thanks for coming.”

The German tipped his head down in acknowledgment.

Turning my attention to the other men, I thought to myself once more: poop, poop, poop. Fortunately, I got through it.

“Hi, Alejandro,” I said, almost shyly.

It took the Spaniard a moment of looking at me before it dawned on him that we knew each other. “Salomé?” he asked hesitantly. Honestly, I was surprised he remembered my name; I had no doubt he’d met a thousand people since we’d last seen each other, and it wasn’t like we’d been best friends. We both had a sponsorship with the same athletic clothing company. About two years ago, we’d had photo shoots scheduled at the same time.

“It’s nice to see you again,” I said, extending my hand out in a greeting.

What I didn’t see were the hazel-colored eyes going back and forth between myself and the Spanish man.

Alejandro quickly took it, allowing himself to smile broadly. “Como estas?” He fell into that quick, soft accented Spanish that was a little foreign to me.

“Muy bien y usted?” I asked.

Before he could respond, the other newcomer butted in. “Hablo español tambien,” he said in a rougher accent, more like the Central American Spanish I was accustomed to.

I smiled at him. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you,” I greeted Franz Koch, one of the star players in the European League a decade ago. In his mid-forties, he’d been the captain of the German National Team years ago.

If I remembered correctly, he’d been a freaking beast.

“Franz,” the man said, taking my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I cleared my throat to keep from croaking and managed to smile. “Oh, I know who you are. I’m a big fan. Thank you so much for coming.” I scratched at my cheek as I took a step away from them. “Thank you all for coming. I don’t know what to say.”