I woke up that morning thinking it was going to be a day like every other. Apparently it wasn’t. What the hell was I supposed to say?

The truth. Blah.

I found myself scratching at my cheek. “You are attractive. You’re very attractive and you know it, you conceited bastard. And you’re not too old. It’s just that…” I coughed. “You’re my coach and my friend,” I added absently, like that was supposed to be the big reason why I couldn’t look at him any different. Unfortunately, I now knew the truth: it was a bit too late for that crap.

His response? “I haven’t forgotten.”

What hadn’t he forgotten?

“Stop worrying about what everyone thinks. You’re the one that said the only thing that matters is what you know about yourself.” He kept right on looking at me until I nodded. “Let’s finish up, yes?”

In less than twenty minutes we were finished putting all the equipment back and helping the teachers put away the tables they had borrowed. I thanked them profusely for their help and watched as Kulti grabbed my bag and the water bottles that had been left over, hauling it all to my car.

“I’ll ride with you,” he said the instant the trunk had been slammed shut.

I shot him a look as I went to the driver side. “My place or yours?”

Kulti looked at me from the other side of the car. “Yours. Mine is too quiet.”

Considering we both lived alone, I didn’t understand how one place could have a different noise level than the other. The only difference was that his house was at least about six times bigger than my garage apartment.

“Why don’t you get a pet?” I asked.

“I have fish.”

That made me laugh. He had fish? “You do not.”

He tipped his shaved brown head in my direction. “I have three, a beta and two tetras. My agent gave them to me when I moved here. I have an aquarium at my flat in London.”

I tried not to make it seem like his admission was a big deal. “That’s neat. Who takes care of them?”

“A housekeeper.”

A housekeeper. No surprise there. “How many houses do you have?”

“Only three,” he answered nonchalantly.

Only three. I’d grown up the kid of paycheck-to-paycheck parents. While I knew that someone who had as much money as he did could realistically afford way more than three houses, it still amazed me. At the same time, it made me like Kulti a little more. I could respect someone who didn’t blow his money on stupid crap.

Instead, he spent it on buying shoes for kids.

Damn it, I needed to quit this mooning crap, but today had been a real whirlwind.

“Where’s your other house?” I found myself asking so that I wouldn’t think about other things.

“Meissen. It’s a small town in Germany.”

I made an impressed face.

“The house is tiny, Sal, but I think you’d like it,” he noted.

“I’ve always wanted to go to Germany,” I told him. “It’s on my list of places to go on my bucket list.”

He slanted a look at me. “What’s a bucket list?”

He didn’t know what a bucket list was? I shouldn’t have found that as cute as I did. “It’s a list of things you want to do before you die. Have you heard the term ‘kicking the bucket’?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the German shake his head. “Well that’s what it’s referring to. Stuff you want to do before you die.”

Kulti made a thoughtful noise. “You have more things on your list?”

“Yeah. I’d like to see the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, I want to bike the Continental Divide, do an Ironman, see the Northern Lights, hike a glacier, hold a baby panda and win an Altus Cup…” I sensed myself babbling and cut it off. “Things like that. I almost have enough money saved to go to Alaska after the season is over. Hopefully I can knock out some glaciers and the Northern Lights in one trip.”