Page 171 of Coach
Stevie didn’t coddle, didn’t hug, didn’t ask twice.
She just showed up.
Most of the time with food.
And her sharp tongue.
And with that look that said, “If you fall apart, I’ll staple you back together and call it rustic charm.”
“I’m working,” I said, still bent over the plans. “Big piece.”
“I can see that. Looks like a haunted jewelry box and Chinese opium dream had a baby.”
“It’s a curio cabinet, fuck you very much.”
In addition to being my best friend, Stevie ran the business side of my shop, keeping the books, handling the paperwork, marketing my services, and selling my finished pieces that weren’t destined for a specific client’s home. I could build almost anything, but without Stevie, my place would be filled with fantastic furniture that no one ever saw or cared about . . . and I’d be eating little more than Ramen noodles like the college dropout I was.
But Stevie was so much more than just my office manager.
She’d seen me through my darkest moments and never said a word about what she’d heard. She was a vault, and I loved her for it. On top of everything, she was almost as weird as me, which scared the hell out of most people but made as much sense as a perfectly fitted dovetail joint to me.
Yeah, that was Stevie, my dovetail.
Come to think of it, she wasn’t just one of my friends; she was my only friend—the only one that mattered, anyway. Friends were like shoes. Why did anyone need more than one pair of shoes? Maybe two, if you counted flip-flops as shoes. Every self-respecting dude owned flip-flops.
“It looks like how I expect my therapist might draw anxiety if she had the art skills of a blind third-grade quadriplegic with a pencil in hismouth,” she said, dropping a bag onto the workbench with a thud. “Which is why you’re going to eat lunch before you pass out and saw off something important, like a foot.”
I straightened, cracking my back in three places, and gave her a flat look. “I’m in great shape.”
“You’re in denial.”
“I literally lift furniture for a living.”
“And yet,” she said, opening the bag, “I watched you eat three granola bars and a stale donut yesterday and call it ‘meals plural.’ So, you’re going to listen to me and sit your very muscly, very dramatic ass down and eat this damn sandwich before you turn into an emaciated art goblin.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Dramatic?”
She pointed at the cabinet. “You were muttering to the wood, Shane.”
“It cracked. I was mad,” I said, slumping down onto a stool and ignoring how it groaned beneath my weight. “And you have to talk to the wood or it won’t do what you want. Ask anyone who—”
“You’re fucking insane. You know that, right?”
She dug into the bag, then handed me a sandwich and drink, waiting until I took a bite before sitting on the bench across from me.
Chicken, bacon, spicy mustard. Gourmet food if I’d ever tasted it.
She knew what I liked. She always did.
“Thanks,” I muttered through a mouthful.
“You’re welcome,” she said, kicking her feet against the cabinet leg like she was testing it. “So, what’s the deal with this thing?”
“Client wants it to look old, like centuries old, like something from a palace or a museum. I’m not allowed to use screws. It’s all joinery and hand-cut everything.”
“Sounds like hell.”
“It is.”
