Page 26 of Coach
Even his voice sounded like it had stubble.
I flailed my hands toward the truck. “Did you—uh—bring the piece?”
Of course he brought the piece. That was why he was here. That was like asking a pizza guy if he brought pizza.
But I couldn’t stop myself.
My incessant babbling stupidity was an unstoppableforce.
“Yeah,” he said, turning toward the bed of the truck. “Wrapped it up tight. Just need to unload.”
I nodded too fast. “Right! Yes. Good. That’s … excellent.” I blinked again, trying to reboot my brain. “You look hot.”
What?
Why did I say that?
Why was I commenting on his body temperature like a malfunctioning grandmother?
“It’s hot out.” He shrugged before swiping his forearm over his forehead.
I watched, in real time, as he tipped back the glass of water I’d handed him, drank like a man who hadn’t seen hydration in days—and tossed half of it down his front. It wasn’t an on-purpose toss, more like the glass slipped in the most perfect way possible.
I might’ve blacked out for a second.
The tank top, already hanging on by its last thread of decency, went transparent. Justmeltedagainst him, clung to the curve of his chest like it was grateful, revealed every sculpted ridge and cut and groove like Michelangelo had risen from the grave and said, “Yeah, this one’s mine.”
His chest looked like someone carved it with a chisel, solid and broad, like it had broken throughseveral shirts in its lifetime just by existing too hard.
And his abs?
They were crime scene-level definition, abs you could play scales on, abs that could do my taxes, abs that came with their own warning label for people with heart conditions. The water justdrippeddown them across his shirt—slow, casual, like it had nowhere else to be but sliding past the indents I wasn’t supposed to be staring at.
The sun caught on his arms and turned his skin golden, like God was playing favorites and forgot to be subtle about it. And I was just . . . standing there. Useless.
Useless with a capital “thirsty.”
I couldn’t evenblinkproperly. My brain was trying to decide between fight, flight, or lick, and none of those were socially acceptable, certainly not in the middle of the day in my driveway.
I was a grown-ass man.
I was composed.
I was a basketball coach with a master’s degree.
And I was short-circuiting over one very wet, very broody carpenter like a Victorian maiden at her first dance.
It was art.Hewas art.
He was thirst-trap Picasso.
And I, Mateo Ricci, was a gaping, blinking idiot.
Then—without any warning—he began hopping on one foot like some cartoon character had just smacked his toes with a giant mallet. That’s when his hand—holy mother of pearl—shot down the front of his jeans where his junk was, well, doing whatever junk did when trapped in denim.
Was he playing with himself? Was this part of his service? I was speechless . . . and like an angry Italian mother, I wasneverwithout words.
A few horny heartbeats later, his hand emerged with an ice cube clutched between two fingers. That’s when my brain decided to return to work. I’m not sure if it should have.
