Page 41 of Coach
So why the hell couldn’t I focus?
My hands twitched for something to do, so I reached for a rag and gripped it too hard, my knuckles going pale. I didn’t loosen my grip, just twisted tighter. The cloth bunched between my fingers like I was bracing for impact.
A tin of walnut stain clinked as I popped the lid off, then stirred it once, twice, slower than I needed to, but still with a little too much force. The stick scraped the bottom, a deep, gritty sound, familiar and grounding.
I dipped the rag and squeezed until the excess dripped back in—slow, brown beads falling like seconds off a clock I couldn’t read.
Moving to the first chair, I started in on the back slats with even, steady strokes. At least . . . that’s what I was supposed to be doing. Instead, my wrist felt too stiff. My shoulders were tight, and my grip on the rag made my fingers ache by the third pass.
I exhaled through my nose.
It didn’t help.
Shifting my weight, I planted my boots wider, like I was bracing to lift a beam instead of refinish a chair. My jaw had been clenched so long it hurt when I eased it open again.
I stood back and rolled my shoulders, trying to shake it off, this feeling of uncertainty, of an unknown hand gripping my shoulder, demanding attention. The knot at the base of my neck throbbed like it was keeping tempo with my thoughts—fast, uneven, off-key.
Everything about my body felt wrong, like I was forcing calm over something that wanted to pace the length of the shop.
I moved to the second chair, hoping a shift in focus would jar my brain out of whatever muck it had sunk into. Bending too low, my back tensed.
The chair creaked under the pressure of my arm. Still, I didn’t ease up.
I didn’t even notice how hard I was working until the rag slipped in my hand, wet and half folded, leaving a heavy, uneven streak across the grain.
I cursed and snapped upright, taut muscles flaring. I squared my shoulders like I was about to fight the furniture.
It was just stain, I reminded myself.
Just wood.
But my body was acting like it was holding something bigger.
As much as I wanted to believe it was a mystery, some unknown force driving my brain and body mad, I knew what it was.
More accurately, I knewwhoit was.
Mateo.
His name alone tightened my throat, made my hands itch with nerves I didn’t want to admit I had.
I tossed the rag down like it was a problem, tore the latex gloves off and threw them in the bin, then flexed my fingers. They ached from how long I’d been clenching. I shook them out, rolled my wrists, pressed the heels of my palms into my eye sockets until the darkness behind my eyelids swirled like ink.
Breathe.
But even as I returned to the chair and tried again—more careful and more focused—I could feel it.
The tension wasn’t in the wood.
It was in me.
Every line of muscle, every stiff breath, every too-precise motion screamed the same word:
Mateo.
A laugh echoed in my head for the fifth time in an hour. It was rich and deep, yet playful, an Italian liltgiving it a life of its own. Something in that sound made a spark of something flicker in me, made me feel . . . I don’t know . . . happy?
Ridiculous. I was being ridiculous.
