Page 70 of Coach
I blew out a heavy sigh. “Just answer me, and I will. It’s driving me crazy.”
She cocked her head, glared, then tossed her pencil down and crossed her arms.
“You like this guy, don’t you?”
Some odd feeling tugged at my face. It felt like my skin tightened but only around my mouth. It felt so strange.
“You’re grinning like a fucking idiot,” she said. “It makes you look weird. Stop it.”
Oh, right, that was what it felt like.
“I guess, maybe a little. It’s been three days since trivia night, and I . . . I can’t stop thinking about him. He’s nice and funny and . . . if you saw him smile—”
“Stop. Gross. I will not engage in speculation over my vagina getting all hot and juicy over a boy. My biology doesn’t work that way, and I prefer to keep my lesbionic functioning intact.”
I blinked, unsure how to even unbox that statement.
“If you like him, call him. Stop acting like a teenager passing notes in class. Be the big, brave man you say you are, and pick up the damnedphone.” She snatched up her pen and journal and stood. “Maybe afterward, you’ll be able to focus on that wood over there instead of some Italian’s olive branch.”
I had to remind myself that I was Stevie’s boss, not the other way around. Part of me wanted to snap at her for ordering me around, but I knew she was right. I was moping, or wallowing, or letting things fester.
More than any of that, I was being a chicken.
And I was not a damned chicken.
Not in standing up for myself or other people, and certainly not in making a simple phone call to tell a guy I enjoyed seeing him and hoped to do so again . . . hoped to see his thick, curly black hair and broad smile, those eyes that shifted from deep walnut to cherry with his mood.
I was not chicken.
Not even a little.
Bok-bok, chimed in my head, my evil subconscious making its un-asked-for opinion heard.
Damn it.
I grabbed my phone and punched Mateo’s name before good judgement—or feathers—could stop me. It rang once, then again, then again. I was about to hang up when:
“Hey there, Mr. Woodsman.”
Mateo didn’t sound all jittery, like I felt.
“Hi,” I said, becoming eloquence personified.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, and something foreign and warm tickled my skin.
“Uh, yours, too.” I felt like such a dumbass, sitting there in my shop, staring at unfinished furniture, seeing Mateo everywhere I looked, and feeling unable to put two thoughts, much less words, together.
“I had fun the other night,” he said, filling the silence.
“Yeah, me, too.”
There was a split second of silence, then he added, “I think the group liked you, but with them, it’s sometimes hard to tell. They attack everyone. At least it wasn’t the full gang. You might’ve run from the building if you’d had to face them all at once.”
“That’s good. I like them. They seem nice.”
Mateo snorted into the phone. “That’s a word. We’ll go with that. Sure.”
Another uncomfortable pause.
