Page 13 of Coach
Still . . .
I rubbed the curve of the piece again, tracing the dip with my thumb, and somewhere in the back of my mind, Mateo’s voice teased me, his damn accent, the clumsy way he’d said “sideboard” like it was something sacred, like he was embarrassed just standing there.
I huffed out a breath and grabbed the file again.
“Focus. I need to focus,” I muttered.
The wood needed shaping.
The work needed doing.
And the Italian?
He needed to stop smiling in my head.
Chapter 5
Mateo
The teacher’s lounge at Mount Vernon High smelled like burned coffee and whatever someone had microwaved and then abandoned last week that was now possibly evolving into sentience. Mike and I had commandeered the one halfway-clean table near the window, unwrapping our lunches like we were about to perform surgery instead of survive another Monday afternoon.
“So,” Mike said, pointing at me with a limp carrot stick, “one of my kids today asked if ‘abs’ were a real muscle group or just something you downloaded on TikTok. You’re an athlete. What say you?”
I choked on my water. “Please tell me you said yes and assigned a ten-page research paper.”
“Tempting,” he said. “Instead, I made them do planks until they questioned all their life choices.”
“Planks? In Literature class? That’s a new twist,” I said, saluting him with my fork. “You’re educatingthe youth of America, one traumatic class at a time.”
Mike smirked. “Your turn. Hit me with your dumbest moment of the day—and for the love of Gru and his Minions, it can’t involve Jessica.”
“World history, a riveting morning.” I leaned back in my chair, considering. “I had a sophomore argue that Napoleon was actually two small men in a trench coat trying to avoid taxes.”
“Like circus performers?”
“More like those Chinese dudes who crawl under a dragon outfit and dance around.”
Mike lost it, slapping the table hard enough to make the fake Ficus in the corner tremble.
“I’m not even mad,” I said, grinning. “Honestly? It was creative. Historically inaccurate, but creative.”
“Are you done with tryouts?”
I chewed a moment, then swallowed and washed down my bite with Coke before shaking my head. “One more day of torture.”
“You say that like you hate coaching.”
“That may be the meanest thing you have ever said to me.” My brow furrowed. “I live for coaching, but tryouts isn’t coaching. It’s . . . How can I describe this so you will understand? It is like watching a bunch of baby deer, none of whom should even be on their feet yet, as they wobble and fall all over the grass.”
“Wow. You just called your team a bunch of Bambis.”
“The few who will make it are beasts. We could make another run at state this year.” I shrugged and took another bite.
“But?”
“But . . . Every year, no matter how good we are or how much I try to dissuade the foolhardy, kids who have no business trying out for a team at our level show up—and not just a few of them. It’s like they all get together and plan how bad they can be, then barge into the gym at the same time.”
“That bad?”
