Page 154 of Coach
“I don’t speak,” Shane said.
“No kidding!” Matty jabbed.
I glared until he slouched back into his glass and salted meat.
“I don’t do speeches, but I need to explain to Mateo why you’re all here.”
“He doesn’t know?” Jeremiah asked Omar a little too loudly. An anticipatory giggle threaded his words.
“He knows we needed a weekend away. Hell, we all knew that.”
A chorus of nods and grunts of agreement.
“He didn’t know you would be here. And, well, he didn’t know why I really wanted to come.”
“Because he stroked it right,” Matty chirped.
Sisi spit wine.
Omar elbowed him, his brow furrowing until it became one giant, fuzzy caterpillar.
I ignored them all, setting my glass down and turning to face Mateo, who stared at me through narrowed eyes.
“I’m not great with people. You know that. And still . . . for some reason I’ll never understand, you keep following me around.”
A few snickers from our friends.
“I tried scaring you off. You wouldn’t run. You subjected me to Mrs. H, and for some insane reason, I didn’t run either.”
More snickers.
“I guess, along the way, I kind of fell for you.”
Sisi blinked away tears.
Matty clutched his glass and said, “Aww.”
“Mateo, you make me happy. More than that, you make me . . . hell . . . you make me want to be better. I see you with your kids, with their parents, how you live your life in the open and inspire those aroundyou. Who wouldn’t want to be more like that?”
Mateo took a step forward and reached out a hand.
I stepped back. “Let me get this out, okay.”
He nodded and lowered his hand.
“I love you, Mateo, more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. I don’t know what we’ll face next, how your team will do next season, if my furniture will continue to sell; but I know one thing: I want to face all of it with you. I never want to wake up alone, without your messy-ass hair leaving its oily stain on my pillowcase—”
“Eww,” Matty said, earning a shoulder shove from Sisi.
“I want to live my life knowing every day, before the sun sets, you will be in my arms. I want to protect you, to support you, to . . . fuck . . .”
“Yeah!” Omar bellowed.
Mateo rolled his now-watery eyes.
“And fuck, lots of that. Omar’s right.”
“Damn straight!” Omar barked.
