Page 179 of Coach
Because something was shifting—not just the air in the room, something slower, heavier, more dangerous. I felt it when we’d first met at the fair. I felt it again when he stepped out of his house. Now it surrounded us, this something I couldn’t identify. Whatever that feeling was, it made me uncomfortable in a way dead silence in an elevator packed with people begged to be filled.
Intent onnotmeeting his gaze, I let my eyes takein his home.
The den was . . . not what I expected.
I mean, I figured it would be decent. Mateo didn’t strike me as the milk-crates-for-furniture type; but still, I wasn’t ready for how put-together it was. Classy even. But not in a cold, showroom kind of way.
It had warmth and layers. It felt lived-in beneath all the polish.
The walls were painted in a soft, moody gray, like the color of the sky when rain’s about to fall. Mateo’s furniture was simple but solid, with clean lines, deep, masculine tones—a lot of dark wood and leather. Books lined the built-in shelves flanking the fireplace, and I didn’t think they were just for show. Some were dog-eared, with cracked spines or little scraps of paper sticking out like he’d meant to come back to them. Others were bound in leather. A few appeared to have seen more than a century of life.
Without thinking, I reached up and ran a finger down one’s spine, taking in the leather, the faded gilding, the soul of the tome.
“Huh,” he grunted behind me. I realized I was copping a feel on his bookcase, yanked my hand back, and turned to face him.
“Sorry.”
“What for?” He cocked his head. “I just didn’t . . .take you for a reader. That’s all.”
Now it was my turn to blink a few times.
Mateo’s face stiffened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay. I get it. Big guy like me works with his hands and all. Who would think I like books, especially old ones?”
“Still—”
“Nah, it’s all good,” I said. “Guess I’ve always loved old things. Books, furniture, houses. Hell, I even like old people, and some of them are hard to love.”
Mateo smiled at that. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in the den, turning dim comfort into the warmth of a sunlit day. Ifelthis smile in my chest and quickly looked away, searching for something—anything—to save me from staring.
There was a throw blanket crumpled over the arm of the cracked leather couch and a single coffee mug left on the side table, as if he’d just stepped out for a second and hadn’t expected company. The rug underfoot was thick and patterned—maybe Turkish? Maybe just old. There was history in its threads, though, and I found myself staring at it longer than I should’ve.
The lighting was soft. Natural where it could be. A couple of shaded lamps instead of one harsh overhead.It was the kind of room that didn’t need to try too hard—it just made you want to sit down and stay a while.
“That’s from Azerbaijan,” Mateo said. My eyes shot up to find him watching me from the doorway, holding two glasses of water. I’d been so lost in exploring, in not looking at him, I hadn’t even seen him leave the room. “Late 1800s, so says our family lore. My Nonna used to roll it up every spring and beat the hell out of it with a broom in the alley.”
“Seriously?”
He grinned. “Yep. She said that was how you beat the bad dreams out of it.”
I huffed a small laugh. “Seems to’ve worked.”
He handed me a glass and looked down at the rug like it held some private joke only he understood. “When she passed, I asked for it. It still smells a little like cedar and mothballs in summer, but it always made a room feel right, like something of her is still here, you know?”
I didn’t know, but looking around his den, seeing the way the thing anchored the whole space—how the room felt because of it?
Yeah.
I got it.
I nodded. “It’s a good piece.”
He smiled again, softer this time. “Thanks. Thatmeans something coming from you.”
And damn it, those words did something in my chest I wasn’t ready for.
Chapter 9
