Page 182 of Coach
Right. Delivery.He wasn’t even thinking I was hitting on him—which I wasn’t.
“Want to grab dinner?”
Shane blanched, the first crack in his stone visage, save for the ice-meeting-balls incident, and that didn’t count because, well, who could have ice on his balls and not jump a little?
“Now?” he asked. “It’s just past noon.”
He wasn’t saying “no,” but the utter lack of warmth in his tone made me wonder if he welcomed the invitation or thought I was a complete idiot for asking. Hell, maybe the giant wasn’t even gay. I’d made that assumption based on what? My desire to lick his abs and taste his every curve.
“I didn’t mean to assume. I just wanted to say thanks for coming all this way out . . . and I guess . . . I mean, if you’re not . . . oh, shit . . . Are you? If you aren’t into guys or dates or dinner or fuck . . . please don’t be upset—”
“Yes,” he said, mercifully ending my stream of consciousness.
“Yes?”
“I’m gay. And yes to dinner.”
I remembered to breathe again.
“Okay, good . . . about being gay . . . and dinner.About both, actually. Say, seven? I need to do a few things and clean up and try to remember how to speak,” I said, barely managing to avoid verbal vomit.
He stared—no, he glared—then nodded once as though sealing a medieval truce on a battlefield. “Sure. No sushi.”
“Deal. No sushi.” I smiled and tried to keep my inner boy in check. I was about to suggest No. 246, a cozy, elegant little place in Decatur, closer to him, when he raised a palm like a patrolman.
“And nothing fancy.”
“No sushi. No black tie. Got it.” I raised my phone and waved. “I’ll text you the address once I have a place figured out. I was thinking Decatur since it’s sort of in the middle, between our places?”
He grunted something of agreement and did that one-nod thing again.
And just like that, we had a date.
Chapter 10
Shane
Istood in front of the closet wearing nothing but a towel and a scowl.
Water dripped from my hair, down the back of my neck, and onto the floor I’d mopped just that morning. I ignored it—the same way I was ignoring the clothes in front of me like they were part of some advanced tactical puzzle I didn’t remember learning how to solve.
I’d been staring for ten full minutes.
Shirts hung before me, smug and useless.
I pulled out a plaid flannel long-sleeve, my go-to for pretty much any occasion more formal than a workout at the gym. It was blue with brown lines . . . or whatever they’re called in plaid speak. It was too dark, too plain, too . . . me.
I tossed it on the bed.
Turning, I grabbed the shirt that hung beside its discarded brother. It was plaid, too. Also flannel,but this one was different—brown with blue lines. I chucked it toward the bed, missing by a country mile to watch it smack into the window and fall to the floor.
It was ugly.
It deserved the floor.
Something darker called to me from a few shirts down the line, a solid black button-down I wore to funerals, a shirt that also had a faint paint stain near the hem.
Was it dressy casual or murder scene chic?
