Page 213 of Coach
He lit up when he saw me—bright, unguarded, just for a second. His mouth opened like he was about to say something, even though I was half a bar away. It was so Mateo—that impulsive joy, that realness—that I forgot the disco football, forgot the man in the referee jockstrap doing body shots, forgot how many exits I’d already mentally mapped.
He looked at me like . . . I waswanted.
Not tolerated. Not put upwith.
Wanted.
My chest tightened in that weird, stupidly inconvenient way it sometimes did around him.
And suddenly, the bar didn’t seem so loud.
The glittery football didn’t seem so absurd.
Still, crossing the bar felt like stepping into a gay fever dream. There was a TV showing men’s wrestling with commentary dubbed in French. A drag queen in cleats was straddling a pool table while refereeing a darts game with a glitter whistle. Somewhere, someone was chanting, “BOTTOMS UNITE,” which I chose not to unpack.
And then there was the booth.
As I neared, I saw him elbowing the guy on the end—a mountain of a man who looked like he bench-pressed cattle for recreation.
“Elliot, move,” Mateo hissed.
Elliot didn’t budge.
“Seriously. You’re blocking me in.”
Still nothing.
The blond guy—and I meanreallyblond—was dressed like he’d been styled by a fashion-forward raccoon with access to a Nordstrom clearance rack and zero sense of chill. With him seated at the table, I couldn’t see his pants, but his shirt was black mesh and see-through—and covered in tiny glittering footballs that sparkled every time he moved—which, to be clear, was constantly. Over that, he wore acropped faux-leather bomber jacket with leopard print lining, pushed up to the elbows for maximum drama. Around his neck was a thin silver chain with a tiny whistle charm that may or may not have been functional.
His platinum hair was tousled, as though he’d spent an hour making it look like he hadn’t tried at all. Eyeliner sharp enough to file a restraining order framed clear gray eyes, and his cheekbones glowed with the power of a thousand strategically placed highlighters.
He leaned across the table with his index finger pointed like an angry nun, and said, “Elliot, you are functionally a dam and Mateo is the river of destiny. Get out of his way before I toss my beer and lick it off your ridiculously hard body.”
The bushy brows of the black-haired guy beside him bunched into one giant caterpillar, as he snapped, “Hey, you’re mine. No licking the monster.”
The blond smiled, batted his eyelashes, and patted his arm, “Babe, you can lick, too. It’ll be like an Elliot popsicle. So tasty!”
The nerd with the cards—Mike, if I remembered right from the fair—looked up. “There will be no licking ofmypopsicle!”
“Aww, popsicle pooper,” the blond said.
The mountain—Elliot—blinked, turned to Mateo, and finally stood with a groan like tectonic plates shifting.
I stopped a foot from the table. Elliot squared to face me. For a half second, I thought he might try to scare me off.
“Holy shit.” The blond’s voice shattered whatever was happening between us. “He’s bigger than you, El, and you’re freakin’ huge.”
The others mumbled their agreement, awe threading their grunts.
Mateo popped out from the booth with a flustered exhale, shoved Elliot with all his weight, dislodging him from our predator standoff, and looked up at me, smiling like he’d just been caught sneaking into an adult toy store by his favorite priest. His eyes darted to my chest, my face, my hands—then away again.
I stood there, hands hovering somewhere between my front pockets and my sides, frozen with the worst indecision tree of all time. Stevie had not prepared me for this moment.
My mind reeled.
Do I hug him?
Is a handshake weird? Too formal?
