Page 48 of Coach
More than made sense.
And for the first time in a long time, that didn’t scare me as much as it should’ve.
Okay, it didn’t scare me like it should actually scare me, more than if I’d been scared in the first place.
Shit.
I was babbling in my own head.
This was bad.
This was so incredibly, painfully, horribly—wonderfully—bad.
And yet . . .
The part that gnawed at me more than anything—the part I didn’t want to say out loud because that might give it more power—wasn’t just admitting that I liked him.
It wasn’t even the teenage angst of wondering if he liked me back.
It was wondering whether or not hecouldlike me back.
And I wasn’t thinking about the surface-level kind of liking, either—not attraction or flirting or appreciating a decent set of forearms, though he seemed to do that just fine. No, I meant the real stuff, the messy, warm, terrifying parts of someone that got under your skin and refused to leave.
I didn’t know . . . I wasn’t sure . . . if Shanecouldgo there.
Not because he didn’t want to.
But because I wasn’t sure he knew how.
The way he held himself, the way he measured every word like it might cost him something, the way his eye contact would be so steady and sure before flitting away like a rodent who’d just heard a cat hiss—it all screamed that someone taught him to be careful.
And careful people didn’t always know what to do with someone like me: someone who talked too much, who felt everything too loudly, who led with his heart even when it was bruised.
So yeah, there was a part of me—small but persistent—that whispered I was setting myself up for something I couldn’t finish. That maybe I’d fall and he’d watch, unable to catch me, not because he didn’t want to, but . . . because he didn’t know how.
I tossed my clipboard onto the bottom bleacher and slumped down beside it, pressing my palms into my eyes. Thinking about Shane made me feel a happiness, almost a giddiness, that I hadn’t felt in years. It was stupid. I barely knew the guy, and, shit, he’d barely said a few dozen words in the time we had spent together. Feeling anything for him was ridiculous.
I was being ridiculous.
But then I thought about the way he’d looked at me when I told him about coaching, the way his eyes softened, that he’d shown up at all.
That he’d texted back.
That he’d smiled, if only once.
That maybe—just maybe—he was trying . . . that hewouldtry.
I let out a slow breath, glanced at the rack filled with basketballs my boys had yet to touch, and madea decision.
Whatever this was, I was giving it a shot.
Because I’d rather stumble trying with someone real than stand while waiting for someone perfect.
And Shane Douglas, broody tank-top-wearing furniture wizard that he was, felt a hell of a lot like someone real.
Chapter 16
Shane
