Page 50 of Coach
She turned, eyes sharp but not unkind. “Is this about Mateo?”
I didn’t answer.
Which was enough.
“Oh, hell yes it is.” She beamed like she’d just won a prize. “Shane Douglas has a boy crush, a big, swoony, pine-scented, emotionally constipated crush.”
I stared at her. “Do you want to get banned from the shop?”
“You say that every week.”
“And yet you keep testing me.”
She grinned. “Because eventually you admit things. Like the fact that youlikethis guy . . . and that’s terrifying . . . and adorable . . . and I’m proud of you.”
“I never said—”
“You didn’t have to. I’m a witch. I know things. Besides, you’re sanding furniture like it cheated on you. You’re ruining perfectly good wood because your brain is too full of Italian cheekbones.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away.
She stepped closer, her voice softening more than I thought possible. “You don’t have to be good at this, Shane. You just have to try.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“I am trying.”
A moment passed. I didn’t dare turn to look at her. I couldhearher puzzling things out.
“Oh, shit,” she said suddenly, the sound of her hand slapping to cover her mouth spinning mearound on my stool. “You’re making . . . whatever this is . . .for him.”
“I am not,” I groused, crossing my arms. My head lowered, sawdust on the floor becoming the most interesting thing in the world. “Okay, fine, yes. I’m making something for him.”
She blinked wide eyes several times, her hand remaining over her mouth. “No fucking way. What have you done with my Shane? Did you bury him out back and all that’s left is a straw poking out of the ground so he can breathe? Is he at least alive?”
“Fuck off.”
Her hand fell, revealing a ridiculously wide grin.
“Your date’s tonight, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“I guess . . . he’s cooking and . . . I don’t know . . . I wanted to bring him something, like a housewarming gift or a trinket to say thank you for feeding me. It’s polite, isn’t it, to bring a gift when you’re invited into someone’s home? That’s a thing, right?”
That might’ve been more words in one breath than I’d spoken to anyone in years.
She glared.
“Wine is a gift. A cheese board would work. Hell, Shane, a simple card would do the trick.” She surveyed the wooden wasteland. “You’remakinghim something. That’s the act of a guy who’s . . . a guywho’s caught feelings.”
“Feelings aren’t the flu.”
“Have you met yourself?” She snort-laughed. “I’m not sure you’ve had feelings since the eighties—and that was before you were born.”
I rolled my eyes and spun so my back faced her again.
The warmth of her hand pressed into my shoulder.
