Page 14 of Coach
I don’t know how he heard me over the music, but Coach turned back, giving me a soft smile.
“Not what you were expecting?”
“Well, parts of it.” I waved toward the game stations, the bar, the woman who currently had her top off, leaving her in a hot pink push-up bra.
“Can I get you a drink?”
“Maybe after I have something to eat,” I said as another girl whipped off her jean shorts.
I suddenly felt way overdressed in my simple white sundress. What can I say? It had been a long time since I’d attended any sort of party. I should have assumed a biker club party would likely require the same outfit as a college kegger.
“Alright. I know I’ve only been in town a few weeks, but I’m relatively sure there’s nowhere around here to get a spread like this.”
The kitchen island was covered in a surprising array of dishes from boneless wings and loaded potato skins to thickly sliced steak and sheet pan roasted vegetables.
“I’ll never knock the local food, but this is all cooked by Detroit. He’s one of our club brothers.”
“Does he freelance? Perhaps to create weekly meal prep for a single woman who is usually so elbow-deep in paint and sawdust that she forgets to eat?”
“Fixing up your place?” Coach asked, passing me a plate.
The guys had clearly attacked the appetizers and steak with relish, but I had my eyes on the roasted veggies and the incredible-looking garden salad.
“The house was a complete disaster,” I admitted. “Which was why I got it so cheap in the first place. I mean, on move-in day, my foot went clear through the rotted wood of the front porch. I got to meet Dr. Price as I went in for a fresh tetanus shot.”
“I can fix the front porch if you need it.”
“That’s really sweet,” I said, giving him a warm smile. “But I fixed it.”
“I guess you must know your way around a toolbox if you got a maintenance job with the Novikoff brothers.”
“I was raised by my grandpa,” I told him, glad for an excuse to talk about that saint of a man. “He was one of those Jack-of-all-trades kind of men like you often found in that generation. He could fix anything. If he couldn’t, he would spend weeks learning until he could. And because he had no idea what to do with a little girl, he just dragged me along with him. I think I was five when I helped use a table saw for the first time.” I paused, shooting Coach a wince. “Sorry, that was a bit much, huh?”
“Not at all. You really love him.”
“Yes. He passed during my first year in college. I miss him every day.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. He was the best kind of man.”
“Can I ask what happened to your parents?”
“My mom died shortly after I was born—complications that my grandfather never wanted to tell me about. I guess he didn’t want me to feel guilty. And my father, his son, passed in a freak accident at a construction site. It was just me and my grandpa all my life.”
And since then, I had no one.
“Do you have family?”
“I have this family,” Coach said, waving out toward the club. “But I also have a big extended family. Just not in the area. Where were you heading when you passed through this little town and decided to make it home?”
Home.
What a foreign concept.
I hadn’t felt like I’d had a home since I left my grandfather’s house to pursue my dreams.
“I honestly didn’t have a place in mind. I think… I think I was looking for the right place. Even though I had no idea what I was really even looking for.”
