Page 16 of Coach
“Okay.”
Was I maybe a little too eager to spend time with a strange man away from the crowd? Sure. But it was so rare I came across people who had similar interests to mine. I mean, the last couple of men I’d dated were more in a relationship with their gaming consoles (and the guys they played with) than me.
“Oh wow. You kept so many of the original features,” I said when Coach reached down to pull up the gate for the freight elevator.
“It had good bones. It has a modern feel but with vintage bones.”
“Nothing breaks my heart more than when someone takes a classic model house and guts it to be a modern monstrosity, not even leaving a bit of the original charm.”
“And, like, I get it. Everyone wants to make their house their own. But why not buy a modern build and leave the pretty old houses for people who will appreciate them? I’m so happy I snagged an old house, even if it has a lot of quirks I need to work through. I think the fireplace has fifteen coats of different shades of paint on it, but I’m determined to get back down to the wood and stain it.”
Okay.
That was another ramble.
I couldn’t seem to help it.
I couldn’t even be annoyed with myself about it. It had been so long since I had more than a passing few words with someone. I was craving connection more than I’d even realized.
“How is it that this floor seems even bigger?” I asked as we stepped out into a long hall full of doors on both sides.
“Bathrooms are on this side,” Coach said, waving. “Bedrooms here. Ten in all on this floor.”
“They must beenormous.”
I was only a little jealous.
Thanks to the duplex nature of my place, everything was kind of long and narrow, so even though I barely had any furniture so far, it felt a little tight.
That said, I was so grateful even to have a place of my own after so long that I felt like an ass even thinking that.
“They are,” Coach told me, leading me down to the second-to-last room. “This one is currently empty. So I’ve been using it as a workshop. Gotta talk Slash into letting me put up a detached garage shop.”
“Slash.”
“The president.” At my blank look, he added, “He’s the head of the club.”
Coach pushed open the door, and I was immediately hit with that weirdly appealing scent of pine, maple, and oak.
Sawdust was scattered across the floor, likely knocked off the tables where the saws were set up.
Coach had half a dozen of those rolling garage tool storage chests. I may or may not have let out a little whimper at the sight of them.
“Go on. Snoop,” he invited.
I didn’t need a second invitation.
I flew at the storage chests, pulling open all the drawers to check out Coach’s collection. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he had both new, shiny gadgets, and a hefty supply of vintage tools with their worn paint and chips from decades’ worth of previous projects.
“Is that it?” I asked when I finally pulled myself away from the tools to admire the parrot play stand that had been so carefully carved that I couldn’t find any breaks in the wood, even though I knew they must have existed for the branches to spread out like they did.
“Did you carve these?” I asked, running my finger over one of the three wooden bowls with stainless steel inserts. They were shaped into fruit shapes: a pineapple, grapes, and a pear.
“I did.”
“Wow. That’s incredible. How did you learn?”
“Grew up poor. My family was always finding scrap wood and using it to make what we needed, so we didn’t have to buy anything. Whenever I found scraps of the scraps, I took it and tried to make something out of it. My grandfather could whittle pretty well. He showed me to see things inside the wood, then taught me the patience to bring it out.”
