Page 26 of Coach (Heartstrings of Honor #4)

Shane

“ A m I supposed to reach out or keep waiting?”

Stevie sat at a workbench, scribbling notes into a ledger filled with numbers.

Watching her click away at her calculator and make entries into that eternal stream of digits reminded me why she was so important to my business.

Without her, I would spend half my life buried in spreadsheets and accounting programs rather than focusing on what brought in customers, the woodwork. Stevie was a great business partner.

But she was an even better friend—as much as I hated to admit it sometimes.

She finished whatever voodoo math thing she’d been working on and glanced up.

“What are you babbling about, and why don’t I hear the planer scraping against that piece of wood?”

“You’re so bossy today.” I grinned, shaking my planer in her direction.

She tapped the eraser end of her pencil against her temple. “I’m working . . . and thinking. Thinking and working. You should try it.”

I blew out a heavy sigh. “Just answer me, and I will. It’s driving me crazy.”

She cocked her head, glared, then tossed her pencil down and crossed her arms.

“You like this guy, don’t you?”

Some odd feeling tugged at my face. It felt like my skin tightened but only around my mouth. It felt so strange.

“You’re grinning like a fucking idiot,” she said. “It makes you look weird. Stop it.”

Oh, right, that was what it felt like.

“I guess, maybe a little. It’s been three days since trivia night, and I . . . I can’t stop thinking about him. He’s nice and funny and . . . if you saw him smile—”

“Stop. Gross. I will not engage in speculation over my vagina getting all hot and juicy over a boy. My biology doesn’t work that way, and I prefer to keep my lesbionic functioning intact.”

I blinked, unsure how to even unbox that statement.

“If you like him, call him. Stop acting like a teenager passing notes in class. Be the big, brave man you say you are, and pick up the damned phone.” She snatched up her pen and journal and stood.

“Maybe afterward, you’ll be able to focus on that wood over there instead of some Italian’s olive branch. ”

I had to remind myself that I was Stevie’s boss, not the other way around. Part of me wanted to snap at her for ordering me around, but I knew she was right. I was moping, or wallowing, or letting things fester.

More than any of that, I was being a chicken.

And I was not a damned chicken.

Not in standing up for myself or other people, and certainly not in making a simple phone call to tell a guy I enjoyed seeing him and hoped to do so again . . . hoped to see his thick, curly black hair and broad smile, those eyes that shifted from deep walnut to cherry with his mood.

I was not chicken.

Not even a little.

Bok-bok , chimed in my head, my evil subconscious making its un-asked-for opinion heard.

Damn it.

I grabbed my phone and punched Mateo’s name before good judgement—or feathers—could stop me. It rang once, then again, then again. I was about to hang up when:

“Hey there, Mr. Woodsman. ”

Mateo didn’t sound all jittery, like I felt.

“Hi,” I said, becoming eloquence personified.

“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said, and something foreign and warm tickled my skin.

“Uh, yours, too.” I felt like such a dumbass, sitting there in my shop, staring at unfinished furniture, seeing Mateo everywhere I looked, and feeling unable to put two thoughts, much less words, together.

“I had fun the other night,” he said, filling the silence.

“Yeah, me, too.”

There was a split second of silence, then he added, “I think the group liked you, but with them, it’s sometimes hard to tell. They attack everyone. At least it wasn’t the full gang. You might’ve run from the building if you’d had to face them all at once.”

“That’s good. I like them. They seem nice.”

Mateo snorted into the phone. “That’s a word. We’ll go with that. Sure.”

Another uncomfortable pause.

“So, I hate to cut this short, but I have a class coming in and—”

“I made you something.”

Mateo went silent.

“It’s nothing big, just, I don’t know, something.” I felt like a drowning man, grasping for anything to keep my head above water. “I, um, would really like to see you again, you know, to give this to you.”

“I’d like to see you again, too, gift or no gift.”

My heart skipped a beat. He wanted to see me again. He actually wanted to—

His voice stopped my mental tangent. “We have our first pre-season scrimmage tonight or I’d say let’s meet up later. These games don’t matter that much, but this one’s against one of our archrivals. The kids are all worked up.”

“When’s the game?” I asked.

“Four o’clock. It’s early. We do scrimmages like that so the kids can get home at a decent hour. Games during the season don’t start until seven-thirty or eight.”

I grunted. “That makes for late nights.”

Mateo groaned. “After I deal with the parents and everything else, I don’t get home until after midnight some nights.”

“Huh,” was all I could think to say.

“Anyway, if you’re up for it, we can grab dinner after. I doubt we’ll play past six.”

“Sure. Sounds good.”

“Why don’t you come to the school? We can leave your truck here and ride together.” Mateo said something to one of the kids, then his voice returned to the phone. “Sorry, gotta go before the barbarians destroy my village. ”

I chuckled. It wasn’t a laugh—just a grunt of amusement—but it felt good.

“See you there.”

“ Ciao .”

I didn’t mean to show up early.

Okay, maybe I did.

Mateo invited me to dinner—something casual, he said, something low-key. He’d said it like it was no big deal, like my heart hadn’t already rearranged itself three times just thinking about it.

He had not invited me to watch his team scrimmage their cross-town rival. I’d decided to show up and watch on my own—and I was unsure whether he would appreciate that move or not.

So yeah, I got there early.

The gym door creaked open under my hand, the smell hitting me first—sweat, old leather, floor polish. It was the kind of smell that made me think of Friday nights and adrenaline, of buzzer shots and echoing sneakers.

Players ran and dribbled and shot. Sneakers squeaked. A referee’s whistle pierced the air loud enough to deafen most any creature.

And Mateo was already coaching.

I slipped in quiet, careful, keeping my boots soft as I climbed the bleachers two steps at a time, settling at the top row behind Mateo’s bench.

There were only a smattering of parents sitting in twos and threes, with a few larger groups huddled on the opposite side to cheer the visiting team. No one noticed me.

That was the goal.

More importantly, he didn’t see me.

Good.

Because I needed a minute.

I hadn’t seen him since the kiss, since that night in the parking lot where I did the most reckless thing I’d done in years and pressed my mouth to the one place on him I thought wouldn’t scare us both too badly.

I’d played it cool afterward and drove away like my insides weren’t still vibrating. But now, I was sitting there with my arms braced on my knees, suddenly nervous in a way that didn’t fit, not for a guy like me.

I didn’t do nerves.

I did structure.

I maintained control.

But Mateo made all that feel like scaffolding over something bigger, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for what lay underneath .

So yeah, I sat still, letting my eyes track him like I was studying blueprints. Watching. Waiting.

Okay, I wasn’t still. My right leg bobbed so fast someone probably thought I was keeping time to some hyper-speed dance remix in my head.

I couldn’t decide whether to clasp my fingers together, sit back and let them hang at my sides, or lock them behind my head and lean back against the wall like some too-casual, almost-asleep idiot on the back row of gym class.

I settled for leaning forward, feet on the bleacher in front of me, just like I’d sat a million times while watching my high school team compete.

I was a football guy, but that meant our pack of muscled beasts traveled together to support whatever other team wore our colors and battled with an enemy.

We went to every game, meet, and contest the school could come up with. And we loved it.

Mateo shouted something to one of his players, a kid who looked like he wanted to vomit in the corner. I was certain the kid’s conditioning wasn’t up to snuff by the way he hunched over desperate for air.

My eyes fixed on Mateo, standing in his coaching box, hands planted on his hips like a disappointed mom discovering her children’s crayon drawing all over her dining room wall .

That’s when my mind kicked into overdrive, hounding me with question after question.

What would he be like with his kids?

Would he be too soft? Too hard on them?

Was he a good coach or one of those teachers who’d been forced to wear a whistle because no one else wanted the gig?

I doubted the last held weight. Mateo had played ball at a pretty high level, I’d gathered from the banter the other night. Still . . .

I’d pictured him as the nice-guy coach—the one who got walked over, the one the kids joked about behind his back.

But what I saw didn’t match that picture, not even a little.

Clipboard in one hand, whistle around his neck, Mateo paced the sideline like a man born for it.

He wasn’t yelling, not exactly—he coached like he spoke, with his whole body, bouncing on the balls of his feet, gesturing wildly.

The few times he turned toward his bench to grab another player or coach his second team, his eyes were alive, sharp, and focused.

And somehow, throughout it all, he was smiling .

His team moved like they knew he expected everything from them, like they wanted to give it their all, even when they stumbled, even when they missed.

He clapped when someone boxed out right, barked praise when a kid made a clean steal, shouted encouragement without fluff, without apology.

And when they screwed up?

He didn’t tear them down.

He corrected—firm and direct—but never cruel.

He didn’t coach like he wanted to be in the spotlight. He coached like he wanted them to shine brightly, to believe they could be better than they were yesterday.

And damn it, it was working.

The scariest part was that it might’ve been working a little on me, too. The longer I watched, the more my nerves settled into something far worse than anxiety.

It felt like . . . hope.

I sat there for a while, elbows on my knees, watching the chaos settle into rhythm.

Every time he laughed—really laughed—I felt it, right in the center of my chest.

It wasn’t just that he knew the game.

It was the way he saw them, his players.

Every kid on that court got a piece of him, not just instructions, not just drills—but attention, patience, and respect.

When one of the younger guys fumbled a pass and looked like he might dissolve from shame, Mateo was already there, crouched beside him, voice low but steady.

He didn’t coddle, but he didn’t scold, either.

He was just . . . steady, like he was anchoring the kid, while the rest of the world moved around them too fast.

And he knew them, knew who needed pushing and who needed pulling, who needed an arm around the shoulder and who needed a barked command.

What Mateo did wasn’t coaching, not really.

It was mentoring.

It was teaching.

It was seeing them.

And they gave it back.

I could see it in every nod, every set of shoulders pulled back into place, every kid running harder the next play because Mateo said their name and meant it.

I hadn’t expected that.

I’d expected charm and jokes, the fast-talking guy who befriended old ladies in checkout lines and made me forget how to use my words.

I hadn’t expected this . . . weight.

This quiet strength.

And it hit me—sitting up there in the rafters like a man trying not to fall headfirst into something soft and terrifying—that I wasn’t just attracted to him.

I admired him.

Which was so much worse.

Because once admiration was involved, the fall wasn’t just physical.

It was personal.