Page 7 of Coach (Heartstrings of Honor #4)

Shane

T he plans looked like they’d been pulled straight from a fever dream.

Fine-carved panels. Hand-cut joinery. Intricate inlays I could barely sketch, let alone recreate.

The client wanted something that “evoked an ancient Chinese curio”—without looking like a replica, of course.

He wanted “respectful inspiration,” “period harmony,” and “authenticity with artistic voice.”

Whatever the hell that meant.

It sounded like the guy needed to fly to China and shop for something from the fourteenth century rather than having a new piece made, but work was work. Who was I to argue?

I’d been at it for weeks now. Every line I drew felt like guesswork.

Every piece I cut I second-guessed. The base of the cabinet was roughed out.

It was solid cherry, already shaped and sanded smooth, but the latticework that would form the upper frame—that delicate, decorative mess of curves and precision angles that hinted at being a dragon but wasn’t—was giving me hell.

I crouched over the layout, pencil behind one ear, glue drying on my knuckles, and cursed under my breath as another strip cracked under the pressure of the jig.

It was too dry and too goddamn fragile.

I tossed the ruined piece aside and scrubbed a hand over my face, immediately regretting it as glue globbed on my eyebrow in a way that might take a surgeon to remove.

I was a master of my craft, but I felt out of my depth. Chinese workmanship, especially that of centuries ago, was beyond human comprehension, much less replication.

But I couldn’t stop.

Something about the challenge hooked me. It always did.

I wasn’t competing for a trophy or ring of leaves on my head. I was battling wood and thoughts and dreams—and ideas of what could be, if only I applied enough effort and desire.

Maybe it was the level of detail or the delicacy. Those were challenges in themselves, things that drove and inspired my inner creative.

Maybe it was me not knowing if I could pull it off, that I doubted myself, that I had to stretch beyond any skill I’d ever possessed to make this thing work.

Or maybe it was just that no one had ever asked me to build something so otherworldly and beautiful like this before.

That thought echoed a little too loudly in the quiet of my shop.

Then the door banged open behind me.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, rubbing the knee I knew would bruise from how I’d just leaped into my workbench at the sound. “Do people knock anymore?”

“I did knock,” Stevie’s voice rang out. “Then I heard you muttering like a madman, so I assumed you needed rescuing.”

She marched in with a bag in one hand and a drink in the other, wearing her usual uniform of combat boots, a thrift-store army jacket, and enough rings to start her own currency—rings on fingers, ears, stuck through her nose, and in her lip.

She was the only person I knew who wore more metal than a hardware store display rack.

She never wore color unless eyeliner counted, and if she’d ever owned a pastel shirt, I’d eat one of my chisels.

Stevie didn’t care what anyone thought of her.

She moved through the world like it was lucky to have her, and if you didn’t agree, she’d tell you to go choke on your own insecurities—with a smile and a ringed middle finger.

Once, she told a rich client their “exposed beam idea sounded like a high-end prison kitchen” and still closed the sale.

She was like me—kept to herself, didn’t do crowds, and believed in silence as a full sentence. Most people thought we were dating, or had dated, or were about to.

We weren’t.

We never would.

Stevie was family.

She was the one who knew when I hadn’t eaten, or when I’d gone too long without sleep, or when I was pretending I didn’t care about something that was eating me alive.

Stevie didn’t coddle, didn’t hug, didn’t ask twice.

She just showed up.

Most of the time with food.

And her sharp tongue.

And with that look that said, “If you fall apart, I’ll staple you back together and call it rustic charm.”

“I’m working,” I said, still bent over the plans. “Big piece.”

“I can see that. Looks like a haunted jewelry box and Chinese opium dream had a baby.”

“It’s a curio cabinet, fuck you very much. ”

In addition to being my best friend, Stevie ran the business side of my shop, keeping the books, handling the paperwork, marketing my services, and selling my finished pieces that weren’t destined for a specific client’s home.

I could build almost anything, but without Stevie, my place would be filled with fantastic furniture that no one ever saw or cared about .

. . and I’d be eating little more than Ramen noodles like the college dropout I was.

But Stevie was so much more than just my office manager.

She’d seen me through my darkest moments and never said a word about what she’d heard. She was a vault, and I loved her for it. On top of everything, she was almost as weird as me, which scared the hell out of most people but made as much sense as a perfectly fitted dovetail joint to me.

Yeah, that was Stevie, my dovetail.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t just one of my friends; she was my only friend—the only one that mattered, anyway. Friends were like shoes. Why did anyone need more than one pair of shoes? Maybe two, if you counted flip-flops as shoes. Every self-respecting dude owned flip-flops.

“It looks like how I expect my therapist might draw anxiety if she had the art skills of a blind third-grade quadriplegic with a pencil in his mouth,” she said, dropping a bag onto the workbench with a thud.

“Which is why you’re going to eat lunch before you pass out and saw off something important, like a foot. ”

I straightened, cracking my back in three places, and gave her a flat look. “I’m in great shape.”

“You’re in denial.”

“I literally lift furniture for a living.”

“And yet,” she said, opening the bag, “I watched you eat three granola bars and a stale donut yesterday and call it ‘meals plural.’ So, you’re going to listen to me and sit your very muscly, very dramatic ass down and eat this damn sandwich before you turn into an emaciated art goblin.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Dramatic?”

She pointed at the cabinet. “You were muttering to the wood, Shane.”

“It cracked. I was mad,” I said, slumping down onto a stool and ignoring how it groaned beneath my weight. “And you have to talk to the wood or it won’t do what you want. Ask anyone who—”

“You’re fucking insane. You know that, right?”

She dug into the bag, then handed me a sandwich and drink, waiting until I took a bite before sitting on the bench across from me.

Chicken, bacon, spicy mustard. Gourmet food if I’d ever tasted it .

She knew what I liked. She always did.

“Thanks,” I muttered through a mouthful.

“You’re welcome,” she said, kicking her feet against the cabinet leg like she was testing it. “So, what’s the deal with this thing?”

“Client wants it to look old, like centuries old, like something from a palace or a museum. I’m not allowed to use screws. It’s all joinery and hand-cut everything.”

“Sounds like hell.”

“It is.”

“But you like it.”

“Yeah. I do.” I paused mid-bite. “I’ve never worked so hard on anything. I mean, half the time I’m cursing at the wood, which is why it’s resisting—”

“Jesus, that shit again?”

I grinned.

Stevie leaned back, resting her elbows on the bench behind her. “You always like the hard stuff.”

I didn’t respond, mostly because she was right. I’d long since learned never to admit that. It only encouraged her.

She dug out another sandwich, and we ate in silence for a while, the sawdust-heavy air broken only by the hum of the fan and the distant whine of wind sneaking through cracks I’d promised to fix a decade ago.

Eventually she nudged my shin with her boot.

“You’ve got that look again.”

“What look?”

“The one that means you’re spiraling and won’t admit it.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m eating, aren’t I?”

“That’s step one.” She reached into the bag and tossed a cookie at me. It landed in my lap. “Step two is not sleeping here overnight to whisper apologies to the grain pattern.”

I gave her a dry look. “You know, I could fire you as my unsolicited life coach.”

“You could,” she said, smiling. “But who else is going to remind you that you’re not a woodworking hermit with martyr syndrome?”

I didn’t say anything.

She didn’t need me to. She was right again. Damn it.

Stevie leaned forward, stealing a piece of my bacon and gave the half-built cabinet another look.

“You’ll figure it out,” she said. “You always do. Just don’t forget to eat while you’re proving it. While you’re at it, try leaving this fucking barn for five minutes. Go for a walk. See a movie. Find a random dude and wet your whistle.”

“Wet my whistle? Who are you, Popeye?”

She snorted.

“I’m the girl who knows best, like your mother but with perkier boobs and cooler tats.”

I groaned. “Can we please not invoke the image of my mother and her sagging tits?”

She grinned. “Only if you get out a little.”

“Fine, fine. I have a delivery this weekend. Does that—”

“No!” she snapped. “Deliveries are work. You need to do something fun for a change.”

“Work is fun.”

“Said the guy headed for the nuthouse if he doesn’t pull his head out of his ass.”

“Gays like things up their—”

“Enough!” Stevie threw up a palm. “Just try. Okay?”

I grunted something unintelligible. It earned a quick nod and jingle of rings.

And just like that, she was gone. Back out the door, boots thudding on the steps, bag swinging at her side.

I sat there for a long moment, staring at the piece in front of me, the sketch clutched in one hand, the half-eaten cookie in the other.

I hated when she was right . . . and she always was .

I wasn’t a hermit, damn it.

I wasn’t.

Not really.

Not much.

Okay, fine, maybe a little.

Damn it, I wasn’t a total hermit . . . but I was a lot like the frustrating faux Chinese masterpiece glaring down at me: a complete mess.