Page 11 of Coached By the Grumpy Gargoyle

Instead, I'm alone in my kitchen, and she has no idea. She probably doesn’t even care.

Beneath the shock, I become aware of a faint hum. It's been there since I opened my eyes, quiet enough that I haven't paid attention to it. Now I stand still and listen, though it isn't something I hear with my ears.

Feelings that aren't mine stir beneath my own. They're distant, too faint to make out clearly, but I find myself turning toward the window, toward the town beyond the pines. Somewhere out there, Rory is going about her morning. I can feel her.

I wait, concentrating, hoping for something I can recognize. Is she upset? Does she regret it? But all I have is that faint, steady presence. It tells me she's there. It doesn't tell me why she left.

The lore covers that part too. With a human, the bond runs one way. I'll feel her moods under my skin, her nearness arriving as warmth from the inside out, all the way to the wingtips. She'll feel none of it. She could stand next to me at the copier for the next forty years and never once suspect I can feel her bad days from across the building.

I’m mated. For life. There's no second chance when it comes to mates. Whatever happens from here, whoever she decides I am to her, there will never be another woman for me. Not a date. Not a someday. Nothing.

She can decide last night was all she wanted. Say it was a mistake, go back to calling me Coach Stryge, and get on with her life. I'll still be her mate.

I knew something was happening when the warmth wouldn't fade. I wanted to believe it was the kiss, the first touch I'd let myself have in years. Those stories about recognizing your mate seemed a lot easier to dismiss without a mating mark on my hand.

I sit down.

"Okay," I tell the empty kitchen. “It’ll be alright. Everything will work out.”

It comes out steady. Encouraging. The rest of me could use some work.

I don't know what a man is supposed to do with this information when his mate left him behind before she could even know she’s his mate.

All I know is that it’s seven on a Monday morning. By now I ought to be getting ready for school. I have classes to teach, film to get through, a team to put through practice. All things I know how to do, and I'm sitting here trying to imagine saying good morning to one small woman without making a complete ass of myself.

This is a mess. This is such a spectacular mess.

I lean back in the chair and let my hand rest on my thigh. The hum is still there, and underneath the panic, I discover that I'm glad. I like being able to feel her.

I ought to be furious. My whole future has just changed while I was asleep. But I can't quite wish the bond away, even sitting here with no reason to think she'll want it. I want another night with her. I want her here this morning. Apparently forever isn't enough to frighten me out of that.

I've managed to mate for life before finding out whether she even wants a second night. There's a version of this where that's funny, and maybe I'll figure it out sometime.

Right. Enough of this sob story I’m telling myself.

I've gone to work through injuries, through losses, through every kind of bad day this town has manufactured. I can get through one Monday. The kids still need their coach, and I have spent years keeping things to myself. This will just take more effort.

I shower. I dress. I put on a team hoodie and slip the whistle around my neck. Then I take some black field gloves out of the coat bench, and I pull them on in front of the hallway mirror like it's a perfectly normal thing to wear gloves to school.

The band disappears under the leather.

There. At least nobody will see it. It's November in Maine; gloves won't look strange on the field. If anyone asks why I'm still wearing them in class, I'll think of something. I'm a teacher. Answering questions I wasn't prepared for is half the job.

I go back upstairs and out through the bedroom doors onto the roof deck. The pines are black and dripping beneath a low sky, and the bay past the treetops is the color of an old nickel. Cold air moves over the membranes. I spread my wings, crouch, and launch on habit, and the town unrolls below me the way it does every morning of my life.

Every wingbeat toward the school makes the hum under my skin a little stronger. I can feel the warmth spreading, even with cold air moving over my chest and along my wings. I'm flying toward her. I haven't even seen her yet and I’m already burning.

Fucking. Excellent.

Six minutes later, I land behind the field house with one soft boom, walk up past the empty bleachers with my breath fogging, and by the time I hit the doors my face is set to Coach Stryge.

Lock it down. Go to work.

The athletics wing at seven a.m. smells of liniment and laundry detergent under the buzzing lights. The walls are the same familiar gold cinder block to waist height and navy the rest of the way up. Somewhere back in the showers a pipe knocks. I head toward my office. I know what I'm doing here. It helps.

Cole Braddock is coming away from the locker-room door, bag over one shoulder.

He's six foot six of slate-gray gargoyle teenager, wings furled neat under his jacket, moving with that loose, unhurried ease of young athletes. He’s got the best arm I've ever coached. Best arm this town has ever produced, and I'm including everything in the trophy case by my back wall in this assessment. Four years ago he was a freshman with wingspan problems and a throwing motion like a lawn sprinkler, and I have rebuilt that delivery one insufferable rep at a time.