Young Adult / Coming of Age / Christian
Date Published: April 14, 2026
Publisher: Clay Bridges Press
teammates call him “Mac Daddy” (’90s slang for a smooth-talking
ladies’ man). But Jay is nothing like that. In fact, he just doesn’t fit
neatly into any box—honors student, basketball player, church
kid—and he’s okay with that, as long as two people notice: Coach
Mays, the fiery perfectionist standing between Jay and his basketball dreams,
and Nicole Ellis, the cheerleader he’s secretly liked since sixth grade.
When Jay finally seizes a moment of boldness with Nicole, he steps into new
territory—only to discover her life is far more complicated than he ever
imagined. Maybe he should just focus on basketball. Except Coach Mays seems
blind to Jay’s potential, harping only on his flaws.
Caught between pressure, failure, and secrets no one talks about at Sunday
school, Jay is forced to wrestle with deeper questions—about who he is,
what he believes, and what it really means to be seen, to love, and to become
someone worth noticing . . . no matter what.
What makes it unique:
This book provides a practical way for teens to engage with difficult
questions and feel seen in the struggles they’re facing, while also
being educational and presenting hard truths everyone will have to wrestle
with. It helps the reader ask tough questions about who they are, who they
want to be, where they want to go in life, and who they want to bring along on
the journey.
The engaging characters and witty conversation pull in the reader and command
attention and focus. This is not a story that will be read and quickly
forgotten. Unlike generic “coming of age” books, No Matter What tackles the
struggles of adolescence with taste and decency, allowing the reader to think
and feel throughout the story without becoming unnecessarily uncomfortable or
awkward.
EXCERPT
We threw out and discussed a few more names, but my mind started to wander back to who I really liked. I got quiet for a few moments, then looked at John and asked, “What do you think about… Nicole Ellis?”
“She was my neighbor when I was in kindergarten through third grade, so I used to know her really well,” John replied. “She moved to a new house with her mom after her parents got divorced and switched elementary schools. I haven’t been around her much since we’ve been going to the same school again.”
Now I had to decide whether to play her off as just another name or to reveal what I was really feeling. “Well,” I stammered, “I’ve had a lot of classes with her the last couple of years. I think she’s pretty, um…” I gulped. “Solid.”
John stared out the window as he spoke, using the same tone he had for the last few names we brought out. “Yeah, she’s smart. And I think every guy has liked her at some point. I think that she’s…”
Our eyes finally met and he stopped. Suddenly he knew that she wasn’t just another name I was tossing out. I was breaking out of theory and the hypothetical and getting real. I averted my eyes and chuckled nervously.
After a few moments of awkward silence, John grinned. “So Nicole Ellis, huh? How long has this been going on?”
“Um, to tell you the truth,” I confessed, “probably most of the last five years. Especially the last year or so, since we’ve been in classes so much together.” Even though we’d never opened up about this type of thing before, I was sort of embarrassed my best friend didn’t know about something that had been weighing so heavily on my heart for so long.
John didn’t seem offended, just thoughtful. “I hear she’s a good girl,” he said, finally nodding his head in approval. “Kat still knows her pretty well. I don’t think she’s a big partier. She’s dated a few different guys, but she hasn’t gotten too serious with any of them.”
A feeling of relief came over me. Relief from getting this out to someone other than just Roger, from having John’s endorsement, and, I had to admit, from hearing a report on what she was like outside of school, something I realized in that moment I knew nothing about.
Relief turned into an outpouring of words. The dam of privacy and pride had been breached, and I told John everything—the first meeting in the cafeteria line, the way her smile made me feel then and now, how she had been kind to me when I still had my glasses, and how laughing with her in class was the highlight of my day. (I stopped short of telling him about the Letter, though. I was still trying to convince myself that it never happened.)
As I finished with all this gushing, all John could do was smile, but he wasn’t making fun of me. “Wow, you’ve really got it bad,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
One thing that made John a good friend is that he would never leave me hanging. I had opened up my heart to him, and, as hard as it was for him, he wasn’t going to leave me out there alone in my vulnerability. His eyebrows suddenly lowered as he looked down, deep in thought.
“Do you remember Rachel Mathis?” he asked. Sure, I remembered Rachel. She started attending my old church, where John still went, right before my family switched.
“The soccer player? Does she still go to Memorial Baptist?” Rachel was about an inch shorter than John, well-built and athletic, with light brown hair in tight curls cut just above her shoulders. I thought she was cute when I met her, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know her.
“Yeah, she still goes most of the time.” John was back to mumbling through his teeth. “I tutored her in math a little bit last spring. She had a boyfriend at the time, and it kind of pissed him off. Nothing was going on, but it did help me to get to know her better.”
“So are you telling me you like her?”
John let out an exasperated sigh, fighting to open up and admit to me—and maybe to himself—for the first time that he really did like someone. “I mean, yeah, I guess. She works hard, stays in shape, gets good grades, and we go to church together. She smiles at me a lot, but it never seems like she’s smiling about how quiet I am or anything. And, uh…” (for some reason this last part seemed to pain him to most to say out loud) “I like her hair.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Then he started laughing, too. It was the kind of cathartic laugh that only two best friends who understood the unspoken context around a situation could have. We were awkward and we were clueless, but we knew we were safe with each other.
Baptist Church in Denison, Texas. He loves telling stories that connect people
across generations through humor and biblical truth. No Matter What began as a
short story for a college class and was later expanded into a novel to help
guide his own teenagers through high school. Steve and his wife have been
married for more than twenty years and are raising four children together.
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