Page 109 of The Lineman

Who the fuck knew?

I hit play.

The narrator’s voice filled the cab, calm and steady, pulling me into the story. It started slow—two men who shouldn’t have fit together, drawn to each other despite their differences. The hardened soldier, closed off and unreachable. The quiet artist, patient and unrelenting in his love.

I exhaled slowly.

I knew that kind of story.

Ilivedthat kind of story.

The further the book went, the more it started picking me apart, line by line, like someone had cracked open my ribs and begun poking at everything I kept buried.

The soldier was scared to love. He was used to a life where attachment meant pain, where caring about someone only led to loss. He didn’t trust himself to be someone worth staying for.

I gritted my teeth.

It was too fucking close.

But I kept listening.

I couldn’t stop.

At one point, moisture threatened to spill out the corner of one eye. Fuck that author and her sappy, syrupy sweet goodness, her dreamy characters and their emotional availability. How dare she write words that touched my heart and made me . . . damn it . . . I wouldnotcry.

I listened through the moments of slow, aching tension—the artist gently, carefully making space for the soldier in his life, showing him he didn’t have to do everything alone. I listened to every hesitant touch, every quiet confession, every soft promise that love didn’t have to be a battlefield.

And then, suddenly, it wasn’t soft anymore.

I hadnotbeen prepared for the sex.

Jesus Christ.

The narrator didn’t falter, his voice even as he described every moment in vivid, explicit detail. The way the soldier let himself be touched for the first time—reallytouched—without fear, without walls. The way he surrendered, piece by piece, as if he had spent his whole life running from love and desire but chose to never run again.

I swallowed hard, shifting in my seat.

It wasn’t just the heat of it—though it was fucking spicy, undeniably so.

It was the vulnerability.

The way the soldier let himself be wanted.

I rolled down the window, letting the cool air cut through my skin.

This was dangerous.

Not the book itself, but what it was doing to me.

I wasn’t the type of man who let himself dwell on things. I moved too much, worked too hard, kept my life neatly contained between one storm and the next. That was how it had to be.

But now?

Now, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Mike had looked at me before I left.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I’d felt when I told him I’d come back.

And worse—I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if I didn’t.

---