Page 137 of The Lineman

“Well . . .” He set his wine glass down and stared across the table. “They aren’t letting you work for, what, two weeks?”

“Longer, if the doc gets her way.”

“So? That’s a lot of time for a guy who’s not used to sitting around at home.”

He wasn’t wrong. Shit. I hadn’t really thought about it. Everything had happened so fast. One minute, I was in a bucket, swaying, trying to keep the sheets of rain out of my eyes. Then next, some paramedic was poking and prodding like I was a voodoo doll.

“I . . . I don’t know,” I admitted. “Guess I’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.”

Mike reached down and squeezed my leg, as if to say, “We’ll figure it out.”

I nearly kissed him right there in front of everyone.

Chapter thirty-eight

Mike

Ihadn’tmeanttomove in. I mean, technically, I hadn’t. I’d just brought a few things over so I could stay with Elliot while he recovered. I was more of a live-in nurse or life support than a guy not-so-secretly craving to breathe the same air as Elliot.

It had just . . . happened.

One night turned into two, then three. Then I was leaving clothes in Elliot’s dresser, bringing over my laptop to grade papers at his kitchen table, falling asleep with Homer curled up at my feet like he owned the place.

At some point, while I was at school and Elliot managed a trip to the pet store, he bought bowls with Homer’s name on them.

That should have been my first sign that things were getting even more serious than I already believed they were.

The second should have been the way Elliot started leaving space for me in the bathroom cabinet, like it was nothing, like he expected me to be there. First, a toothbrush appeared. It was blue, just like the one I had at my house. It contrasted with his red one, the one he kept in the same glass on the counter with mine, like they were snuggling until needed.

The third flag—red or otherwise—was the way he watched me, soft and steady, like he wasn’t quite sure how I ended up in his life but wasn’t about to question it.

And me?

I was trying really hard not to think about how much I loved every moment we occupied the same space.

The first time I tried to cook in Elliot’s kitchen, he reacted like I’d announced I was about to perform open-heart surgery with a butter knife and a garden trowel.

“Wait—wait, wait, wait,” he said, moving his crutch aside as he limped over. “What the hell are you doing?”

I looked up from the cutting board, where I had been perfectly fine dicing tomatoes. Raw tomatoes wouldn’t burst into flame, right?

“Uh. Making dinner?”

Elliot stared at me. “Alone? Unsupervised? Not wearing a hazmat suit?”

I rolled my eyes. “Icancook, you know.”

“You burned a fucking boxed lasagna.”

I groaned. “We really have to move past that.”

Elliot crossed his arms, completely unconvinced.

“You are not burning down my kitchen,” he said. “I just renovated last year.”

I huffed. “I won’t burn it down.”

“I know you, Michael Albert.” Elliot arched a brow. “You’ll get distracted, start overthinking some existential literature nonsense, and next thing you know, firemen will bang down my door and drag me out into the street, naked and afraid, and likely charred.”

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