Page 17 of The Lineman

My mind, however, was very much elsewhere.

Specifically, like some home movie whose projector had gotten stuck playing in a loop, my brain kept replaying the absolutely adorable, flustered mess that was Elliot Hart asking me on a date. Never in a million years would I have thought that mountain of a man couldbeflustered. Yet, there he’d been, standing at the edge of my lawn with my dog making him his human bitch, struggling to make English his first language.

The whole scene made me giggle right there in front of a scowling man in an orange apron.

I opened a tiny drawer and examined a faux mother-of-pearl pull that looked more like earrings some grandmother might wear than a kitchen accessory. Tossing it back, I grabbed a medieval-looking iron thing that might’ve been used to kill vampires in another time and place.

I sighed, dropping the weapon back in its box and leaning against a display, letting my brain take me places it absolutely should not go—like imagining Elliot sitting at my dinner table, hunky arms folded, watching me cook with that annoyingly hot smirk that made him look amused, intrigued, and possibly pissed off, all at the same time.

God, he had a hot mouth.

Or worse—imagining him in my kitchenhelpingme cook. Standing behind me, reaching around me to grab a utensil, his body pressing against mine, his breath warm against my ear as he murmured, “You sure you know what you’re doing, Mike?”

Jesus.

I needed to leave immediately—before I took a page from Homer’s book and found a leg to make my Daddy.

Could legs become Daddies? I wasn’t good with gay vernacular. Or nomenclature. Or whatever the fuck queers called things. Damn it, I was an English teacher. Words were my thing. Why did thinking about Elliot Hart steal them from my brain?

I looked up.

And there he was.

Elliot.

At the end of the aisle.

Shopping.

In Home Depot.

In a gray henley that clung to his arms and chest in a way that should be illegal . . . and gray fucking sweatpants.

I froze.

I might’ve piddled . . . a little.

He glanced up, caught me staring, and—because the universe hated me—smirked.

“Hey, neighbor,” he drawled, taking a few slow steps toward me.

I tried to respond, but it came out as some kind of soft, strangled wheeze.

Elliot raised an eyebrow. “You all right?”

“Yep,” I said, entirely too loudly. “Totally normal. Just—uh—shopping.”

Elliot looked pointedly at my empty hands. “For?”

I snatched the medieval dagger thing out of its box and held it up.

“Planning to redecorate your place as aGame of Thronescastle?” He blinked rapidly. “That’s . . . nice?”

I cleared my throat, willing myself to behave like an actual human adult. “It’s for my kitchen. I’m updating the cabinets.”

Elliot nodded, looking mildly impressed. “Nice. You need help picking some out? Maybe something that doesn’t scream, ‘I’m off to kill the White Walkers’?”

I stared at him. “Do you have opinions on cabinet pulls?”

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