Page 48 of The Lineman

Mateo shrugged. “He didn’t look at me when he said it, and when I told him no, he just nodded and said, ‘Good. You should be with someone who respects you.’”

I sat with that for a second, unsure how to respond.

“That’s his way of trying,” I said finally.

“Yeah.” Mateo nodded. “He’s still figuring it out. Balancing what he was raised to believe with . . . loving me.”

I exhaled. “That’s hard.”

“Yeah,” he said, drumming his fingers again. “But, you know, I’ll take progress where I can get it.”

I stared at my drink, thinking about Jamie, thinking about how I hoped—God, I hoped—that he’d have more of Mateo’s mom in his life than Mateo’s dad.

Mateo must have picked up on my shift in mood because he nudged my foot under the table.

“We’ll figure it out, Albert,” he said. “Jamie’s got us. He’s not doing this alone.”

I swallowed, nodding. “Yeah. We’ve got him.”

Chapter fifteen

Elliot

Therewasacertainsilence that fell over a room full of linemen when a big storm was coming.

It wasn’t fear. Not exactly.

Just a quiet, settled understanding.

Because we all knew what this meant.

A hundred guys packed into the meeting room at the local dispatch center, standing shoulder to shoulder, arms crossed, expressions serious. The low hum of conversation had died down minutes ago when our district supervisor, Aemon Carter, walked in and pulled up the latest storm projections on the screen.

The map was a mess of red and orange spirals, the white line of the projected path cutting straight toward northern Florida.

Aemon cleared his throat. “All right, listen up. We’ve been tracking Hurricane Beatrice for the past several days. As of this morning, she’s a category three. We expect her to hit category four or higher before landfall.”

“Beatrice is a real bitch,” one guy standing behind me said to the snickers of others.

“She’s expected to make landfall somewhere between Tallahassee and Jacksonville, but as we all know, storms can change course last minute. No matter where she lands, her outer bands are going to hit Georgia, so we need to be ready for local damage and prepare for deployment to Florida as soon as we get clearance.”

He clicked the slide, bringing up the storm surge projections.

“Winds are estimated to hit 140 miles per hour, maybe more. Storm surge could reach fifteen feet. That’s gonna tear through the coastal grid and push water inland—knocking out substations, flooding transformers, and taking down lines and poles.”

A few guys muttered under their breath. We’d seen it all before. We knew what that level of destruction meant.

Aemon kept going. “Georgia Power is expecting widespread outages here, too, mostly along the coast and southern half of the state; but we could see major wind damage all the way up to Atlanta. Be ready for long shifts, high water, and serious hazards. All PTO is canceled until further notice.”

No one flinched.

This wasn’t our first rodeo.

Aemon exhaled, scanning the room. “We’ll have three tiers of response teams—Local, Statewide, and Deployment Crews for Florida.”

He pointed toward another manager, who stepped forward with a clipboard.

“We’re finalizing assignments,” new guy said. “If you’re on the first-response team, you’ll be stationed here, riding out the storm and clearing damage as soon as it’s safe.”

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