Page 10 of Boats, Moats, & Root Beer Floats

But we weren’t talking about that, apparently. The elephant in the room chose to stay invisible.

She shot me a look that told me I was clearly insane. “Of course I am, Covin. I don’t need a hulking man to save me.”

Interesting, as that last time she called my name before we said goodnight said exactly that. I kept that morsel to myself. No point inciting the beast this early.

“Good thing I’m not one of those,” I murmured.

“Not a man?” she teased.

“Not a hulk of any sort.”

“Point for you, Dustman.”

She’s scared of giant men. Noted.

Maybescaredwas overreaching, but the way her shoulders stiffened during that conversation then relaxed as I made light of my masculinity—unintentional, I really didn’t give a shit—told their own story.

A story I wanted to know. That had been my job for the past twenty years and I had no intention of stopping just because heartache took me out of the game and relegated me into the realm of books, gathering, well?—

PerhapsDustmanwas entirely too apt.

I scavenged for the rolls and some butter—thankfully I didn’t have to churn that myself—while Lindy twirled in circles and hummed like I wasn’t there at all. The corners of my mouth that had perpetually turned down for the past decade or so flickered upward for the second time in as many days.

This woman would drive me mad, I knew, but her brand of insanity might just be worth the risk to my own.

Besides, our strange, dual tenure was only for the next few weeks. What was the worst that could happen?A lotmy mind protested, but I pushed the thought away, delving into the butler’s pantry. I tossed a stray potato peeler in my hand that I picked up for no reason at all as I perused the options.

And came face to face with a stack of all the salmon cans stacked end on end that reached to the vaulted ceiling.

I stopped. “Did, uh, you have a stacking fetish I needed to know about? In case you, you know, stacked stuff about me in my sleep?” I called, recalling the paint brush threat.

“Huh? What bullsh— I mean, what are you talking about?”

I smirked, covering the motion with my hand. It wouldn’t do for her to see that I’d caught her modifying her speech in front of me. No, I suspected that would end in a blow up of epic Lindy proportions.

I stepped out of the way and gestured with the potato peeler. “Taa-daa.”

Lindy stared much as I had a moment before. “How did you get them all the way up there?”

Well, that answered that question.

“I didn’t. I thought you might have.”

“Not that smart, are you?” She walked right up to me, placed her hand flat on her head and slid it forward to butt the knife edge of her palm against my chest. “I’m really not going to be able to flutterby my ass up there and do that. See?” She rotated in front of me like a rotisserie chicken while I watched, bemused. “No Tinkerbell wings.”

“I can see that,” I said, gravely.

“Ah, smarts.” She tapped my chest again, leaving a glow in the place she touched.

“That doesn’t solve the problem of where the stack came from. Because it wasn’t like this when I was down here yesterday.”

“Oh.” Lindy mulled on the problem for half a second. “Nope, got nothing.”

“Aren’t you curious?” I knelt, pulled my phone out and snapped a picture of the tins from the bottom up, then sent it off to a friend.

“Are you going to post it on socials?” she asked me idly, though her voice changed pitch halfway through.

“Does that bother you?”

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