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Oh, yes. That’s probably a good idea...
Except there was no change, no miraculous fix. Everything was still dead.
“Nothing,” I yelled.
“Let me see if I can fix the satellite thing,” he replied.
I went back out and up the ladder to watch him again. He was standing now, shirtless in the sunshine, his muscular torso glistening with sweat, his hair being tousled in the wind. How, in this lifetime, this man was in love with me, I would never know.
But for some ridiculous reason, he was. I knew this fact all too well because he told me, with his whole chest, at least once a day.
I wished I could say it back to him. I wished I could be so carefree with my declarations of affection, but every time I tried, the words wouldn’t come out.
I wanted to tell him as often and with my whole heart the way he told me.
But still, I couldn’t.
It was fear that stopped me. Fear of putting myself out there—which was stupid because I was already well and truly out there for him. It was fear of being exposed and admitting my vulnerability.
And that was probably the biggest difference between Tully and me.
I grew up believing that to show any emotion was a sign of weakness.
Tully grew up believing that love was the ultimate strength.
“Whatcha lookin’ at?”
I blinked in surprise and grabbed the ladder I forgot I was standing on. I’d totally spaced out.
“I was looking at you,” I said. “I just got distracted.”
“Picturin’ the totally hot boat sex we’re gonna have, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“How about you do your boat-sex daydreamin’ on the ground?” He had the broken jack port in his hand. “I’d rather you didn’t fall.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I have hold of the ladder. But the wind is picking up. Perhaps you could get down off the roof too.”
“Let me just see if I can salvage this,” he said. He was holding the end of the LNB, trying to extract the broken jack, trying to reattach the broken pieces together. “Would electrical tape fix this?”
“I highly doubt that. I think it’s a replacement job.”
“Did they send you a new one of these noise things?”
“A low-noise block? No, they did not. They didn’t send me much of anything.”
He grumbled about that, but reassembled the jack into the port, trying to get a reconnection. “It really just needs a new connection. It’s the little prongs that are bent, see?” He held it out to show me. “Unless it snapped the internal wiring. Then it’s a replacement job.”
He was so clever. So inquisitive, and—
“Are you picturing me with a tool belt again?” He was grinning at me.
“Possibly.”
“Wanna check the meter things?”
“Yes, of course.”
