Loaded Circuits
The first three days back in Atlanta felt like standing in a freshly painted room waiting for the fumes to kill you. The house was too fucking clean and too goddamn quiet. Way too fucking mine.
I should have been happy. Cashed up, mortgage ahead for a change, tools in order, a few weeks off before the next job. The plan was to relax, see friends, maybe finally get around to finishing the deck.
But instead, every footstep echoed around the house. Every time I tried to relax, I wondered where he was. Sometimes I’d watch TV and notice the empty seat beside me. I couldn’t even turn the TV off. I’d just turn it down so there was still something to drown out my thoughts.
The most ridiculous part? I was heartbroken. I’d let Scott in. I went to some random, dusty town and came back with a cash injection but feeling more empty than I’d been in years.
I got angry, at Scott, at myself, then swung back to being grateful I’d met him at all.
It’s not that I’m gay, because even if I was, I’d carry it like a badge I’d earned. It’s because we’d clicked, in all the ways that counted. The picture he painted of his future, with a wife and kids, the house with the picket fence, the way he laughed, the jokes he made, the stupid little way his fingers circled my body when he lay next to me naked, revealing things I just know he doesn’t reveal to others. The smell of sweat and sawdust on his skin, and the way his blue eyes twinkled just that little bit, like there was a joke coming or he was about to throw me against the wall and kiss me.
Somehow, I’d slotted myself into his future picture in place of his wife, and I didn’t even wait for him to agree.
I found myself cleaning tools that didn’t need cleaning, sorting screws by size, oiling a saw that hadn’t even rusted. Anything to keep from thinking about Scott. Which, of course, meant I was thinking about him every five minutes.
But I did finish the decking, which took about two weeks.
A few days later, I was half a beer deep and browsing the contractor boards. Old habits. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just keeping an eye on the trade gossip. Then I saw his name.
Scott Halpern, a question about tender specs on Tampa West redevelopment.
My heart did that stupid jolt thing like I’d just touched a live wire. I stared at the post longer than necessary, zoomed in, read it enough times to embarrass myself. He’d written something about wiring schematics and load limits, but all I saw was Tampa.
Human beings are masters of self-delusion. So when I clicked through to the job details and saw the full tender listing, and that it had good pay, mid-term contract, I made myself fit into the requirements.
It was with the same company we’d just finished with. Perfect timing, perfect scope.
I could almost hear myself saying it out loud. “It’s just work. Good money. Same type of gig. This has nothing to do with him.”
Self-delusion on center stage.
Then that other voice, the one that doesn’t care for my bullshit: “Sure, Andy. Bullshit. You just miss the guy who made you laugh at 2 a.m. with sawdust in your hair.”
I closed the tab. Reopened it a minute later.
By midnight I’d filled out half the tender form. Deleted it. Filled it again. Deleted it again. The cursor blinked at me like judgment.
Atlanta was starting to smell like old paint and wasted chances. The thought of another week here made my skin crawl.
Then, dinner one night about three weeks later, after a couple of messages were exchanged between Scott and me, dwindling check-ins that said nothing and meant too much, I went to dinner with some good friends.
In a stroke of weird timing, they were looking to rent a place for a few months while they sold theirs.
That same night, as I sat back and nursed a beer that only made me feel worse, Jenny and Steve laughed over the table about something mundane.
I leaned in. “I’ll rent you my place. I’m thinking of taking a job up in Tampa for a few months.”
I didn’t even realize I’d decided until I said it.
Turns out, they only needed a few seconds to think about it. Steve knew my house well and had helped me renovate parts of it, and Jenny had always loved it.
I got that contract, and I did what I always do when I’m running from myself. I packed. All my personal shit went into the basement, then two days later I loaded the truck. Tools, a few clothes, coffee mug. The essentials. I told myself I’d always wanted to see more of Florida.
But when the wheels hit the highway and Atlanta started shrinking in the mirror, I couldn’t pretend anymore.
This wasn’t about work.
It was about him.
And that is how I found myself arriving late that evening and checking into a hotel.
I meant to message Scott, but I already knew he’d moved on, probably started to forget me, so another message would’ve just felt like stalking.
I’d never been to Tampa before and was immediately struck by how friendly the locals were and how quickly I liked it.
A day later, I loaded up on my usual breakfast and found myself on-site by 6:45 a.m. getting the tour and the health-and-safety rundown. It took hours.
I didn’t get to actually unpack, look at schematics, and start assessing and planning until early afternoon.
As I toured the site and got a sense of the size of the project, who was doing what and where, I could tell this was a much bigger job. Because of time constraints, there were a lot of tradesmen working.
I didn’t see Scott anywhere, and my heart sank.
That night, in a bar that overlooked the Gulf, I ate steak, chatted to a few people, and tried to ignore the sinking feeling that I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
As I finished my beer and was about to get up and leave, a woman came in and sat next to me.
“Hey, how’s the food? I’m starving,” she said.
It wasn’t hard to see why I thought she was working me at first, but after a closer look, I realized she’d just come off the beach. Her hair was still wild from the wind, and the tan lines on her shoulders told a story the expensive jewelry didn’t.
“Steak’s good, chips are great, and the sauce drives it home. Definitely recommend,” I told her.
“Thank you for the recommendation. I’m Sally,” she said.
We shook hands politely, and I turned back toward the bar, ordered another beer, and one for Sally.
“What brings you to Tampa?” she asked. Brown eyes, tanned skin, a smile that made me forget my own name.
“Got a gig on a construction site. I’m a carpenter. How about you, Sally? You a local?”
She nodded. “Only been here a couple of years. Originally from Louisiana.” I caught the accent as we talked and found myself actually enjoying the conversation with this beautiful, friendly, soul-healing woman beside me.
Whether it was too many beers, the smell of sunscreen on her skin, or the way her eyes lingered on mine longer than I was used to, an hour later Sally and I were in her modest apartment in Tampa.
I don’t remember the walk back to the hotel, just the sound of her laugh and the salt on her skin when she kissed me. For a few hours, she was every distraction I needed, every reason not to think about blue eyes and sawdust.
But when I woke up, her shoulder under my arm and the Gulf light cutting across the room, the first name in my head wasn’t hers.
I turned up on-site pretending I’d slept, pretending I was fine. The Gulf air stuck to my skin, thick and salty, and the coffee in my hand tasted like shit. My head still hurt from the beers and the last-minute decisions, and the noise on-site didn’t help. I kept seeing flashes of last night, Sally’s laugh, her skin, the way she said my name, and hating myself for thinking of someone else the whole time.
I spread the plans on the sawhorse, the paper already gritty with dust, and tried to drown myself in work. The noise of drills and boots filled the space, and for a while I could almost disappear into it. I told myself I was here for the money, that this was just another job, that it had nothing to do with him. But every time I crossed an empty corridor or saw a flash of navy, I caught myself listening for that voice, the one that could make sawdust feel like laughter.
By day three, I’d fallen into the rhythm. Measure, mark, cut, fix. Chalk lines stretched across the floor like a map of everything I didn’t want to think about. I crouched by the southern wall, feeding conduit through a stud bay, the hiss of the drill in my ears, the thud of boots nearby, the smell of sweat and sawdust hanging in the air. The plumber was already complaining about ceiling space, the foreman wanted updates before I’d even rolled out the blueprints, and someone asked if I had spare clips. I gave the same answers I always did. Routine, safe, predictable.
This was the kind of noise that usually cleared my head, but not that week.
When Friday rolled around, I packed up, waved to a few of the guys I’d gotten to know, and headed out to my truck.
And froze.
There, right beside a row of portable loos, was Scott’s truck.
And standing on the back tray, loading up a bunch of tools, was Scott.
My heart leapt and I slowed, realizing how bad this could look. The impulse to turn and hide overcame me, but the other impulse to run to him and hug him was greater.
I compromised with myself and walked over, slowly, casually, as though we were neighbors having our weekly pointless catch-up.
“Well, well, well… look who we have here. I’d swear you’re stalking me, man.”
Lie number one.
Scott turned and for a few seconds, he either didn’t recognize me or wasn’t happy about it.
As I walked closer, a grin on my face I just couldn’t hide, I saw those blue eyes I’d missed as they stared.
“Fuck! Andy! What the fuck are you doing here? Are you working in there?” he pointed behind me.
Scott, standing in those blue shorts he really needed to size up, that chambray shirt open enough to show his hairy chest, and then there was that weird grin, the one that got me naked and in his bed for an entire weekend.
“Same as you, I guess. Just saw the gig, wasn’t far from home, rented my place out and here I am,” I said, trying to portray this as one big coincidence.
He nodded, that grin quickly changing to something else, like when he was overthinking and he moved his fingers through his hair and his eyes flicked left and right.
“Ah… yeah, that’s cool. Well, I’m just getting started. Be cool to get a beer sometime,” and that was it, that was all. He waved, a polite wave, then turned and got back to doing what Scott did best.
I stood there for a half second longer than I should have, feeling the weight of his indifference like he’d jumped off his truck and smacked me.
My truck wasn’t far, so I quickly walked to it, realizing I’d made a grave mistake.
Back home, I had the not-knowing, the what-ifs and the what-could-have-beens playing over and over in my mind.
But this? Now, this? This was the moment of truth. I’d changed my life to be here, for Scott, so we could give it more time, and see what it was.
In his eyes, I’d seen the answer. I’d disrupted his plans. His future was with a woman, and whatever had happened in that stupid little town, that was an experiment and probably just two guys filling in loneliness and confusing it for something else.
For three days, I drank too much in the evening and I swam in sweat and hard labor through the day, focused, immersed, and mentally calling myself names I’d never call anyone.
That Friday, I wondered if I could replace myself, hire a new guy, put him on-site, hand over and drive back to my life. Take a holiday, some time out to do what I should have done instead of driving myself to an inevitable reality that I had known, but refused to accept.
I drank two beers and wasn’t feeling it, went to the door to leave, then sat down with the remote in hand, thinking some Netflix or YouTube was the distraction I needed. For nearly two hours, I deliberated where I could go, what I should do. To the point I almost reached out to Sally, with an apology for not returning her messages and more excuses.
Long after I’d given up on going out, shoes kicked off, I picked up my phone and nearly dropped it.
I sat down on the couch and stared.
A message from Scott.
Where are you? What are you doing? Can we have a quick chat?
Maybe I stared at my phone for an hour, or maybe it was a few seconds, I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.
Just at a bar with some friends, about to head back to the hotel. And you, Scott?
Lie number two.
He shared his location, somewhere along the shore not far from me.
Let’s walk and talk.
I put my shoes on and left the hotel, bracing myself for a grilling about why I was really in Tampa.
Scott was wearing light pants, brand new black shoes, a simple white tee, and leaning over a railing overlooking the water when I arrived. The walk had only been just under ten minutes.
“Hey,” I said, trying to act casual.
“Hey,” he said, his voice tight and his lips pursed.
“Everything okay?” I asked, a little too afraid to get too close, because the Scott I was looking at wasn’t the one I’d gotten to know in that town.
Gone was the grin, the playfulness, and the eyes that got ready to tell you a joke. In its place was coldness, anger, frustration, and I had a feeling I was about to get the brunt of it all.
“I spent weeks trying to get back to my normal self. I left that town and I left you and what we did, realizing it wasn’t me. That isn’t who I am, Andy! That’s not who I am! I wasn’t looking to date a guy! What I want is to meet a woman, and have kids, that’s always been the plan. And you show up here, near my home, at my site and you just…”
I swallowed, looking away, already having made peace with the fact that I’d fucked up.
I should not have come.
“This isn’t what I want!” he nearly screamed.
A young couple, with a small girl, walked past, casting him a suspicious look, holding their little one for protection as they quickened their pace.
Even though I knew he was right, I wanted to argue with him. But words failed me.
I said nothing.
“This isn’t what I want!”
Eventually, I found my voice.
“Okay, Scott. I get it, that’s cool. I’m not here for you, by the way, in case you’re thinking I somehow knew where you were working and that we’d end up on the same site. That’s fine, let’s just avoid each other. No big deal, there’s no need to blow this out of the water. It’s cool, you get on with your idealistic life and I’ll do the same.”
I began to turn, but stopped, then looked back.
“What happened in that town was great, but it’s just a memory. I’m not here for you, and I’m sorry if you thought I was. Don’t make assumptions. I’ll see you around.”
Lie number three.
I did walk off, and left him there to stew in his thoughts.
Why he’d had the need to take out his aggression and frustration on me, I didn’t know.
The walk back was short, but I needed to sit with my thoughts and start planning my exit and my replacement. I’d claim a family emergency and drive back on the weekend.
I neared the hotel and crossed the parking lot, listening to laughter from a nearby bar that made me miss my friends.
Footsteps behind me, running, and I realized someone was coming up on me.
I turned, suddenly fearful.
It was Scott, running up to me, his face flushed and his teeth bared.
I walked backward, ready to run.
“Andy!”
I paused as he slowed and stopped, a few feet from me.
“What, Scott? You made your point clear. I’m going to get myself replaced and head home tomorrow. It’s fine. Don’t make a big deal out of something that it isn’t. I promise you won’t see or hear from me again,” as I turned again, I felt a lump in my throat.
Scott’s hand grabbed my arm and turned me roughly; I nearly stumbled and fell.
His face came up to mine, and I knew he was about to punch me. I could smell his sweat and rage.
His face, close to mine, seething, teeth frozen in his mouth, pupils so tiny they carried their own daggers.
Then his other hand grabbed me, and he pulled me in so our faces were inches apart.
“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!” he said, but his voice cracked, and it was nearly a harsh whisper.
I said nothing.
Then Scott grabbed the back of my head and he kissed me.
I nearly fell backward, but didn’t. For a few seconds, I stood, startled, my mouth as frozen as my heart had been. But then my arms reached around him, and pulled him in close, and that kiss became frantic, all-consuming, devouring, and hungry. Like neither of us had eaten in weeks and had just found a feast.
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