Page 38 of The Diamond in the Rough

So I just tried not to think about sex. It mostly worked.

Unless I picked up something that someone else had been holding while thinking about sex.

I glared down at the pencil.

My gloves were in my desk drawer, so I went back to get them.

“Hey—this yours?”

I turned around, finding Elliot Crane, his jeans stained and a little ripped, having picked it up. It was, but I didn’t want it anymore, so I shook my head.

He spun it around his fingers—a neat trick, actually. “Mind if I keep it?”

I shook my head again.

Elliot smiled at me. “Thanks. Can’t ever have too many pencils as a carpenter.”

I blinked. “Why?” I asked.

He looked a little startled, as though no one had ever asked him that question. “We use them to mark things—where to cut, where to line up one piece of wood against another, where to put a screw or finishing nail or whatever.” He smiled. “I usually use drafting pencils, but I left them in the storage unit.”

“Storage unit?” I asked.

“Yeah, Taavi’s unit. It’s where I’m actually working, since I’d make a hell of a mess in here if I did the build in the office.”

“Oh,” I said. I supposed that was true. If you were cutting a lot of wood, I guess you’d generate a lot of saw dust, and that would probably irritate Mason, who was extremely fastidious.

“Just getting a few measurements to make sure that the pieces I bring in will fit through the doors.” He smiled again.

“Does that mean it’s almost done?” I asked.

“The basic table, yeah,” he replied. “I’ll do the carving and inlay here, though—it needs to happen once the table is fully assembled, and,” he continued, a half smile curving hislips. “I figure it’s important to make sure that someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing supervises that process.”

I nodded. “Yes,” I agreed. “That’s probably true.”

He chuckled a little, spinning the pencil over his fingers one more time before tucking it into his back pocket.

“You ready to go, asshole?” came Hart’s voice.

I blinked, startled.

“Yeah, dickhead,” came Elliot’s laughing response. “Don’t get your little elf-panties in a twist.”

“Elf-panties?” He sounded offended, but Hart was grinning when he came down the hall from the back door. “The fuck are elf-panties?”

“I don’t fucking know, do I?” Elliot retorted. “I’m not a goddamn elf.”

I did not understand why they were both smiling and laughing and also insulting each other.

Just more evidence of my social ineptitude, I guess, that this interaction that seemed so natural to them was utterly alien to me. I knew better by now than to ask someone to explain, so I just smiled, then turned and made my way back to the front desk.

“See ya, kid!” Hart called after me.

“Bye, Hart!” I called back. “Bye, Elliot!”

“Later, Rayn!” Elliot replied.

I went back to my desk, letting out a long breath. Back to the spreadsheets.