Hot Nuts and Bolts

A high-heat M/M small-town romance about a quiet hardware man, a contractor who notices too much, and an attraction that refuses to stay casual.

Eli knows how to fix almost anything. Ronan might be the one problem he can’t solve casually.

Eli Vance has a system. The hardware table goes in the same place every Saturday, with screws sorted by size, wrenches handles-out, and brass hinges catching the morning light. Everything useful stays ordered and exactly where it belongs.

Then Ronan arrives at Eli’s table with the wrong hinges and Eli’s name already in his mouth. A temporary contractor working a renovation on Market Road, Ronan isn’t local, isn’t staying, and isn’t interested in pretending he doesn’t see what catches his eye. And he asks questions no one in Saltwick Bay has ever bothered to ask.

Eli has spent years being the man people come to when something needs fixing—a latch, a railing, a drawer rail, a problem with a clean solution. Ronan isn’t a clean solution. He’s four pairs of brass hinges left in the cab of a truck. He’s a walkway conversation Eli can’t stop replaying. He’s a man who looks at Eli like he isn’t part of the furniture of the town. And for the first time in a long time, Eli wants to know what happens if he doesn’t look away.

• • •

A quiet hardware man. A temporary contractor. One renovation that changes the pattern.

Eli is good at being useful. He knows what hinge will hold, what screw will last, what part a customer needs before they finish explaining the problem. In Saltwick Bay, people know where to find him. They bring him broken things and he fixes them, and that has always been enough.

Ronan doesn’t come to Eli with something broken. He comes with attention—a look held too long across a market lot, a question in a narrow walkway, a request that isn’t really about hardware. Ronan is only in Saltwick Bay for the job—four months, maybe five, long enough to finish the renovation and not long enough to belong. Eli knows it. Everyone who understands small towns and temporary men knows it too. But knowing a thing doesn’t stop it from mattering.

Ronan sees the control Eli has built his life around, and Eli sees how Ronan’s body keeps itself ready to leave. Neither man is prepared for the slow, stubborn pull of wanting anyway.

Hot Nuts and Bolts closes The Saltwick Bay Romances with the quietest man in town and the contractor who refuses to overlook him. The burn is slow, but when it catches, it’s fully explicit—the same careful hands, put to different work. The series starts with Hot Dogs and Handies and continues with Hot Cross Buns.

Ronan’s job ends in four months, maybe five. What he starts with Eli doesn’t come with a completion date.

Continue The Saltwick Bay Romances

Book 1: Hot Dogs and Handies — Grant came to town with twelve mustards and a business plan. Joel had forearms.

Book 2: Hot Cross Buns — Theo has built a quiet life. Then the man who broke him walks back into it.

Book 3: Hot Nuts and Bolts — Eli knows how to fix almost anything. Ronan might be the one problem he can’t solve.

Browse The Saltwick Bay Romances →