Dell, again, couldn’t help the grin that stretched the corner of his mouth. It was a hell of a diagram. Preposterous, probably, but still a hell of a diagram. “Huh.”
“Huh,” Mae mocked him with a smirk as her hands fell back to the bed. “You can admit to wanting to be a hinge, Dell.”
“I…” Dell huffed another half-laugh. “Mae, I just learned the term two seconds ago.”
“I know.” Mae’s voice turned serious again. “Which is why you have to think about it.” She shifted suddenly, swinging her legs off the bed. “I’m going to get dressed now, if you want to cover your precious eyes.”
Dell did close his eyes, but he listened to every bit of rustling fabric. Imagined every piece of it sliding over her skin. Mourned the loss of her body weight and heat next to his.
His mind was still processing the rollercoaster of a conversation they’d just had, but his tongue tingled with the possibility of it. That he could have her back here, in his bed. That he could finally taste that skin, one day soon.
The floor creaked as she walked across the room. He blinked his eyes back open.
She stood at his open door, glancing into the hall.
“I’m going to get some of the stuff from the truck,” she said. “Do you think you could help me unload the things I want at the store later?”
Dell hoisted himself onto his elbows.
“Maybe not today,” he said honestly. That hazy post-trigger exhaustion was hitting him now. “I think I need to rest more, from last night. But tomorrow. I promise.”
Mae nodded, readjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. “Of course.”
“Mae,” Dell said, the last twelve hours fully sinking into his consciousness. “I’m so sorry. About the way we left. I know you still had stuff you wanted to do, and we left things at Vik and Jackson’s?—”
“It’s okay.” Mae shook her head. “I can get it all later. Truly, it’s okay. I’m just…glad to be home.”
Home.
Dell willed his heart to believe her.
But part of him—the part who had gotten to see Mae come alive, surrounded by the friends she loved, the city she clearly still loved—was, even now, more doubtful than ever.
Maybe he’d be able to have her for a little while.
But he couldn’t completely trust he’d have her forever.
“Take your time,” she said. “Talk to your fisherman. I’m here for whatever you need, Dell McCleary. Until then…” Another small smile, thrown his way. “You know where to find me.”
twenty
Mae decidedto approach Bae Books from the street.
She normally parked in the back alley, checked on the plants in her raised beds, entered via the office door. But maybe she should start facing her dream the way the rest of Greyfin Bay saw it: from the outside. A boarded up window, a bright turquoise door. Planters holding wilting flowers. A small storefront next to a small pub, at the end of a small street.
Mae inspected the drooping fall daisies with a frown. She needed to tend to them more, cut them back for winter. Decide what she could plant for the dreary months.
She stepped back to survey the storefront once more.
Flora aside?—
It was perfect.
Even with the boarded up window. That would be fixed soon. Most things could be fixed, with time.
Mae unlocked the door, and her first thoughts were somehow simultaneous:
Oh god, I still have so much to do.
