She didn’t know how to process that he was just as hot as she’d imagined.
So she simply began ringing him up instead.
“Uh.” He scratched his head, credit card clutched in his other hand. How strange, to feel so close to someone you’d never technically met before. “His mom’s doing okay?” And then, before Mae could respond, “I overheard some people talking in the IGA.”
At once, Mae’s heart stopped thudding. She released a breath. She wanted to hug this man. To invite him out for a beer. They wouldn’t even have to talk. They could just spend time, in that space of understanding, of missing Dell, together.
“Yeah,” she eventually said, voice gentle. “It sounds like she’s doing a lot better.”
Luca nodded. Tucked the book under his arm.
“Hey Luca?” she said, when he was almost to the door. He half turned. “Keep coming in, okay? If you want to.”
He gave her a small smile.
“It is nice, having a bookstore.”
“I hoped it would be.”
With another nod, he was gone.
* * *
A few days before Christmas, Dell called in the morning when Mae was still in bed, barely awake.
“Mae,” he said, voice sounding more urgent than it normally did. Mae shot up from the pillows.Georgia.“I’m so sorry I didn’t do this earlier. But Mae, the store should be yours.”
Mae frowned, staring blurrily at Dell’s bedside clock. Crosby stirred next to her.
“What?”
“12 Main Street. I want to sell it to you. I should have done that first thing, when we—it’s yours anyway.”
The words percolated through Mae’s mind, much slower than she knew they should.
“But it hasn’t been six months yet.”
Dell released a quiet huff on the other end of the line. Mae thought she could hear his smile in it.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.
And Mae suddenly wanted to cry.
“I’ve never wanted to ask for details about Jesus’s money, but is it enough to buy it outright?”
“No.”
Why was he doing this to her now? Couldn’t he at least have waited for her to be awake to break her heart?
“Okay. We can work out all the details over email, my bank and your bank and the title company and everything; we don’t have to go over it all right now. But I can negotiate on price, if you don’t have enough, after all the repairs and startup costs of the business and everything?—”
“I have enough.”
Mae didn’t need to study her budgets; she’d been studying them for the last four and a half months. It would be disconcerting, giving away half of the rest of the money on a down payment, but to make a mortgage feasible, she knew that was what she had to do. She’d have to be more careful with each purchase, both for the store and for her own life, but maybe it would be good, having some discipline again.
It wasn’t the money she was worried about.
“Okay. I’ll send you some emails, okay? But go ahead and apply for a loan with your bank when you have time.”
