“I should ask Liv to add me to that chat. Except—no.” Mae shook her head, voice sobering. “I wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
Dell took a slow breath through his nose.
“Living here,” he said slowly, “requires you being able to handle it.”
He wasn’t trying to start a fight. He wasn’t trying to be an asshole. He was just trying to tell the truth.
Mae Kellerman had gotten him excited about red alder bookshelves. If she couldn’t handle the Millers, she wouldn’t last even a few months, let alone the year he was holding her to for the lease.
And Dell wasn’t ready to be proven right just yet.
But Mae only looked out the window.
“I’m too tired to argue with you about that,” she said after a minute.
And, well. Dell wouldn’t let that break his heart.
“I’m thinking I should set up out back,” he said.
Mae glanced back at him. “What?”
“Out back, behind the shop. On that nice deck the Gutierrez boys built for you. Probably makes the most sense for me to build the shelves there.”
“Oh.” Mae stared out the windshield again. “Whatever works best for you.”
Dell rubbed a hand along his jaw, contemplating.
“I’ll have to bring over a bunch of my equipment, but…it’d probably be better than having to transport the shelves from home and risk them getting damaged on the way.”
“And you think it’ll all be safe back there?”
Dell almost made an annoyed comment about Greyfin Bay not being Portland, but somehow he stopped his tongue. He understood the concern. Mae had just paid a pretty chunk of change for the wood in Dell’s truck bed. He’d be nervous, too. But?—
“It’ll be safe.” And then, “I’ll be able to start on Friday. Got an appointment in McMinnville tomorrow.”
He didn’t tell her that the appointment he drove all the way to McMinnville for was his monthly manicure and pedicure.
A ritual almost as sacred to him as his monthly date with Luca.
Maybe more.
“That’s fine,” Mae said, voice increasingly soft. After a minute, she added, “I really…I really appreciate you doing this.”
Dell shifted in his seat. Adjusted his hands on the wheel. He didn’t know how to process the vulnerability in her voice. It made it feel like…like he was offering more than he was. Like she was offering something in return.
Something he wasn’t entirely sure of the shape of. Or if it was something he wanted in the first place.
“Sure,” he managed, after a possibly awkward amount of time.
They rode the rest of the way to Greyfin Bay in silence.
* * *
Three days later, Dell hummed as he refilled his mug with coffee in the kitchen.
He still wasn’t quite sure if building the bookshelves on site was the most efficient option, but the weather had been beautiful, these past few days. Cool and crisp, but still with a surprising, lingering summer warmth at the peak of the day. Good days to spend on a deck, working with your hands.
As he’d suspected, there was something satisfying about coming back to furniture, to large scale work. Mae had requested small cabinets be built into the bottom of each shelf to hide extra stock; he thought he might integrate even a small bit of carving into their doors. Function and art. Solid pieces of woodworking.
