Mae smiled back, feeling all at once a bit more like herself. A bit more right.
“I’m Liv.” The woman held out a weathered hand, which Mae gladly shook. “I run the IGA, over on Hastings.” Liv tilted her head toward Ginger’s. “We actually have the best coffee in town.”
“Mae Kellerman.” Based on the vibe Mae was getting from Liv, she decided to throw in her pronouns, too, which she often used as a sort ofhey, I’m queerBat-Signal. Or, depending on the person, afuck you, I’m queerdeclaration. “She/they. It’s nice to meet you, Liv.”
“Likewise, darlin’. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Before Liv turned to walk down the ramp, she threw Mae one more smirk. One that almost felt a touch flirtatious. And as with any time a butch had thrown Mae the tiniest bit of attention, Mae blushed.
Maybe she was still overheated from that asshole’s voice.
“Hey, Mae,” Liv called from the sidewalk a moment later. “Give Dell hell, all right?”
Mae’s own lips twitched as she nodded.
“I will.”
With a brief two-fingered salute, Liv ambled off. Mae watched her go before turning back to the storefront.
Jesus’s money might provide the means.
But giving hell was something Mae Kellerman was capable of all on her own.
She unlocked her phone.
Unsurprisingly, Dell sent her to voicemail.
So she hung up. And dialed again. And again.
Until eventually, she said this at the beep.
“Hey Dell, it’s Mae Kellerman again. I just wanted you to know that I’m going to keep calling until you at least agree to come down here and tell me no to my face. Because I’ve got nothing else to do today, and I’m stubborn as hell. So I’ll be here, waiting, whenever you’re ready.”
And then Mae walked back to her car, parked on a side street. She grabbed a couple of blankets from the hatchback—one for her ass, one for her lap—and rummaged around in the backseat until she found the paperback she’d been carrying around all week. It was an old Tessa Dare, one she’d somehow never read. She hadn’t found time to crack it open until now, but she’d figured if there was anyone who could make her smile in the hollow absence of Jesus’s laughter, it would be Tessa Dare.
She walked back to 12 Main Street and plunked herself on the ground in front of the door. Settled in. Took another sip of her tea.
Opened her phone one more time.
She almost texted the group chat. But in the deepest parts of herself, the parts she vowed to never let Dell McCleary see, she was still too fragile, too still-tilted and unsure to share the dream with everyone.
She brought up Vik’s name instead.
Serious question, she typed.How would we feel about me moving to the coast and opening a queer ass bookstore?
She bit her lip before turning the phone face down on the wooden slats of the porch.
And then Mae rested her sore back against the door, and she began to read.
two
Dell rubbeda hand over his face and looked out the kitchen window. A scrub jay landed on the Oregon maple in the yard before flitting off into the hills.
Thatfuckingstorefront.
Crosby nosed at Dell’s hand, excited for the possibility of a ramble, as Dell crossed the room.
“Not now, Cros.”
