Dell paused with his mug halfway to his mouth. “Mae. You’re drinking champagne. It’s basically like acid with bubbles.”
“Yeah,” Mae said pointedly, lifting her mug. “Bubbles. Changes the whole game.”
Dell shook his head as he dropped to the floor again. At the last second, he switched to lie on his stomach.
“Oh yeah,” he groaned into the rug. “That’s the ticket.”
“Good call,” Mae said, heaving herself around. “I should switch this business up, too. Oh damn. Thatisgood.”
Dell’s grin returned, until he realized they’d made a grave mistake.
Because instead of staring at the ceiling, they were now…staring at each other. Cheeks pressed into the floor.
For what could’ve been a few seconds or a few minutes, those blue-gray eyes stared back at him. And yeah. At that moment, Mae Kellerman definitely felt soft.
Their matching grins slowly faded. Mae’s pink lips parted, ever so gently. She had a small age spot, or perhaps a birthmark, above her left eyebrow. There was a pimple growing on her chin. Dell’s fingertips tingled at his sides as if they could sense it, what her skin would feel like.
Everything seemed to go very still.
And then Mae’s eyelashes fluttered closed. Dell released a silent breath.
He stared at her light-at-the-tips eyelashes and said, “Is your hair always pink?”
Things were starting to leave Dell’s mouth way too easily. He wondered if it was possible to get a contact high from someone else’s champagne. Wait, no, that didn’t make sense.
It was possible he wasn’t thinking clearly after all.
“Like, is the pink hair your thing? Or do you switch it up?”
Mae’s eyes remained closed, but she smiled.
“It’s been my thing for a while, yeah. Few years. I’m totally fucking up my hair doing it, but I’m kind of attached now.Ugh, I’m gonna have to find a new stylist here. And a dentist. And…everything.”
“That tends to happen when you move.”
“I know, but I’ve been so focused on the shop, I haven’t thought about a lot else.”
Because it’ll make it easier, then, to leave, part of Dell’s brain thought. That part wasn’t at all surprised that Mae hadn’t put down firmer roots for herself yet. Wasn’t surprised that Mae had never left Dell’s ADU. Found a place other than 12 Main Street to make her home, for real.
But another part of Dell’s brain, looser and louder just then, sort of wanted to punch that first part in the face.
Because maybe Dell didn’t want Mae to leave the ADU anyway.
“I don’t think Doug does coloring. He’s Greyfin Bay’s sole stylist, by the way. Although I think he prefers the term barber.”
“Does Doug work on your beard?”
“Yeah.”
“Hm. I should thank him sometime. It’s a good beard.”
Maybe Mae’s a little drunk, he thought. It was too dangerous to think any further than that.
“God, what time is it?” he babbled. “It feels like it’s midnight but it’s probably like, nine.”
Mae laughed. What a thing. Watching someone laugh with their eyes closed. “Story of my life,” she said. And then, “I can’t believe I told you about Becks.”
“I think you think Becks is a bigger story than it is.”
