With trepidation, she picked it up. And burst out laughing in relief as she read the text from Vik. Jackson had apparently been trying to get into bread making, and it wasnotgoing well.
Mae responded while she wandered into her bedroom-slash-living room, and then she tossed the phone onto the foot of the bed, resolving to keep it there, face down in time out. She drifted instead toward the shelves that lined the back wall, ice cream carton still in hand. Something about this particular night tugged her there, a pull underneath her sternum that made her stop and really look.
She had brought a random collection of paperbacks from Portland, stuffing them into every nook and cranny of the car: behind her suitcases in the trunk, underneath the seats, tucked next to herpilea peperomioides. It had been frivolous, she knew, bringing along books when she barely had room in her little Kia for actual essentials. But what kind of reader moved to the coast to start a bookstore without at least a few of their own favorites?
Some she’d read before, some multiple times; a few were volumes from favorite authors she hadn’t gotten around to yet. There was Ann Patchett and Akwaeke Emezi; Alexis Hall and Talia Hibbert. Kate Clayborn, Gabriel García Márquez. Cat Sebastian, Olivia Dade. Kacen Callender and Jonny Garza Villa.
She contemplated the shelf.
She knew it was a bad idea.
But she picked up a Lisa Kleypas anyway.
* * *
Damn that Lisa. Damn her to hell.
Of course Mae had ruined whatever semblance of rest she’d gained the day before, staying up entirely too late inside the ridiculous, wonderful world of historical romance. But whatever, maybe she could fuck up her sleep as much as Dell’s in solidarity.
No, that probably wasn’t a good idea. Grand gestures for a person who was likely already seeing someone else weren’t a good idea, either, but dammit, Kleypas was in herbrain.
And fine, maybe a morning beverage wasn’t the grandest of gestures. But when Mae finally blinked awake after the fifteenth snooze of her alarm and the idea needled into her mind, she felt good about it anyway.
With each mile she drove to Lincoln City with tired eyes, though, she was more and more grateful shehadpicked up the mass market paperback last night, in a way that had nothing at all to do with Dell McCleary, but everything to do with the way she still felt wrapped in its magic this morning. The absolute blessing of that feeling.
That feeling was why she was here.
She had to keep remembering why she was here.
An hour later, she approached Dell on the back porch of 12 Main Street, hands hidden behind her back. She smiled when she saw him, bent at the waist, the whir of his power sander echoing through the alley. It was a Saturday; he didn’t need to be here. But somehow she knew he would be anyway.
“Hey.” Dell straightened with a frown once he noticed her, pushing his safety glasses into his hair. “Where have you been? You normally?—”
His voice cut off as Mae shoved the matcha latte into his hand.
“Good morning,” she said. “Thought you deserved one of these.”
Dell stared down at the green froth in his cup.
“I’ll be out for a bit today,” Mae added. “I’m heading down the coast to pick up some candles and soap made by a woman near Newport that I’m going to sell in the shop.”
“Okay,” Dell said, still staring at the cup in his hand.
Mae contemplated sayingthank you, for the other night, orthank you, for…everything, or something else silly and romance novel-influenced, but the rational part of her brain knew nothing else truly needed to be said. So she turned to head inside, until Dell said, “Mae,” and she paused.
“I should have this next bookshelf done soon,” he said.
Mae smiled. “That’s amazing, Dell.”
“Thanks for the matcha.”
“Thanks for the bookshelves.”
And when he finally lifted his head and smiled back at her, she opened the door to the office and stepped inside before she could linger any longer in the moment than she should.
* * *
Mae clapped in delight when Antonio knocked on the back door on Monday morning.
