“Oh my god.”
Dell looked up as she held a single envelope, the rest of the flyers dropping out of her hands.
“What is it?”
“I hope…” Instantly, outrageously nervous, Mae ripped open the envelope. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was a rejection because she’d filled out the application wrong, or because she was from Portland, and she knew her flags had caused friction at town council meetings. Maybe?—
Mae read the words on the page and looked back at Dell in awe.
“It’s my business license,” she said faintly. “Greyfin Bay approved my license.”
Dell only smiled back, that slight lift of his mouth. That small shine in his eyes.
“That’s great, Mae.”
“It’s not justgreat; it’s—” She looked back down at the paper in her hands. It wasit. The last official approval she needed to become a small business owner. To make Bay Books real. She could open the shop tomorrow, if she wanted to.
“Dell?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to ask you something, and you should definitely feel free to say no.”
Dell put the postcards he’d been examining back on the counter, eyes turning cautious.
“Okay.”
“Can I hug you? I just…reallyneed to hug someone right now. But I can always go hug Freddy instead.”
Dell’s mouth twerked back up.
“Think he’d let you?”
“Hell no. But I’d find someone.”
“Yeah, Mae. You can hug me.”
And so Mae flew around the counter, and into Dell’s soft stomach, and it was…exactly as she had known it would be, the first time she saw him. Maybe she couldn’t have predicted the exact feel of his arms wrapping around her back, but her face in his shoulder, their bodies pressed together, the way it made everything inside her feel warm and quiet and safe—that was all exactly right. Like she’d already hugged him a hundred times before. He smelled like sawdust and sweat and Greyfin Bay.
She pulled back before, once again, she let herself linger too long.
“I need to buy a frame for that. And vessels.” She twirled and ran into the office, grabbing her bag off the desk.
“Next bookshelf will be done in a couple hours!” Dell called to her running form as she sped through the shop.
“Amazing! You’re amazing!” Mae called back. “Lock the door behind me, will you?”
And she was gone, again, down Main Street, to find her next missing pieces.
* * *
With Mae’s help, Dell pushed the second bookshelf upright.
“You want this one flush against the other? Or you want a slight gap in between?”
Mae walked behind him, examining the space, biting the tip of her thumb. NSYNC’S “Bye Bye Bye” played from the death party playlist.
“Flush,” she decided.
