“Tell him I said hi,” Mae said, after a moment. Dell turned to look at her again then. “I want to know all the local authors in the area.”
A beat passed, his face unreadable before he said, “Yeah.” He turned back to the wall. “I will.”
And if Mae hadn’t already suspected what thisfriendmeant to Dell, it was cemented, right then, when color seeped into Dell’s cheeks: a deep, delicious red.
Mae had never seen Dell blush before.
It made her chest ache.
“I can look after the dogs, you know,” she said as she returned to the computer. “If you don’t want to bother Liv. I think they know me well enough now.”
“Yeah,” Dell said, and she purposely avoided looking at him again, reading anything into the slight warble of his voice before he cleared his throat. “You’re right. Next time.”
“Next time,” she echoed, and something tugged inside her throat, sharp and embarrassing.
It was good, she reasoned after Dell left without another word. Good to remember that Dell’s heart was already occupied. She had plenty to do anyway. Each day, Mae had more and more merchandise to organize, to label with her new label maker, to track in her new inventory management system. Her own little Blockbuster, in the middle of the Oregon coast.
She logged into her email, and she opened her newest book order. She restarted Jesus’s playlist. She was halfway to compartmentalizing already.
And when she unearthed one of Kennedy Remington’s candles to burn while she worked, she would’ve told anyone who stopped by that she was testing out product. That it had nothing at all to do with eliminating the scent of sawdust, lingering in every corner of Bay Books.
fourteen
“Jesus fuck.”Luca’s breath escaped in heavy gusts. Dell dropped his head, rested his forehead between Luca’s shoulder blades. “Dell, that was so good. What the fuck.”
Dell brushed his lips over Luca’s tacky skin.
“It’s always good,” he said, struggling to get his own breathing under control.
“I know, but—” Luca made an unintelligible noise. Dell smiled. Luca was loquacious tonight. Lighter. “Whatever that was, thank you for it. Fuck. I think I needed that.”
Dell had broken routine. There had been no beer tonight, no small talk by the kitchen island. When Luca had opened his door, Dell had simply stepped in, taking Luca’s face in his hands, Luca’s lips in his teeth, pressing forward until Luca’s back hit the kitchen counter.
Luca hadn’t seemed to mind.
“Me too.” Dell planted a last kiss in the small of Luca’s back as he pushed himself to standing. “Be right back.”
After he’d cleaned himself in the bathroom, after he’d returned with an extra towel for Luca, he arranged himself on the mattress again, an arm behind his head.
Luca, to Dell’s pleasure, shifted himself over until his face was within nuzzling distance of Dell’s breast. Dell wrapped his other arm around Luca’s back, welcoming him closer.
After a few minutes of comfortable, pulse-calming silence, Dell said, “This is kind of a weird ask. But would you mind playing with my hair?”
Luca didn’t move, but he smiled against Dell’s skin, pale against his own tanned face.
“Play with your hair?”
Dell was too sex-drunk to even be self-conscious.
“Yeah. Like, scratch my head.”
Luca laughed a little before he adjusted himself enough to reach up a hand, fingers sifting into Dell’s sandy hair.
“You really don’t have a lot to play with here, you know.”
“I know, but just—” And then Luca’s fingers curled, his short nails making work of Dell’s scalp. Dell sighed in contentment, eyes drifting closed. “Yeah. That’s good.”
“Hard to believe we’ve fucked this many times,” Luca said after a minute, “and I’m still learning your kinks.”
