Dell’s heart galloped in his chest at the memory. At how badly he wanted to kiss her, still, right fucking now.
“Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while.”
“I’ve wanted you to tell me for a while, too.” She smiled, just an inch, but it was a little sad, her eyes a little glassy.
Dell almost opened his mouth to ask her what she wanted, to ask for confirmation that they were traveling down the same wavelengths here. But then her words from last night came back to him, blessedly clear, even with the hazy memory of the trigger soon after.
Dell, I want you so badly.
“Mae.” He tried to clear his throat again; it’d gone thick and tight. “Mae, I want you so badly, too. But…it might take me some time. To end things with Luca, to…take some time with that.” Because hell if Luca didn’t deserve to be mourned. Because two years of letting each other’s bodies inwasa long time, and itwassomething, even if it wasn’t as soft and open as this, Mae’s ocean eyes staring earnestly back at his.
Dell’s stomach was really hurting now with the brutal truth of it. He’d never get to touch Luca again. Never again get to fall asleep in that cabin.
If Mae still wanted to try this, anyway.
Fucking A, Dell was a selfish bastard.
Mae only stared at him. She blinked faster, eyes more glazed by the second.
“That is…” he started, more uncertain than ever. “If you still want to try something here, Mae. I understand it’s messy, and…” Giving in to cowardice, he closed his eyes again. “I’m sorry,” he said again, voice now as soft as hers.
A few seconds went by, and Dell’s stomach sank in a different way, a kind of predictable resignation. He almost felt calm about it. Lord knew life would be quieter,easier, more familiar if he just continued as he’d been, Mae-less.
He would have to kick her out of the ADU, though. And probably finally sell 12 Main to her outright. He should probably do that either way. It’d be too messy otherwise, and this moment right now was enough evidence that Dell was not equipped for mess. It’d feel like a huge chunk was cut out of him for a while, he was sure, the ADU sitting empty again, his driveway only ever holding his own truck, not being able to help with the store. But it would heal, eventually.
“This feels different,” Mae said.
Dell blinked open his eyes.
Mae was still staring at him, but a look of almost…awe had taken over her face.
“Itisdifferent, Mae,” he said, voice full of feeling. “Luca and I never really let each other in, but you’re like…a bulldozer; it’s impossible tonotwant to let you in, and?—”
“No, no.” Mae smiled, eyes seeming to come into focus again. “I believe you, and I get it.Everyrelationship in our lives is different from all the others, but they all matter. I understand you have lots going on inside you right now. I’m not angry about it.”
Dell faltered.
“You’re not?”
“No. I was last night, though, for arealhot second, before everything happened.” She kept smiling at him. “Because I’d already told you about my big guilty feelings about cheating on Becks, and…” Another look washed over her face as she shook her head. Dell couldn’t quite discern anything that was happening here, but he focused on the fact that her mouth was still tilted upward. “God, I didn’t even tell you aboutEden.”
“Eden?” Dell frowned.
“Yeah, the last person I dated.” And she was almost laughing when she said, “We dated for five months, and she wasmarried, with akid, the whole fucking time!”
Dell felt the blood drain out of his face.
“Mae. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay!” Still laughing, Mae wiped at an eye. “Sorry, I’m only laughing because it’s such a fucking cliché, that she lived out her queer fantasy with me while I was oblivious, and she went through suchdepthin her deception, like rented a whole fucking apartment for our affair so I wouldn’t know she actually lived with her husband and kid and…” Mae took a big breath. “I just…don’t even feel bad, that I never even think about her anymore.”
“Good.” Dell was suddenly lost, drowning in a swamp of how people treated each other. Worried—no, knew—that he was part of its murky depths. “You shouldn’t.”
“But anyway, so I was real fucking angry for a second last night that I was about to somehow be caught in some kind of messagain, but this right here, right now,you, lying here telling me everything…”
The laughter faded from her lips. And she looked at him in a way…fuck, she was looking at him in a way that felt like the ocean, deep and fluid and vast. The most simultaneously frightening and grounding thing he’d ever known.
“Am I jealous this guy’s been getting to fuck you for two years? Sure. But mostly I just feel…so glad, Dell.” Her eyes somehow turned even softer. “That you’ve had him.”
