Chapter One
The first time Mae Kellerman saw the ocean, she screamed.
At least, her parents had always described the memory as such: a long howl, torn from their toddler’s chest at the first crash of a wave. Accompanied by vicious kicks into Mae’s mother’s stomach, a pounding at shoulders her parents first interpreted as fear. And so Jodi Dupont-Kellerman had hugged her toddler tighter, shielding her bonneted head from the wind with a hand, until her husband Felix suggested they try putting baby Mae’s feet down in the sand.
And the moment they hit, Mae was off. Running in the half-sideways, mostly-drunk way of toddlers toward the green-blue of the Atlantic.
Her howl turned more shrill, chubby fists rising in the air, until gradually, Jodi and Felix understood it was a cry of wonder. One Mae kept up the entire time Felix lifted her through the shallows of the waves, the sound refusing to leave Mae’s body no matter how Jodi and Felix tried to calm her. Until, eventually, laughing and holding palms over their ears, they walked away from the sand back to their old Subaru, to give Mae’s growing lungs a rest.
Forty years later, Mae gazed at a different ocean and rather felt like screaming again. Until her lungs once more wore themselves out. Until the waves told her what to do.
Instead, she sipped too-hot green tea from a paper cup.
And glanced back, again, at the building behind her. Wide slats of worn, dark wood ran up both stories, like a saloon in an old Western. Like it was weathered half by sea salt, half by tumbleweed.
A faded red and white sign hung in its picture window, above a chipped sill covered in dust.
For Sale by Owner
503-555-9032
Mae’s eyes flicked back toward Main Street. It was rare on the Oregon Coast, a shoreline almost completely protected by state law, to have a commercial strip so close to the sea. She studied the small café across the way where she’d acquired this green tea, the waves of the Pacific visible behind it. To the left, a kiosk for whale watching tours. Just past that, a set of wide, concrete steps, leading down to the shore. Mist rose off the sand as the morning warmed, burning off the wet damp of night. Revealing more of the cliffs that stood at either end of the beach: lichen-covered brackets for both the shallow bay and the town that hugged it.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
She was supposed to be in Newport, at the very least, visiting her parents before heading back home. She was supposed to be in Portland. She had to return to work tomorrow at the community center after almost two weeks away.
She turned and rested her back against the railing of the porch. Stared again at the smudged window and the dark space beyond. An emptiness, waiting to be made bright.
Mae dug her phone out of her pocket.
She’d had time, these last two weeks, to scream.
It was time for something new.
A rough, deep voice picked up on the third ring.
“Dell.”
Mae’s pulse jumped at the brief, monosyllabic greeting. Was that a name?
“Hi.” She cleared her throat, standing straighter, as if the person on the other end of the line could see her. “I’m calling about the vacant storefront? On Main Street?”
Silence.
Mae had dialed before she could think too hard. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least get some information. Had also figured procuring it wouldn’t be a terribly difficult thing to do. But as the silence on the other end of the line stretched, she got her wits about her, and retrieved her customer service voice to properly continue the conversation.
“Sorry, let me start that again. My name is Mae Kellerman, and I’m standing in front of this storefront for sale, here at the end of Main Street in Greyfin Bay. Next to the bar.”
Mae had never spent much time in Greyfin Bay before yesterday. It was south of the towns on the northern coast that were an easy day drive from Portland. A small blip along the way to Newport when she drove down to visit Jodi and Felix.
But as she’d stood on the sidewalk of Main Street last night, the ocean at her back, Jesus’s ashes now churning in its depths, she’d looked at the strip of darkened storefronts buffeted by the foothills of the Coastal Range behind them, and something about it had made her pause. Actually take it in, for perhaps the first time.
Maybe everything simply looked a little different, after you’d lost someone.
A world-weary sigh rattled in Mae’s ear.
“What do you want with it?”
“Well, I’d love to take a look at it. Hear the listing price.”
“No. What do you plan on doing with it?”
Mae frowned. Dell’s voice was throwing her off. Not only because he sounded so annoyed at being asked about the property he was purportedly, according to the red and white sign, trying to sell.
But because the gravel of that voice, the deep timbre, was the exact kind of voice that had always made Mae’s skin hot and tight. Like a smoky pull of whiskey, settling low in her stomach. Even without having any idea what this person looked like, Mae felt a flash of out-of-place desire, an irrational wish for him to ask her to strip off her clothes.
She blinked. Customer service voice, Mae. Like a grown, competent human with a shocking amount of money to burn.
An amount of money that allowed her to finally answer—
“A bookstore.”
Another beat of silence. During which Mae tilted her chin at herself in the dark window, commanding her reflection to not feel embarrassed about voicing her and Becks’s old dream out loud.
She had told herself last night that it was silly. That the storefront, when she’d first aimlessly stumbled upon it, had prompted ancient memories to bloom inside her head at all. Such unexpected visitors, so funny next to her empty, out-of-body grief, that Mae must have smiled deliriously to herself and that dusty window in the darkness for twenty minutes.
It had been a long time since she’d thought about Becks.
And maybe it was still self-indulgent. Standing here again now, in the light of day, calling this grumpy, sexy-voiced person. Still somehow contemplating the idea.
But maybe it wasn’t silly. Maybe it was, in fact, remarkably easy to imagine that empty room beyond her reflection filled with bookshelves. With tables and displays and pride flags and an antique lamp on that sturdy counter, and maybe a map of the Oregon Coast behind it, and—
“You think,” Dell drawled, “Greyfin Bay has enough of a draw to sustain a bookstore. All year round.”
“Yes,” she answered, with confidence. A confidence she might not have fully felt, say, ten minutes ago, but which she felt in every ounce of her being after listening to this stranger talk to her like she was a fool. The old dreams and new ideas that had gathered in her head overnight, half conscious as she attempted to sleep in the backseat of her car, began to unspool.
“I was thinking it could also be a coffee shop. Surely residents need caffeine twelve months of the year in addition to books.”
It had been high on her and Becks’s list, back in the day. A hissing espresso bar on top of a grand mahogany counter had, obviously, been a necessary component of their fantasy store.
“Ginger’s is right across the street.”
Mae glanced again at the café where she’d gotten her tea. She wanted to point out that Ginger’s only seemed to offer drip coffee that probably came in a pre-ground bag and Lipton tea packets, and she was confident Greyfin Bay, as small of a town as it was, could use a latte or two. But she didn’t press her luck, in the chance she somehow sound eager about putting the small town café across the street out of business.
Which, for the record, she was not. Lipton wasn’t bad.
“I was also considering”—Mae looked up at the second story and set her jaw—“that part of the building could be fashioned into a queer community center. Which, unlike Ginger’s, I’m pretty sure Greyfin Bay doesn’t already have.”
Because maybe Mae couldn’t go back to the community center that had been her home for so long. That had been her home with Jesus. Maybe it would still be irresponsible, leaving the life in Portland she’d worked so hard to build. But maybe her old dream with Becks would be less selfish if she could continue social work here, too. Maybe—
There were so many maybes, suddenly, in this old building.
Jesus had loved this town. Had specified the beach behind her for the spreading of his ashes.
Maybe Jesus had led Mae to Greyfin Bay on purpose.
Which was normally the kind of fate-tinged bullshit Mae didn’t believe in, but a desperation filled her chest just then, quick and hot as lightning. An aching, yearning sensation that threatened to burst out of her skin. The world had been tilted, strange, slightly out of her grasp ever since Jesus left, and she wanted to grab onto something—wanted to punch through this old door and dance in the middle of the dirty floorboards—until she could set it to rights. Until she could hold reality in her hands again. Going back to the city didn’t even make sense. What was left for her in the city other than her friends? And she knew she’d never lose her friends. She was so burnt out, and starting new, taking Jesus’s money and doing something fully hers, like he had told her to, something she could build from the ground up—
Jesus’s voice, raspy and tired and sure in his hospital bed, broke into her brain once more.
I know that woman hurt you.
I want you to trust the world again.
Mae found herself short of breath.
“And I’d have a strong online presence, for both sales and virtual events and—”
“Where are you from?”
The question, asked like a slap, broke Mae abruptly out of her reverie.
Mae, to be clear, was as white as a white person in Oregon could be, but her brain still rankled at the concept of the question.
“Where am I from?”
Another aggrieved sigh.
“Where do you live? Currently.”
Mae inhaled, a premonition of what this condescending, arousing voice would think of her answer creeping over her skin.
“Portland. But I—”
“No.”
And he hung up.
Mae pulled her phone away to frown at it.
Well. Okay. So, fuck that.
She was in the process of dialing again when a low chuckle rang out behind her.
Mae turned. A butch-looking white woman stood on the street, leaning against the wooden railing of the ramp that accompanied the porch.
“That Dell McCleary?”
The woman lifted her chin toward Mae’s phone. Which Mae stared back down at, blood still simmering.
“Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I think so. Yes.”
“Didn’t go so well, I reckon.”
Mae considered what her comfort level with this woman should be. She looked to be in her forties or fifties, likely just a bit older than Mae. Her hair was short and silvery gray, mouth curved in a smirk that Mae suspected was semi-permanent. She wore a corduroy jacket over a Henley, jeans and worn boots.
Meeting butch-looking older white women like this in small towns was always a gamble, in Mae’s experience. Either they were gay as hell or had no idea they looked gay as hell and, disappointingly, actually believed drag queens reading to children signaled the downfall of the world.
“It did not,” Mae answered.
The maybe-very-gay, maybe-very-not woman ambled around the ramp to walk onto the porch. She leaned her back against the rail next to Mae, folded her arms across her chest.
“Dell can be a cranky son of a gun. Real stingy about who he sells to. Particularly with commercial properties.”
Ah. So Dell wasn’t only the owner of this building, then; he dealt in real estate. Somehow, this only made Mae even more irritated. A goddamn professional had hung up on her.
“To be fair to him, though,” the woman continued, “I think some folks have put him through the wringer, so he’s cautious. Just wants what’s best for this town. What would you do with it?”
“A bookstore,” Mae answered again. And then, deciding again to go for it, see where she ranked with this townsperson: “And a queer community center.”
“Huh.”
In their reflections, Mae watched the woman raise an eyebrow.
But then she turned toward Mae. And the smirk grew into what Mae ascertained to be a full-blown butch smile.
“That’s a hell of an idea,” she said.
Mae smiled back, feeling all at once a bit more like herself. A bit more right.
“I’m Liv.” The woman held out a weathered hand, which Mae gladly shook. “I run the IGA, over on Hastings.” Liv tilted her head toward Ginger’s. “We actually have the best coffee in town.”
“Mae Kellerman.” Based on the vibe Mae was getting from Liv, she decided to throw in her pronouns, too, which she often used as a sort of hey, I’m queer Bat-Signal. Or, depending on the person, a fuck you, I’m queer declaration. “She/they. It’s nice to meet you, Liv.”
“Likewise, darlin’. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Before Liv turned to walk down the ramp, she threw Mae one more smirk. One that almost felt a touch flirtatious. And as with any time a butch had thrown Mae the tiniest bit of attention, Mae blushed.
Maybe she was still overheated from that asshole’s voice.
“Hey, Mae,” Liv called from the sidewalk a moment later. “Give Dell hell, all right?”
Mae’s own lips twitched as she nodded.
“I will.”
With a brief two-fingered salute, Liv ambled off. Mae watched her go before turning back to the storefront.
Jesus’s money might provide the means.
But giving hell was something Mae Kellerman was capable of all on her own.
She unlocked her phone.
Unsurprisingly, Dell sent her to voicemail.
So she hung up. And dialed again. And again.
Until eventually, she said this at the beep.
“Hey Dell, it’s Mae Kellerman again. I just wanted you to know that I’m going to keep calling until you at least agree to come down here and tell me no to my face. Because I’ve got nothing else to do today, and I’m stubborn as hell. So I’ll be here, waiting, whenever you’re ready.”
And then Mae walked back to her car, parked on a side street. She grabbed a couple of blankets from the hatchback—one for her ass, one for her lap—and rummaged around in the backseat until she found the paperback she’d been carrying around all week. It was an old Tessa Dare, one she’d somehow never read. She hadn’t found time to crack it open until now, but she’d figured if there was anyone who could make her smile in the hollow absence of Jesus’s laughter, it would be Tessa Dare.
She walked back to 12 Main Street and plunked herself on the ground in front of the door. Settled in. Took another sip of her tea.
Opened her phone one more time.
She almost texted the group chat. But in the deepest parts of herself, the parts she vowed to never let Dell McCleary see, she was still too fragile, too still-tilted and unsure to share the dream with everyone.
She brought up Vik’s name instead.
Serious question, she typed. How would we feel about me moving to the coast and opening a queer ass bookstore?
She bit her lip before turning the phone face down on the wooden slats of the porch.
And then Mae rested her sore back against the door, and she began to read.
Chapter Two
Dell rubbed a hand over his face and looked out the kitchen window. A scrub jay landed on the Oregon maple in the yard before flitting off into the hills.
That fucking storefront.
Crosby nosed at Dell’s hand, excited for the possibility of a ramble, as Dell crossed the room.
“Not now, Cros.”
With a ruffle of Crosby’s amber fur, Dell settled onto the bench by the door to pull on his boots.
He hadn’t wanted the Main Street storefront from the beginning. That was the best part of working for himself now, his whole purpose: he only bought, managed, and sold the properties he wanted to. Which, these days, mostly consisted of tracts of land, old non-commercial structures, pieces of the community he could help preserve. Selling only to the folks and the occasional non-profit who actually gave a damn about this place. Who were here to stay.
A small fight, in his own way, against the Californians and foreign investors who had bought up real estate by the fistful, often in cash, over the last two decades. Who had helped make his own previous career so lucrative, while changing the landscape of the communities who actually had history in the places where out-of-towners sought a profit.
But then Cara had come to him two years ago.
She’d decided to cut the losses of owning a crumbling brick and mortar storefront in a tiny town and take her pet supply business fully online. Dell had gotten to know Cara—at least, better than he got to know most people, these days—what with needing the very supplies she sold for Crosby (golden retriever), Stills (German shepherd mix), and Nash (some lab-pittie mix). So when Cara said she only trusted Dell, knew he’d sell the storefront to someone who deserved it, well. He’d had a hard time saying no.
Only problem was no one had ever deserved it. Even the ones Dell had taken a chance on over the last two years had pulled out at various stages in the laborious process of selling a commercial property, usually when they’d realized how many repairs the old building actually needed. All of which was evidence as to why he shouldn’t be pulling on his shoes or grabbing his car keys right now.
Reason said he should have blocked Mae Kellerman’s number hours ago. Particularly after she’d texted him a photo of her sneakers forty-five minutes ago, legs stretched out across the porch of 12 Main, the squat shape of Ginger’s and the waves of Greyfin Beach visible behind them. Accompanied by the words: I dunno, seems like a pretty good view for a bookshop to me.
It was bold, texting a photo of your legs—and the words “I dunno”—to a stranger.
Dell should not have liked it. Just as he should not have liked that voicemail.
Which he didn’t. For the record. Like either of those things.
And he would have ignored them, would have deleted and blocked, if both of those things hadn’t made him believe her. That she would, in fact, sit in front of 12 Main Street all day. And the residents of Greyfin Bay would have things to say about that. He’d already gotten one text from Liv Gallagher—there’s a gal on your porch down here, Dell, in case you haven’t heard—which, as much as he liked Liv, he found even more irritating than Mae Kellerman’s sneakers.
And on a Luca day, too. The first Luca day in three fucking months.
Dell would be damned if some Portlander ruined a Luca day.
He reasoned with himself, as he climbed into his truck and began the bumpy ride down his August-dry dusty drive, that he hadn’t allowed Mae Kellerman to disrupt his routines. He’d still spent the morning in his workshop, prepped a few custom orders, printed and taped their shipping labels. Which—shit, he’d left on the kitchen table.
With a sigh, he braked halfway down the road and turned around in Freddy Hampton’s driveway.
A pain in the fucking ass, was what 12 Main Street was.
But all he had to do today was drop off these orders—which he grabbed off the kitchen table before climbing back into the truck—at the post office. No pressing real estate duties today, other than saying no to Mae Kellerman’s face, which he was more than capable of, before he could head north to Luca’s.
He couldn’t find a parking spot on Main Street, because it was August, and of course he couldn’t, but he drove by and saw her there before he turned onto Klamath to park up the hill.
Sitting exactly where she’d promised. Head tucked over a book.
Dell huffed out a breath as he yanked on the parking brake.
It would have been impossible to miss her, even if he hadn’t been looking. She had a head of bubblegum pink hair. Because of course she did.
He reminded himself, as he walked toward Main Street, that he was a mere two hours away from Luca Yaeger. From Luca Yaeger’s thighs, to be specific. He just had to get Mae Kellerman off his porch, and he could once again touch Luca’s shoulders.
And it all would have been much easier, if she hadn’t been crying when he reached her.
If she hadn’t, confusingly, at the same time, been smiling.
She stood as soon as he approached, clutching her book to her chest, and said through her tears: “Don’t you just love a mass market paperback?”
And, well. Dell, quite frankly, had no answer to that.
Instead, he said, “Why are you crying?”
Because he had expected a stubborn-as-hell pain-in-the-ass. He had not expected a large, soft, crying person with pink hair smiling up at him like she’d just seen the resurrection.
“Because,” she said, “romance is always rewarding when the people are good to each other, but it’s the bestwhen they’re good for each other. And Tessa Dare’s people are always so good foreach other.”
Mae hugged the book even tighter to her not insignificant breasts and shook her body a little, embracing the paperback in the kind of hug with which you greeted a long-lost relative at the airport.
All at once, she stilled, her smile turning to a frown as she scowled directly at him.
“The people of Greyfin Bay deserve access to Tessa Dare, Dell McCleary.”
He scowled back. He had never said they didn’t.
Even if he had no idea who Tessa Dare was.
He also did not want to know how Mae knew his last name.
“Oh, Mae Kellerman, by the way.” She held out a hand before he could respond, chin held high. “She/they pronouns.”
Dell massaged the bridge of his nose.
He never quite understood she/they, if he was honest, or any similar combination he’d mostly seen on folks’ online profiles. There had to be one Mae preferred. Dell was a person who liked to get things right. He wished people would just tell him what they wanted.
Not that it mattered to him, what Mae Kellerman wanted. Whether she secretly wished he would use they.
He did not reach for her hand.
Which he was aware was a dick move. But maybe if he was a dick, she would leave faster.
“Yeah.” Mae’s arm flopped back to her side. “Thought so.”
“I never said Greyfin Bay doesn’t deserve a bookshop.”
“Greyfin Bay doesn’t even have a library. The closest one is in Lincoln City.”
“I am aware,” he said tightly, meeting her renewed scowl. Nothing like a Portlander spouting information to him about his own town, as if he didn’t know.
It reminded him of the moment on the phone that had irked him the most. The haughtiness in her voice when she’d said she was pretty sure Greyfin Bay didn’t have a queer community center, either.
He’d only gritted his teeth, unwilling to have that fight with a stranger, especially first thing in the morning. But he’d wanted to ask why the hell she was so confident about that. Sure, she’d likely driven by fewer rainbow flags on her way through town than she normally did in whatever neighborhood in Portland she hailed from. More Trump Won flags in their stead.
But that didn’t mean there weren’t queer people here. That they weren’t able to take care of themselves.
There were queer people everywhere.
“What this place does deserve,” Dell made himself continue, “is a business that won’t fail within six months. Run by someone who actually plans to stay longer than those six months, no matter what.”
Mae might have been more stubborn than some, but he’d seen her type before. Had received similar pleas from Portlanders, from ex-Silicon Valley types, taken by the beautiful moodiness of the rocky Northwest shores, the mists of the Coastal Range hills. Taken by a whim to relocate here, to swing the small town life, start that small business they’d always dreamed of.
Except that’s what it always was: a whim, soon dissolved in the realities of that small town, small business life. Harder and less idyllic than it appeared in Hallmark movies.
“Cool.” Mae rested her hands on her hips, one fist still clutching her book. “Super awesome how you’re judging my personal ethics and business skills right off the bat here.”
Dell sighed.
“What is your connection to Greyfin Bay, Mae Kellerman?”
It was quick. Gone in a flash as her eyes turned stormy and determined.
But for a half second, Dell saw it. An uncertainty, veering on panic.
“My best friend just died.” Her voice wavered on the last word, and Dell did his best to not wince. The knowledge that Mae might be on the verge of tears again, in a real way now, kicked Dell in the chest. And brought home how ridiculous it was that he was even still talking to her. He did not need to know that Mae Kellerman’s best friend had just passed away. He didn’t need to know anything about this person at all.
Even if those stormy eyes were a fascinating shade of blue, almost gray. Almost like the waves that crashed into the sea, just beyond their shoulders.
“He wanted his ashes left here. He cared about this beach. And he left me a mission, before he left, along with a shit ton of money, and…” Mae swallowed, pausing to breathe. But she never once broke eye contact, which, like that voicemail, some part of Dell admired. “And I just know, now that this is in my head as what that mission could be, I won’t be able to let it go.”
“And that shit ton of money he left is how you plan to pay for it.”
She swallowed again. “Maybe.”
“Well, I’ll tell you right there, banks don’t love that.” Dell scratched at his beard. “Big gifts of money might be nice for a cash offer or a down payment, but if you need a loan, they’ll need to see your credit, make sure you have savings beyond a lucky windfall.”
Mae’s eyes narrowed.
“One, my credit is excellent. Two, I would be able to figure out exactly how I’ll swing it if you just tell me the asking price. Being as that was all I was ever looking for here.”
And Dell could have told her. Could have thrown out a number. Couldn’t explain why exactly he didn’t.
Except for the fact that Mae Kellerman—with her eyelashes still clumped together from her tears, the pastel sweetness of her hair almost matching the splotches of color that had appeared on the tops of her pale breasts, visible under her half-zipped sweatshirt, the pink inching toward her neck as they’d talked—was, inexplicably and against Dell’s will, making his belly stir.
He decided to blame it on today being a Luca day. That the light in those blue-gray eyes, the dimple that’d appeared in her plump left cheek when she’d smiled only pulled at his skin because he already had sex on the brain. Sure, Mae’s body type was one that always pleased him, that largely matched his own—wide, soft, ample—except even wider, even softer in all the curves he lacked, in the swell of her breasts, the ellipses of her hips.
It was the opposite of Luca’s. But Dell had always had a plethora of types. When he allowed himself to look.
He cleared his throat.
“Listen—”
“Aren’t there legal rules here? Isn’t it discrimination if you refuse to sell to me without legitimate cause?”
“Well.” Dell couldn’t help his grin. “As a real estate agent, yes. But owners of property can really do whatever the hell they want if they choose to sell on their own.” He stuck his hands in his back pockets, shrugged his shoulders. “And I happen to be the owner of this establishment.”
“This establishment,” Mae repeated, deadpan. “That you’ve clearly been letting languish. Collecting cobwebs. Marring the downtown of the place you purport to care about.”
Dell frowned. Sure, he didn’t give Cara’s old place a sparkling cleaning job every month or anything, but he wouldn’t say 12 Main Street marred—
“Give me a price, Dell.”
And like that, Dell’s frown threatened to slip back into a grin. This was the voice he’d expected to hear on this porch. Free, now, of tears and wavers. Straightforward. A little pissed off. Using his first name like they knew each other, like they were on equal footing here.
All of which only made the hair on the back of his neck prickle even further.
But fuck it. He had places to be. Time to wrap this up.
“A million dollars.”
Mae’s eyes darted toward the storefront’s picture window, teeth biting her pillowy bottom lip. As if to say, for this?
He had a retort ready for whatever she was about to say. Sure, he’d purchased it from Cara for slightly less. But if anything, a million for a Main Street commercial property with an ocean view was an undersell in real estate these days, no matter how crumbling. Even in Greyfin Bay.
But to Mae’s credit, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t protest. Only looked back at Dell and said, “And you won’t let me see inside.”
“Got places to be today.”
She narrowed her eyes at him once more.
A silence stretched, during which the fallacy of lingering this long with Mae Kellerman settled good and deep in his bones. He’d meant to say no and leave. And he was going to do that. Now.
He’d just started to turn when she spoke.
“Give me a month.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I need to wrap up things back in Portland. But I assume we can handle any paperwork that’s needed over email.”
Dell huffed out a laugh.
“I don’t believe I agreed to sell to you.”
Mae leaned down to pick up her bag, along with a pizza box from Greyfin Pizza Junction.
She gave him a look as she brushed past him, a look that Dell, decidedly, did not feel in his toes.
“I’ll be back in a month.”
Dell, again, rubbed a hand over his face.
He’d gotten Mae Kellerman off his porch.
But somehow, he’d just lost a game he hadn’t even known he’d been playing.
* * *
Dell only picked up his phone again after he’d successfully dropped off the packages at the post office. Swiping open the screen as he climbed back into his truck, he half expected to see another message from Mae. But there was nothing.
Which was good. Obviously.
He tapped over to the earlier text from Liv, the one stating he had a gal on his porch. Which he only opened because he had to text her about the dogs anyway.
no comment, he replied.
He only added the next thing because he knew Liv would hate misgendering someone.
Although I’m not sure she’d consider herself a gal. she/they pronouns, just fyi
Of course, as soon as he pressed send, he knew he’d stepped his foot in it.
HA!!!!! Liv texted back immediately. so you DID talk to them!!
And I consider gal gender neutral
you’re a fine gal yourself, Dell McCleary
And even though Dell truly did not want to be texting with Liv about Mae Kellerman at all, he felt himself snort.
For one second, he contemplated texting back, thanks?
But he shook his head at himself. The question mark would be disingenuous. He knew Liv meant it as a compliment. Knew a good chunk of him had accepted it as one, too. That it had made a small flutter rise up in his chest.
He shook his head again, about to type what he’d actually meant to text in the first place when Liv kept going.
I don’t know, Dell, I like this one
They could be good for the place
Dell stared at those texts for longer than he should have.
And then he did the most sensible thing he’d done all day, and ignored them.
You can still take care of CSNY tonight, right?
yeah, Liv responded. But don’t be surprised if Young is missing when you get back
Dell smirked. Liv had been hounding him for years to add a Young to his Crosby, Stills, and Nash. When he saw a collie mix pop up on the Instagram of his favorite coastal shelter six months ago, he couldn’t say no.
Of course, Young had taken to Liv like honey on a vine.
Thanks, Liv
Any time. Tell Luca I said hey
Even though Dell never explicitly told Liv, whenever he asked her to take care of the dogs, that he was going to see Luca. But she always knew anyway.
Heat danced up the back of his neck as he chucked the phone onto the passenger seat and threw the truck into gear.
* * *
Luca opened the door with a grin.
“Hey.”
He stepped back to let Dell inside the cabin. Dell sucked in a breath before crossing the threshold.
“Hey.”
He’d shaved his head again, which he often did during a longer fishing jaunt. Easier upkeep, Dell supposed, although he liked when Luca was on land for longer, too. When he let his dark hair grow out into its curls.
But shaved-head Luca always focused Dell’s attention on his dark eyes, the way that grin cracked open his tanned face, the dimples hidden in his cheeks, in a way that felt sharper. More immediate. Harder to escape.
“Want a beer?” Luca asked as they walked into the kitchen, the same way he always did, and Dell nodded, taking the offered can from Luca’s hand, like he always did. The beauty of a routine.
And the moment the hops landed on his tongue, Dell was able to relax. To push Mae Kellerman—and any and everything else—away. To ground himself here, in Luca’s cabin.
It was a true cabin, Luca’s place, essentially one large room divided into a kitchen and a living space, a bed tucked into a corner. All cocooned in warm cedar, Dell’s favorite choice of lumber. Nestled in a quiet hillside close to the beach, almost every window offered views of the churning surf. Sometimes, Dell wasn’t sure if he was more enamored with Luca or Luca’s cabin.
“How was Alaska?” he asked.
Luca shrugged, cracking open his own beer. “You know. Long. Exhausting.”
Dell watched him. The way his throat bobbed as he took a sip. The way the warmth that had been in his eyes cooled as he stared away from Dell, out the window toward the ocean.
And there it was, the rub Dell increasingly tried not to feel, every time. His and Luca’s arrangement was simple. Physical. Once a month, on the months Luca was in town. It worked out for both of them, their own dedicated solitudes. They’d connected on an app, had liked the experience and decided to keep it going. Romance hadn’t quite ever been involved. Dell, especially, had wanted it that way. Demanded it that way.
It wasn’t fair of him, he knew, to have any other demands—any other possible wants—now.
Still, after two years of pre-sex small talk, the occasional post-sex endorphin-fueled confessions, Dell had learned some stuff about the guy. That, for instance, he had some feelings about the months-long trips to Alaska he and his family often had to take, like most Oregon commercial fishermen, to make ends meet. That Luca, Dell was pretty sure, didn’t love being a fisherman at all.
But Dell also knew, from the set of Luca’s shoulders, the rigidness of his jawline, that You know. Long. Exhausting was all Dell was going to get out of him about the last three months of his life.
Which was, again, the arrangement.
Dell moved on to his next standard question.
“How’s book stuff?”
And Luca still stared out the window, but his mouth curved, body relaxing when he replied, like he almost always did: “You know. Shitty.”
Dell smiled into his next sip of beer. The other thing he knew about Luca Yaeger—the most intriguing thing of all—was that he was writing a book. That most likely, he would much rather spend his days writing that book than being in a fishing boat. It was a fantasy novel, and he’d been trying to get an agent for it, but that was all Dell knew. All he’d likely ever get.
But Dell loved that grin Luca gave him every time he asked about it anyway.
“How’s stuff with you?” Luca asked next. Dell shrugged before he answered, taking another long draw from his can.
In truth, Dell loved a good Oregon IPA. Always had, since the day he’d moved here in his twenties. He never kept any at the house, though. Tried to not keep any alcohol in the house at all. Something about drinking alone always left him feeling…off. A bit more melancholy than expected, each time he’d tried. And it always fucked with his sleep, which was good and fucked to begin with.
Drinking a beer with Luca in Luca’s cabin, though. That always felt good.
He loved the shared taste of it in their mouths.
“All right,” he answered. And then, inexplicably, he said, “Someone new wants to buy the Main Street property.”
Luca turned toward him, quirking a brow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Some Portlander with pink hair.”
And Luca’s grin deepened, a spark firing in those damn dark eyes as he took a pull from his own can.
“Tell me more, Portlander.”
Dell sighed, heat simmering in his gut at that look. Luca was the only one who got to give him shit about the fact that he was once a Portlander, too, a fact Dell tried to not spread around. Okay, Liv gave him shit for it, too, but—he was never going back, and that was what mattered.
“Fuck you.”
Luca bit the side of his lip.
“You really hate that property.”
“I really, really do.”
“I dunno.” Luca shrugged one shoulder, taking another sip of beer, still grinning. Still giving Dell that look. Luca knew exactly what that look did to him. “Maybe you should just fucking sell it.”
Well, fine. Dell slammed his can on the counter. And for the first time in three months, he grabbed Luca Yaeger by his belt loops and kissed him on the mouth.
Anita Kelly 