Chapter 1

The first timeMae 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.