Chapter 12

Slowly but steadily,Dell had been recovering.

The nighttime flashbacks had lessened; he was almost—almost—able to sleep through a regular night. Regular meaning whatever semblance of restless half sleep he'd maintained ever since the break-in.

The mind fog was getting better, too; getting that bookshelf installed that morning had helped him more than he'd likely ever be able to admit to Mae.

But it was when he walked back into 12 Main Street later that night after a few hours of rest at home and Mae looked up with a smile brighter than he thought he'd ever seen before—somehow, that lifted the last of the heaviness right off his shoulders.

And that was when he knew, truly, that he was in trouble.

"Am I glad to see you!" she said, bouncing off her chair behind the counter. "That champagne has been whispering to me for hours. Look! At! My! Rug!"

She spread-eagled her arms, twirling around on—Dell looked down to see—yes, a rug, stretching through the center of the room.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

"It's nice," Dell admitted. "The light colors might be hard to clean, but?—"

"Nope!" Mae flounced over and booped him on the nose with the pad of a finger. "Nope, I am not going to let you take away from this feeling! The colors help the room feel spacious and light and airy!"

"Yes," Dell said, stifling a chuckle despite himself. He couldn't quite remember the last time he'd been booped on the nose. "Light and airy. That is what I meant to say."

"That's right it is." Mae beamed at him before skipping into the office, emerging a minute later with the OJ and champagne. "Plus," she called over her shoulder as she retreated once more, "I think I had an unexpected soft open today."

She returned holding two mugs.

"Yeah?" Dell stepped forward to open the juice.

"Yeah. Olive and Cara were here. They gave a thorough inspection."

Dell gave a soft huff of laughter, pouring juice into one of the mugs. "I bet they did."

Mae tilted her head, giving Dell a thorough inspection of his own as she twisted the cage off the champagne top.

"Do you not tell people you do woodworking?"

Dell's brows raised in surprise before he shrugged.

"Why would I?"

"Um," she said in disbelief, crinkling away the foil. "Because it's awesome?"

Before Dell could reply, she'd propped the bottle against her hip, releasing the cork with a pop. She laughed as the carbonated liquid streamed over her fingers. "Whoopsidaisies."

Dell also couldn't remember the last time he'd heard anyone say whoopsidaisies out loud.

"How much do you want?" she asked after she'd wiped up the spilled champagne with a nearby towel. She tilted the bottle over Dell's mug.

"That's okay." Dell slid the mug closer to himself. "I don't need any."

Mae stared at him. "You don't want champagne?" And then, shaking her head at herself, "Sorry if you don't drink. I didn't know."

"No, I…" Dell scratched his brow. "I drink sometimes. But it can fuck with my sleep, and my sleep's already pretty fucked after a trigger, so." He shrugged. "Always best to play it safe. You should have as much as you want, though."

Mae stared at him a moment more.

"Good," she said, finally averting her eyes. "Because I always want champagne." And she filled her own mug to the brim.

"If you only drink the juice," she added, "and I only drink the bubbles, it's kind of like we're just doing…deconstructed mimosas. Together. Whatever," she replied to Dell's snort. "We're also drinking them after six p.m., but I'm just saying, it counts."

"Sure."

"So what else do you make in your woodshop anyway? Other than bookshelves."

After a moment's contemplation, Dell retrieved his phone from his back pocket. Opened up to his Etsy and handed it over. Figured it was easier than talking.

Mae brought the screen close to her face as she scrolled.

"Dell," she said. "This stuff is…beautiful."

Dell plucked the phone back, even as Mae made a sound of protest.

"Thanks." He said it sincerely. He worked hard on his shit.

Even if he sighed a second later, understanding that now Cara and Olive—and so, the rest of the town—would likely soon know about his shit. It wasn't that he didn't want Greyfin Bay to know he had an Etsy; Tim at the post office certainly already knew. It was just, the less people had to talk to him about, the better. Real estate was clear cut, easy to discuss.

Having a woodworking Etsy where the listed items tended to skew more artistic than rustic…well, Dell knew that would result in the same kind of glances some folks gave his fingernails. It was tiring, was all.

"Anyway." He turned with his mug, taking a step away from the counter. "Let's try out this rug, then." And with only a small grunt, he lowered himself to the floor.

"Hell. Yes."

He'd planned only on sitting, but Mae stretched herself on her back, swiping her arms and legs like she was making a snow angel.

"I give it an A," she said after a minute. At which point Dell realized he was sitting there like a creep, staring at her, so he shifted onto his back until he was staring at the ceiling, too. "Mind if I put on some music to appreciate the rug to?"

"Go for it," he said.

A few moments later, Mae placed her phone on the rug between them. Maggie Rogers poured through its tiny speakers, and Dell suppressed a grin.

"So," he said, halfway through the song. "Why books?"

Maybe it was the high of finishing the bookshelf, or the admiration for how quickly Mae was bringing this place together. Maybe it was residual guilt from throwing a mug at her. Or it was just Maggie, and the fact that they were both lying on a rug together, a strangely intimate affair.

Regardless of the reason, Dell felt a need to start making an effort. Not just through bookshelves, but with words, which were a hell of a lot harder.

"Huh?"

Dell cleared his throat.

"You have this supposed blank check from your friend who passed away. Why a bookstore?"

Mae's phone transitioned to a song he didn't know.

"You really want my why books are special speech?"

"I mean." Dell shrugged against the floorboards. "I'm building you bookshelves. At this point I kind of feel like I deserve it."

Mae released a small laugh.

"God, it just feels so trite to say it all out loud. Like, who doesn't think books are special? I'm fucking boring, really."

Dell knew both of those points deserved a solid rebuttal. But he was still pretty damn tired, from the last week, from life, and so his efforts to converse here only went so far.

"Tell me anyway," he said instead.

She fell quiet for a time. But eventually, after a long breath, she started.

"I grew up in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. Even in my oldest memories, I remember feeling too big for it. My body, which has always been big, and in every other way, too. It was a decent place, more diverse than Greyfin Bay. But books let me explore new places, you know? Taught me how much bigger the world was than the Carolina mountains. That felt so important to me. Books honestly helped me want to wake up each day."

A pause.

"And as an adult…being a social worker was hard. My relationships haven't always been great. Escaping into romance books helped me feel like…things could be okay. And…when the world is so awful." Mae sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes it feels like books are the only things that keep me from being full of rage just…all the time."

A whole song went by until Dell said, "Yeah."

"So." Mae took a loud, deep breath in and out. "I guess that's pretty much it. I can't make the world any less shitty, but I can stock some good books written by people who are smarter than me, I can stock books where people are good and kind to each other, and maybe that's…doing something."

"It is," Dell agreed. Mae went quiet again, as if she'd said her piece. None of which had felt very trite to Dell at all. He almost opened his mouth and told her how he felt the same way when he was able to save a piece of land. When he was able to preserve an inch of this town. Like he was doing something.

"So," Mae said eventually, picking at the sleeve of her cardigan. "That's why."

And then another thought occurred to him altogether.

"I…have a friend," Dell said slowly. He swallowed. "He's writing a book. A fantasy book."

And then he paused, because what the fuck was he doing?

"Have you read it?" Mae asked after a moment.

And for half a second, Dell's heart broke, picturing an alternate universe where Luca trusted Dell enough to let him read his book. Where Dell had been different from the beginning, more open. Where they could've gotten to a place where Dell would be brave enough to tell Luca he wanted to.

But he could only shake his head and stare at the ceiling.

"No. But I was just thinking…maybe you'll sell it here, one day."

"Yeah." Dell could hear the smile in Mae's voice. "I'd like that."

And then she shifted up on an elbow, casting Dell a wry grin.

"Wait. One day? As in, you think this bookshop will still be around months and years from now? What happened to me abandoning this place the second it gets hard?"

Dell raised a brow in her direction, even if she was right. He was slipping up.

"Haven't changed my mind. Jury's still out. I was just engaging in some hopeful thinking, I suppose."

Mae took another sip from her mug of champagne before collapsing back onto the ground.

"Well," she said. "I suppose I'll take it."

Dell leaned forward to drink more of his OJ before settling back again. Damn, lying on this hard floor felt confusingly good for his back.

Mae's phone shuffled through two more songs. Dell was almost starting to feel zen, close to a nap, when Mae spoke again.

"Can I tell you the other part?"

"The other part?"

"Of why I wanted to open a bookstore."

Right. Dell blinked himself awake. "Sure."

Another slight pause. Sometimes it felt like Mae physically held herself back before every sentence she ever said to Dell. At least, any sentence that mattered, any sentence that wasn't about repairs to the shop, that wasn't just to give him shit.

But they eventually always toppled out anyway, because Mae simply wasn't very good, in the end, at holding herself back.

"The first person I ever loved was this woman Becks. We dated through college, and don't laugh, but we worked together. At…Blockbuster."

And dammit, but Dell did laugh.

"I'm old enough to remember, yes."

Mae laughed a little too when she said, "And even more embarrassing, we both secretly loved it."

"Working at Blockbuster?"

"Yeah. She knew way more about movies than I did, and she was great at talking about them with customers. She was super charming, could relate to almost anyone who walked through the door. And even though I was going to school for social work, I found the business side…weirdly soothing? I loved everything about inventory, checking the movies in and putting them back in their designated sections, and I loved rearranging the New Releases wall every week. Counting the till at the end of the night. I don't know; it was all satisfying."

"Okay," Dell said, a hint of a question mark in his voice.

"Anyway, so sometimes we dreamed about dropping out of school and starting our own store, where she could handle the customer service and I'd handle the back end. Except it was clear even then that the movie rental business was going downhill, so…we dreamed up a bookstore. Selling something I, at least, loved even more than movies."

"Ah."

"We would spend entire nights talking about our future store, writing out plans. I even contemplated switching my major to business a few times, even though by the time we were really in the thick of our daydreams it probably would've been too late anyway; we were almost seniors. Looking back, I probably got so invested in the idea as a way of ignoring the impending real world, where I knew I'd have to get a job that didn't just involve restocking DVDs every day. And, well, because I was in love with Becks."

"Right."

"Except." A sigh. "Then I fucked it all up."

Dell waited, until Mae let the next set of words tumble free.

"I…cheated on her."

Huh. That wasn't where Dell had expected the story to go at all.

He sensed he had to say something here, that Mae needed a push for this one. Her voice had almost warbled on the last word; her shame practically vibrated in the air above them.

"And there went the bookstore dream, I imagine."

"Yeah." Another sigh. "There was this guy in one of my classes, beginning of senior year, and…" From the corner of his eye, Dell saw Mae cover her face with her hands. "We worked together on this big project and…he loved all the same music I loved. Invited me to some shows. And there were a lot of things about me and Becks that weren't perfect. The bookstore dream was probably the one thing that still really brought me joy when we were together, and in my head, at the time, the fact that me and this dude loved all the same bands made me feel like he…saw me, understood me in this way that felt so important and deep but?—"

Mae flung her arms away from her face with a loud groan.

"Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I can't believe I'm telling you this. Guess what; liking the same music as someone else isn't actually that deep! Dude was kind of a douche, actually! But even if I did want to have a fling with him, I should've broken up with Becks first. God. I was such an asshole. I've never really forgiven myself for it."

"I don't know." Dell shifted his shoulders against the rug in a shrug. "It sounds like a pretty typical thing to do in your early twenties, if you ask me." Part of him laughed inside his head, though, swiftly aborting his half-formed plans of sharing his thoughts about those concert posters in her office. "Your brain makes some deeply embarrassing decisions in your early twenties."

"I don't know." Dell sensed her frown as her words echoed his. "I think you can do dumb stuff without hurting other people."

"You can," Dell agreed. "But hurting other people does tend to be a pretty common consequence."

Mae sighed. "Yeah."

Something was different, Dell realized all at once, about this whole night. Like the moment they'd lain on the floor, their different perspectives made the atmosphere shift, too. Mae, full of regret for years gone by, seemed infinitely softer.

From the moment Dell had met her, she'd been full of bluster. Ever since she'd moved here, she made twenty decisions a day about the shop with aplomb. But right now, she was only…human. Familiar.

After a minute, he asked, "Have you told Becks? About Bay Books?"

"Oh, god no," Mae said without hesitation. "That was years ago."

Dell didn't hold back his grin this time. He knew it was difficult to accept the contradictions within yourself. He wondered if Mae knew how obvious they sounded, though, out loud.

"I've thought about it, though," she added after a minute, voice quiet. "Sometimes. I did decide to make this store for me and Jesus. But…it was Becks I thought about, when I first saw the For Sale sign."

Silence settled between them again. Another song went by, and another. Mae got up to refill her mug; she lay back down again. Dell contemplated asking more about Jesus. More about what else went through her head, exactly, when she saw his For Sale sign.

But he found he liked listening to music with her. Resting in the quiet but not quiet space of it.

So he kept his mouth shut.

Until, abruptly, he didn't.

"The longest relationship I ever had was with a woman named Lauren." The words were out of his mouth before he could fully think them through, half a surprise to himself.

It was just…Mae was still beating herself up about some dumbass mistake she'd made twenty years ago. He felt he owed her something in return, something to help even out the vulnerability.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Dell cleared his throat. "We were together a little over two years. Before I moved out here. I?—"

"Oh!" Mae popped her head up. Dell couldn't look at her; he had to focus straight ahead at the ceiling if he was going to talk about Lauren. But he could sense Mae's hair in his peripheral vision, the excitement in her voice evident. "Is this when you moved to Greyfin Bay…from Portland?"

Dell only let out a weary sigh. He opened his mouth to reply, but a punch to his shoulder took him by surprise before he could.

"Jesus!" He laughed, rubbing his arm. "Ow, Mae."

"Oh, you are fine. I can't believe you're refusing to sell me this building because I moved here from the same fucking place you did!"

"It's—" He shook his head, suddenly immensely tired, the way he felt whenever he thought about Portland. "For the record, I am not from Portland. I'm from the UP. I only lived in Portland for a little while." Or fifteen years. Whatever. Mae didn't need to know every detail.

"Michigan?"

"Yeah. My mom's still there."

Mae released a small hm, head dropping back to the rug.

"And I'm not refusing to sell you the building, I'm just giving myself some insurance. I compromised with you. I'm not the bogeyman here."

Another, far more skeptical hm.

"Anyway." Dell rolled his eyes. "Lauren was a good person. But…I left her after that thing that happened to me, before I moved to Greyfin Bay."

"Oh."

And Dell could feel it, that his head was clearer than it had been yesterday, when they'd first talked about this. It felt more embarrassing, childish now to keep using a vague euphemism—that thing that happened to me—instead of just fucking saying it. Why was he still holding it back from Mae, from anyone? He should be better. Able to use his words. They were there, right now, clear in his head. Why couldn't he just say it?

A stranger broke into my house in the middle of the night, while I was sleeping. They took the randomest things. They had a gun. I was shot two times but somehow survived. Nobody caught them or knows why it happened. I can't remember what they looked like.

But he'd already said that thing that happened to me instead, so the moment had passed. Again.

Dell stretched his fingers over his belly, tried to keep himself from fidgeting.

"We were already starting to drift apart a bit. I think she'd been pissed for a while that we weren't living together. I couldn't tell you why we weren't, other than me being stubborn, but anyway. I just felt like a different person, after. Needed to get away. And Lauren loved her job in the city with the parks department; it was meaningful to her. I couldn't take her away from that. But…"

He winced. God, he really did rarely think about Lauren. He didn't have a lot of guilt about it, how easy it'd been to leave Portland behind. How much of that portion of his life simply became a blur. Bringing Lauren back up hurt, though. Lauren hadn't deserved the home invasion—the effects of it—any more than he had.

"I know it was shitty. Not letting her help me through it. It was probably rough for her, just a really shitty way to leave someone, but what's done is done. I think she and Georgia kept in touch, though, at least for a while. I felt a little better, knowing that."

"Georgia?"

"My mom."

"Oh."

"My mom was an artist and an art teacher her whole life; she always dabbled in whatever medium she could get her hands on to try, but she loved pottery and sculpture the most, and Lauren did, too. Lauren had a wheel in her basement, made some beautiful stuff. The mugs in the ADU were made by her. And the mug I, uh, threw at you."

"Those are from her? Dang. Those are beautiful. And you broke one of them! I'm so sorry, Dell."

Dell huffed. "Considering I almost gave you a concussion with that mug, I don't think you have much to be sorry about, Mae."

"Well. I still am."

"Anyway." Dell lifted a shoulder. "Sometimes we hurt people."

"Yeah," Mae said, quiet. She sighed, just as soft. "Sometimes we do."

An old Caamp song shuffled onto Mae's playlist next. Dell smiled. This playlist had been so different from the one she played most often at the shop, the one full of Destiny's Child and reggaeton. He wondered which playlist was actually most Mae.

And then it came to him.

"That playlist you're playing all the time in here. Is that Jesus's?"

"Yeah," she answered without questioning the swift change in topic. "His death party playlist. So Georgia still lives in the UP?"

All right, then. Guess she was ready to open up about Becks, but not Jesus. Which was no skin off Dell's back. Why was he wanting to ask all these things anyway?

Because the jury was still out. It was possible Mae was crafting a fine store, a place he'd like to hang out in, something Main Street even possibly needed. Not just a bookshop, but a bookshop made by Mae. A store where people would know they were welcome, with certainty, in a way no place else on Main Street offered.

But none of that changed the financial reality of owning a small business in Greyfin Bay.

Mae would likely still be back in Portland in a year.

"Yeah," he said.

"And she's still refusing your request to move from the UP to Greyfin Bay?"

Dell sighed. "Yeah."

"I always wanted to visit," Mae said after a moment. "I went to school in Madison, but never made it up."

"A Badger, huh?"

"Yeah. And you're a Wolverine?"

"Never actually went to college, but my mom was."

"What brought you out west?"

Dell rubbed a hand over his face.

"Well, now it's time for my story of dumbass things you do in your early twenties, I suppose." He trailed off, though, having a hard time pushing the words out. Probably because, if he rarely thought about Lauren, he really barely thought about Naomi. It truly felt, sometimes, like he was a whole other person. He barely recognized that other kid.

"Moved out here for a girl," he finally forced himself to say, just as Mae was pouring herself more champagne. He watched her lips twitch into a smirk.

"You and Olive," she said.

"What?"

"Nothing. Didn't last, I take it?"

"Not even a month." He found himself smiling at the ceiling as Mae resumed her position on the floor. Or, rather, she returned to the floor, but he was pretty sure her position had shifted. That she was closer now. He could smell grapefruits.

"But you stayed. In the big evil Portland." And before Dell could even roll his eyes again, she retracted the tease. "Sorry. I should stop giving you shit. Something fucked up happened to you there. I get it. I mean, as much as I can. I just mean I'll stop." A pause. "Unless you don't sell me the building. Then I'll keep giving you shit forever."

Dell's mouth curved even deeper.

"I'd be disappointed, at this point," he admitted out loud, perhaps foolishly, "if you didn't." He added a minute later, his grin finally sobering, "But yeah, I stayed, because Oregon sucked me in. I'll always stand by the UP being one of the most beautiful places on earth, and it was honestly a great place to grow up. But the Northwest felt like home real fast. I know Georgia would love it, too."

He stared at what he now considered his corner of the chandelier.

"And look. I don't hate everyone who's from Portland. Okay? But…you're far enough south here that a lot of the locals? They don't just hate Portland. They hate the north coast because they think it's too much like Portland."

"I know," she said softly.

"I know you do. But…" But what? What was he trying to say here? Blending in with the locals had never been hard for Dell because, well, he mostly didn't give a shit, especially that first year, about anything other than his house and his dogs and getting to see the ocean. But he also didn't have pink hair and a full sleeve of tattoos. He had never been interested in opening a shop on Main Street. "You have to watch out for yourself," he finished.

"I know," she said again.

And that was officially enough Portland talk for Dell for, oh, the next year or so. He pushed himself off the ground with a grunt.

"I think you're missing out," he said as he refilled his own mug. "Orange juice is delicious."

Mae wrinkled her nose. It was fucking cute, and Dell cursed himself for being upright enough to see it. "Too acidic."

Dell paused with his mug halfway to his mouth. "Mae. You're drinking champagne. It's basically like acid with bubbles."

"Yeah," Mae said pointedly, lifting her mug. "Bubbles. Changes the whole game."

Dell shook his head as he dropped to the floor again. At the last second, he switched to lie on his stomach.

"Oh yeah," he groaned into the rug. "That's the ticket."

"Good call," Mae said, heaving herself around. "I should switch this business up, too. Oh damn. That is good."

Dell's grin returned, until he realized they'd made a grave mistake.

Because instead of staring at the ceiling, they were now…staring at each other. Cheeks pressed into the floor.

For what could've been a few seconds or a few minutes, those blue-gray eyes stared back at him. And yeah. At that moment, Mae Kellerman definitely felt soft.

Their matching grins slowly faded. Mae's pink lips parted, ever so gently. She had a small age spot, or perhaps a birthmark, above her left eyebrow. There was a pimple growing on her chin. Dell's fingertips tingled at his sides as if they could sense it, what her skin would feel like.

Everything seemed to go very still.

And then Mae's eyelashes fluttered closed. Dell released a silent breath.

He stared at her light-at-the-tips eyelashes and said, "Is your hair always pink?"

Things were starting to leave Dell's mouth way too easily. He wondered if it was possible to get a contact high from someone else's champagne. Wait, no, that didn't make sense.

It was possible he wasn't thinking clearly after all.

"Like, is the pink hair your thing? Or do you switch it up?"

Mae's eyes remained closed, but she smiled.

"It's been my thing for a while, yeah. Few years. I'm totally fucking up my hair doing it, but I'm kind of attached now. Ugh, I'm gonna have to find a new stylist here. And a dentist. And…everything."

"That tends to happen when you move."

"I know, but I've been so focused on the shop, I haven't thought about a lot else."

Because it'll make it easier, then, to leave, part of Dell's brain thought. That part wasn't at all surprised that Mae hadn't put down firmer roots for herself yet. Wasn't surprised that Mae had never left Dell's ADU. Found a place other than 12 Main Street to make her home, for real.

But another part of Dell's brain, looser and louder just then, sort of wanted to punch that first part in the face.

Because maybe Dell didn't want Mae to leave the ADU anyway.

"I don't think Doug does coloring. He's Greyfin Bay's sole stylist, by the way. Although I think he prefers the term barber."

"Does Doug work on your beard?"

"Yeah."

"Hm. I should thank him sometime. It's a good beard."

Maybe Mae's a little drunk, he thought. It was too dangerous to think any further than that.

"God, what time is it?" he babbled. "It feels like it's midnight but it's probably like, nine."

Mae laughed. What a thing. Watching someone laugh with their eyes closed. "Story of my life," she said. And then, "I can't believe I told you about Becks."

"I think you think Becks is a bigger story than it is."

"You just never expect it, you know? You never expect to be a bad person."

Dell only sighed. It made dust from the rug tickle his nose. "Mae."

"I hate knowing that she hates me. That she's probably always hated me, ever since, and I deserve it."

"Not to bruise your ego," Dell said, "but this was what, twenty years ago? I bet you Becks has probably moved on, Mae. She's okay."

"No, I know she is." Mae frowned, nose crinkling the tiniest bit. "She's married. I know she's fine, but it doesn't change—" And then her whole face crinkled, and she turned it away, facing the front window instead of Dell. He stared at the mop of her pink hair, his mouth parting in disappointment.

"Hey." Awkwardly, ridiculously, he shuffled his stomach over the rug like a worm. Hesitating only a second, he reached a hand out to rest on her shoulder. Let it trail down her back, the warm fabric of her cardigan, before it came to rest on the rug next to her. "Mae. It's okay."

"Maybe the fact that I'm opening a store without her would only make her hate me more."

"I don't know," Dell said. "I don't think so. I think…" Dell thought back to his own past partners, the things he wished for them, whether things had ended well or not. "I think it might make her happy but in a…bittersweet way, maybe. A complicated way. But that's how life is most of the time. And anyway, you're not really opening the store for her. I've never met Becks, never knew Jesus, but I've seen how happy this all makes you. Just you."

A long pause. Dell weighed the pros and cons of touching her sweater again.

"Will you still be this nice to me when we're upright again?"

Dell chuckled. "Can't guarantee it."

"I can," Mae said quietly. "I think maybe you've always been nice."

Dell was quiet.

"It's kind of funny," she said after a few minutes, voice different, far away sounding. "Books inspired me to get out of the small town I grew up in. And here I am, over twenty years later. And books have brought me back to another one." And then, before he could respond: "Will you let me sell some of your stuff in the shop? Some of the things from your online store?"

Dell groaned. God, he didn't feel like thinking about his woodworking right now. He didn't feel like thinking about anything.

"Dunno." His own eyelids drooped irrevocably toward the floor. "I should probably check on the dogs. Mae," he murmured, "can you drive us home?"

"What?" Mae laughed, and fuck, Dell was glad to hear it. "Why can't you? Dell, you've only been chugging orange juice for the last two hours. More orange juice than a grown man should probably consume, really."

"A person"—and Dell knew he wasn't drunk, but he was tired enough to slur his words anyway—"can drink however much orange juice they want."

"Well, I've almost consumed an entire bottle of champagne, so no, I cannot drive us home."

"S'okay," Dell said to the rug. "I live here now." And then, "I've been sleeping like shit."

Mae was quiet. Until she said, "Do you have trouble sleeping after a trigger? Or just all the time?"

"Yeah," he mumbled. "And yeah."

Another minute passed by. Dell was almost fully unconscious.

And then. A set of fingers, in his hair.

"I'm sorry," Mae whispered, voice close.

Dell wasn't sure if Mae was apologizing for causing the trigger, or just for the pathetic state of his circadian rhythms in general. Either way, who gave a shit, because Mae's fingers felt incredible.

They stretched through the short strands of his hair, repetitive, soothing, before they dug in a little deeper, massaging his scalp.

Dell groaned out loud into the rug. It was possible he was drooling.

"Fuck," he mumbled. "Feels so good."

He was cocooned in the scent of grapefruit: sharp and clean.

"Yeah?" Mae's voice was so feather soft he almost wasn't sure he actually heard it, or if he was just making things up. Maybe he was making this all up. Maybe he'd lost his whole entire mind.

"Yeah. Never stop."

He couldn't quite say if she followed the instruction. Because somewhere in the next sixty seconds or so, Dell fell the fuck asleep.