Chapter 5

Mae's eyespopped open as she stumbled. She clutched at her chest, face aflame as Judy Garland faded and Janet Jackson's "Together Again" began playing from the phone on the floor.

"What," she gritted out, "are you doing here?"

Dell worked to keep his face blank.

He had not meant to interrupt her dance session. Had not meant to witness her…like this, body in motion, inside a private moment. Her skirt, along with the copper cardigan, had been abandoned on the floor, leaving every curve of her thighs, her ass, her hips and her belly on display in her leggings and threadbare T-shirt. The loss of the cardigan exposed the fact that one of her pale arms was inked with tattoos, covering almost every inch of skin he could see from wrist to sleeve: a mosaic of intricate black linework interspersed with spots of brightly colored flowers.

Dell was increasingly disturbed at how many facts he was amassing about Mae Kellerman.

"It seems rather fast," he said slowly, "to have already forgotten I own the place."

Mae yanked her phone off the floor, cutting off Janet. The silence that followed felt profound.

"I'm pretty sure," she said after a long moment, still staring at her phone, "that landlords have to give notice before entering a property with a tenant. I'm like, super good at being a renter. I know these things."

She crossed her arms atop her belly. Dell could see, even from across the room, before she tucked them away under her armpits, that her hands were shaking.

He had embarrassed her. Hadn't meant to do that, either.

Even if he knew he had watched for longer than he should have. She clearly hadn't heard him come in, hadn't seen him lingering in the doorway, watching her dance to "The Trolley Song," mouth open in silent laughter whenever she hadn't been singing along.

Dell couldn't quite remember the last time he'd let himself move like that. Be…silly, like that, even when alone.

He cleared his throat again and shifted from the doorway, focusing back on the moment at hand.

"And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't qualify as a tenant yet, considering you left the restaurant before giving me your security deposit."

Mae's arms dropped, cheeks flushing an even deeper shade of rose as she turned to grab one of her bags. As she searched, Dell's eyes roamed the rest of the space. His stomach sank when he spotted the air mattress.

"I'm sorry," Mae said as she walked the envelope to him, avoiding eye contact all the while. "I meant to give it to you."

He folded the envelope into his back pocket without checking it. The deposit was now the least of his worries.

"I was also curious where you're planning on staying. I meant to ask, before you stormed off."

Mae frowned, annoyance overtaking the discomfort on her face.

"Why does it matter to you?"

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't have the hare-brained idea of staying here."

Mae eyed him warily. Dell liked having the attention of those sea-churn eyes again.

Wait. Dammit. No, he didn't.

A terrible idea. This had been a terrible idea from the start.

Finally, Mae looked away again, clutching her elbows as she muttered, "Hare-brained is probably not a very politically correct phrase."

For fuck's sake.

"And that," he said, "is why I don't sell to Portlanders. If you're concerned about being PC around here, you're going to have a hell of a rude awakening."

"Oh, fuck you," Mae snapped, whipping her face toward his, nose wrinkled in distaste. Dell forcibly told his body to calm down—to stop reacting to that fuck you like it was a come-on—as she stepped toward him. "Hold your condescension for me, DellMcCleary. I was making a joke because I was uncomfortable. I don't even like the term politically correct! But you're making me feel uncomfortable on purpose, with your…" She waved a hand toward him. "Your big crossed arms and your…" Dell's pulse ticked up as she glared, his mind torn between wanting to laugh and—dammit—wanting to grab her by the waist. "Your face," she eventually fumbled to finish. "Yes, I'm planning on staying here, all right? Because I want to. Because I'm all in on this place, and I don't care if it needs repairs, or if you think I don't belong here. Please, make your jokes about how annoying and woke Portlanders are, as if we're not all as fucking human as anyone in Greyfin Bay. I'm planning on being a pain in your ass either way for the next six months, so please, might as well get it all out now."

Dell breathed in and out, deep and slow, before he spoke again.

"The pipes," he said, "are fucked. You have no plumbing. You can't stay here."

Mae visibly deflated.

"Oh," she said, voice small as she turned, scratching her forehead. "Okay." And then, after a pause: "Got it."

Dell stood still as she gathered her bags. Resisted the urge to reach out to her as she looked around the space, scratching her forehead again. As she searched for her keys, tossed her cardigan over her shoulder. As she barreled toward him, determination once more steeled over her features.

"Please," she said when she was in front of him. "Move."

And Dell truly should move. He shouldn't care about the exhaustion hiding behind the steel in her voice.

"Where are you going to go?"

"I'll find a hotel. I'm not completely incompetent. Please, get out of my way."

Dell frowned.

She was a tenant. A tenant who had just promised, out loud, to be a pain in his ass. She'd be gone in a few months anyway, disappointed and disillusioned, the money she'd inherited from her friend wasted on a town that couldn't bring her a profit.

Also: the only lodging that might actually have vacancy was The Fin Inn, a dilapidated motel next to a weed store on the northern edge of town.

He grabbed a bag from Mae's hand.

"You're staying with me."

"What?" Her incredulous voice asked the question to his back, as he was already turned toward the door.

"Not withme, technically," he clarified from the porch, motioning her outside. "But on my property. I have an ADU. An accessory dwelling unit. It's fully furnished."

She only stared at him, jaw slightly dropped. Her pink hair glowed under the light from the chandelier.

"It's a private space," he said, voice now as exhausted as hers. He had no idea why he was trying to sell this to her. "You can pretend I'm not even there."

Mae didn't move.

"It's late," he said.

Finally, she shook her head, muttering under her breath as she adjusted the tote bags on her shoulder.

"It's late," she echoed as she brushed past him. "That's the only reason I'm agreeing to this. I'll find another place tomorrow."

He remained silent as he clicked off the light and locked the door.

When he turned, his eyes caught on the flags in the window. As they had when he'd walked up. Being that they were impossible to miss: a trans flag and a progress pride, both huge. Even now, with the internal lights off, the haze from the streetlamp outside Freddy's next door caught their colors through the glass.

Mae was glaring at him, arms crossed over her chest again—daring him to say something—when he tore his eyes from the window. He held up his hands.

"I'm not saying shit," he said. Even if his chest had filled with a barrage of complicated things when he'd first seen them. Even if he actually had a lot to say about those flags, here. Put up by Mae Kellerman her first night in town.

And when she finally turned, walking down the porch, Dell found himself, as he had from the start around Mae, immediately breaking his own promises.

"I like them," he said to her back, his voice quiet as they walked through the chill of an early Greyfin Bay September evening, toward her car and his truck, and the place in the hills he called home.

* * *

Mae gripped the steering wheel as she followed Dell's truck up a steep, narrow gravel lane. Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It was dumb she hadn't thought about plumbing. She'd thought about heating and cooling, electrical, wifi, all things she could work out the first week. But somehow she hadn't thought about plumbing, and of course Dell McCleary had to show up just to point it out to her.

It was even dumber that she was currently following his truck up this obvious murder lane in the dark. But fully furnished, free lodging was, unfortunately, a highly logical option to accept. Even as she hated that, less than one day into the first truly solo adventure of her life, she was already leaning on someone else for support.

And that someone else was Dell.

She squinted into the dark as they rounded a curve.

She rarely drove at night in Portland these days; if she met friends in the evening she preferred to take public transit or a rideshare. Although more often than not, especially since the split with Eden, she was simply at home once the sky turned dark, reading a romance novel and tending to her plants.

But as she followed her headlights under the canopy of firs that lined Dell's road, a deep, visceral memory began to slash away her frustration and embarrassment. Replaced instead by the feeling of driving among the pine trees of the Carolinas past sundown, screaming along to mix CDs. Speeding below the maples and ashes of Madison with Becks a few years later. Blood humming with pent-up dreams, Becks's foot always just a little too heavy on the gas.

Dell's truck swung a right, his brake lights haloing in Mae's retinas as he came to a stop. She pulled up next to him, trying to blink away the nostalgia: the remembrance of a sensation she'd forgotten she loved.

Dell's door slammed shut. With a shake of her head, Mae released her seatbelt.

And then she leaned forward and released a quiet curse.

Of course. Of course Dell McCleary's house was a fucking masterpiece.

She could only see glimpses: the flash of what their headlights revealed before they cut their engines, the narrow window of illumination from the spotlight at the side of the house. But she could tell it was a modern build. A sloped roof, sharp lines and angles similar to what developers knocked over old bungalows to build in Portland on the regular these days. Except while those houses in Portland were usually painted in stark contrasts—whites and blacks, navy and glass—Dell's home was all natural wood, befitting of the Coastal Range foothills it was nestled against.

Mae wrestled her tote bags back over her shoulder. The quiet-but-loud noises of the coastal countryside at night—insects and toads and, even from here, the distant ambient rush of the ocean—settled into her system, both comforting and unnerving as she stared blankly at the suitcases in her trunk, struggling to remember which one contained her toothbrush.

Dell reached past her shoulder and grabbed one at random before she could figure it out.

Closing the trunk and biting her tongue, she followed him as he walked away from the drive. The flashlight from his phone led them along a neatly manicured stone walkway behind the house, until a minute later, another spotlight clicked on.

Holy hell.

Dell rustled with his keys before opening the door to the ADU. He pushed her suitcase inside, flicking on the lights before he turned.

"You coming inside?"

Mae snapped her mouth shut and did as asked.

Dell's ADU matched the beauty of the main house, just smaller in scale: a slanted roof over warm wood and clean glass. And as Mae stepped past Dell into the heart of it, the structure became even more remarkable.

No doubt the space was small, but it was designed and decorated impeccably. A wall divided the narrow galley kitchen and dining area from the living space. Dell parked Mae's suitcase by the bed that hugged the wall. Walked past the bookshelves that lay at the head of the bed to click on another light in the bathroom, hidden neatly behind those bookshelves. Everything was suffused in warm autumn colors, like one of Taylor Swift's pandemic albums: the art on the walls, the shelves, the Pendleton blanket folded neatly at the foot of the bed.

The Pendleton blanket that probably cost more than Mae's old rent.

Even if…she could probably afford Pendleton blankets too, now. At least if she managed her business plan well. She kept forgetting she had money now. She felt like she'd probably always keep forgetting.

"This is…" Fucking gorgeous. But Mae was having trouble translating words from her brain to her mouth.

Dell stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"I built it for my mom," he said. "She's getting older, and she's been alone since my stepdad died, but…" His shoulders lifted as his eyes scanned the space. "Haven't been able to fully convince her yet."

He built this.

Of course he did.

He built this for his mom.

Words finally tumbled from her tongue.

"This is the Airbnb of my fucking dreams."

A wry smile tugged beneath Dell's beard.

"I actually did try that, for a while. As evil as the empire is, it felt like what I should do." His shoulders lifted again as he rubbed his jaw. "Turns out I wasn't the friendliest host."

Mae laughed before she could stop herself. Dell's eyes met hers, a spark of self-deprecating amusement accompanying his grin.

And what in the hell? It was entirely too cozy in here, and Mae and Dell did not…share self-deprecating smiles. She was definitely, fully pissed at this fine specimen of a human. This practical stranger who kept derailing her plans. Who had looked at her, until this very moment, like she was small.

And maybe she couldn't stop thinking about his nails, which she had been able to observe, up close and personal this time, at the restaurant. They were painted a metallic shade of pale yellow now. Maybe she couldn't stop thinking about his I like them comment about her pride flags. Said in a different tone than she'd heard from him before, a low vibration that had settled in her toes. Which had been confusing at the time, being that she was busy being pissed at him. As aforementioned.

Was Dell McCleary gay? Queer? An ally?

But it shouldn't matter. It didn't matter.

Because she also remembered his comment about her having a hell of a rude awakening in this place. Like because she wasn't from here, she had to be some naive, leftie joke.

Dell McCleary was still just another asshole. Just one with pretty hands and a pretty house.

Mae turned to place her things against the wall.

"I'll start looking for another place tomorrow. But thank you."

"I'm happy to have the space used." He moved past her toward the door, tapping a smart thermometer on the wall with a thick knuckle. "Adjust the temperature however you want. Text if you need anything." He tugged a key off his key ring, placed it on the table next to the door.

Mae stared at the Pendleton blanket instead of his face.

"Thank you," she said again. Because Jodi and Felix had raised her to be polite. Because she had learned, through a decade of queer social work, that you often couldn't get the things you wanted without keeping your cool.

With a nod, Dell closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in a space that was almost confusingly wonderful and inviting. A space she had to admit was worlds more comforting than an empty building.

A space that could only be made better, she thought, by all of the plants she had left behind.