Chapter 7

Dell ranhis favorite hand plane over the western edge of Minnesota, and he thought about Luca's ears.

It was 7:15 a.m.; his coffee was still hot. And inside his workshop today, all he had to focus on was finishing this cherry cutting board of the North Star State. He'd offered bigger pieces, when he started his online shop, but shipping them was a pain in the ass. And while the geography-based cutting boards seemed like a pedestrian thing to offer at first, he found he liked the tiny details of each custom request. Making sure, for instance, that he got all the strange grooves of Minnesota's border with Ontario correct, the angle of its eastern shore with Lake Superior just right. He only offered natural grain cuts, liked seeing where the lines and whorls happened to line up with whatever requests the customers had made. Here, a star in Fatima and Naeem's hometown, St. Cloud.

Dell especially liked working on Midwestern states, ones that reminded him of his own hometown in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He had never been to St. Cloud, but he'd driven across to Duluth plenty of times as a kid. He blew a patch of dust off the curve he'd just been working on. There was still a fair amount of sanding to do before he got to carving that star, followed by Fatima and Naeem's names, but that was okay. Almost everything was okay when Dell was in his workshop.

His mind drifted when he was alone with the smell and feel of cherry, cedar, walnut under his hands. There were topics it drifted to most often: memories of his mom in the garage-turned-workshop of his childhood home in the UP, where she first taught him the basics of woodworking when he was in middle school. The sugar maple that took up the view from the window in that garage, above Mom's sanding table. The way the light filtered in at different seasons of the year.

The noises Luca Yaeger allowed himself to make, sometimes, when Dell touched him.

Yesterday had been another Luca day. And while the sex had been more rigorous than normal, Luca seemed more absent than usual, after. Wasn't up for talking at all. Luca never kicked Dell out, let him stay the night. Dell likely wouldn't have kept up the arrangement so long, honestly—it would have all felt different—if he wasn't able to sleep off the endorphins next to Luca. If Luca didn't make him a strong cup of coffee the next morning.

And while there typically wasn't a lot of talking done, especially over that cup of coffee, sometimes there were moments. And so Dell had tried to keep his eyes open for as long as possible last night, on the gut instinct that Luca had things he probably needed to talk about with someone. But when Dell finally gave in and drifted off, Luca was still wide awake next to him, stone still and silent, staring at the ceiling.

Dell knew it was ironic, or at the very least unfair that it bothered him a bit, now. That he'd thought, in the throes of it—in the rougher way Luca held his good shoulder, pushed his thumbs into Dell's hips until it hurt, in the way he wanted Dell deeper in his mouth than he'd ever been able to take before, that extra round…

The noises Luca let himself make.

Dell knew it was on him, that he'd thought it'd all meant something. Dell himself had let go more than he usually did, following Luca's lead. Releasing sounds of his own that he rather regretted now. Biting those ears, sticking out from his still-shaved head, repeatedly, among other things. Which he didn't regret at all. Either way, by the time it was over, Dell felt strung out and half wild.

And Luca had reverted to a statue. Leaving Dell to realize that whatever had just transpired between them hadn't been a furthering of a connection at all. At least, not intentionally.

Luca just had things he had to fuck out of his system.

Which shouldn't bother Dell because when they first met, Dell had used Luca to fuck the darkness out of his system, too. So it was fine. It wasn't Luca's fault that Dell was more stable these days. That his heart, against his will, was apparently deciding other things.

Dell picked up a sander, and he let his mind drift from Luca Yaeger's body to his own. The muscles and stretches of skin that were most sore from last night, the joints he always stressed most when he was focused in his workshop: more reminders that he was alive. That he was living.

The aches in his left shoulder and left thigh. Never quite gone, just like the scar tissue. But more healed now, less noticeable with each month that passed. Whispers instead of a shout.

Dell finished Fatima and Naeem's cutting board, cleaned it and stained it, left it to dry. He stretched out his back before making sure power tools were turned off and unplugged. Back in the main house, he checked his email, let the dogs out once more. Picked up the two orders he'd finished yesterday, ready for the post office.

Let his mind drift until he thought about barely anything at all.

A woodworking session almost always ended this way. He wasn't sure how he'd be functioning without them.

For the entire bumpy drive down his road, Dell knew peace.

And then he passed 12 Main Street.

He gritted his teeth as he kept driving, determined to take care of the post office first this time.

Even if he knew he'd inevitably stop on the way back.

Dell couldn't seem to stop himself from driving past 12 Main Street at least once a day, these last three weeks. He told himself it was mostly to double check that those flags hadn't inspired someone to smash the window in.

He couldn't stop thinking about that woman in California. The one who had been shot to death in her store a few years ago because of the rainbow flag she'd hung in the window.

Every time he drove by 12 Main Street to see everything intact, he breathed a sigh of relief.

For Mae. For the town. For himself.

And the days he didn't just drive by, but pulled over to stop in? Well, he did have a vested interest in this thing. The invoices Mae had been forwarding him almost nonstop weren't easily forgettable. The plumbing repair price tag had been the most jaw-dropping, although hiring Eli Zalasky to update the electrical throughout the building had cost a pretty penny, too. Just this week, the price of hiring the Gutierrez boys to update the front porch ramp and stairs, along with the crumbling back deck, had almost doubled when they'd discovered more boards on the verge of rot than anticipated.

They had still been working out back yesterday. It made sense to stop again today, Dell told himself as he pulled into a rare spot on Main Street, to check on the progress. Mae was holding up her end of the deal in paying for half of all the work, but still, Dell hadn't sunk this amount of money into a project since he'd built the ADU. He needed to verify the quality of the work.

"Dell McCleary," Mae said with a smile when he walked through the front door, which Mae had recently painted bright turquoise. "Wait'll you see. My back porch is fucking gorgeous now. Oh, and you should meet Gemma."

This had been happening more and more, each time he stopped by. Mae greeting him with a smile instead of a glare. He couldn't pinpoint exactly when the switch happened, but it made him uneasier with every single occurrence. He thought, maybe, Mae was simply lonely. He'd learned by now that her parents lived down in Newport, which had intrigued him, but still, Mae had moved to Greyfin Bay on her own. And while she was apparently friendly with Liv, Liv was a busier person than Dell. It was clear Mae was bursting with things to say about this old building, and Dell—somehow—seemed to most often be the person around to hear them.

"Gemma's starting work on the murals."

"Howdy." Gemma, a wiry person with a mullet and an enormous amount of hardware in their ears, stepped forward to shake Dell's hand.

They had a good grip. And they were definitely not from Greyfin Bay. Dell attempted to not scowl at them.

"Murals?" He pointed the question back to Mae.

"Of course. The main one will be back here." Mae turned and spread her arms toward the back wall behind the counter, where Gemma had returned to rolling a layer of primer over Cara's old hideous paint. "And then a small one over in the children's section." Mae pointed to an alcove near the bathroom. "It's going to be a whale reading a book." She grinned up at him.

"Obviously."

"Obviously." All Mae's gesturing couldn't help but bring Dell's attention to her arms, which were fully exposed today, as she wore an old Myrtle Beach T-shirt whose sleeves had been cut off along with its collar. Mae, Dell had learned, hated collars. And her dislike of sleeves today proved that the tattoos wrapping around her left arm did, indeed, stretch all the way to her shoulder. While her right arm remained bare of anything but the occasional freckle.

"Why not a single one on that arm?" Dell blurted the question before he could stop himself. The question had been in his brain for weeks now; it was inevitable it'd escape at some point.

"Huh?" Mae looked up from where she'd been examining some sketches spread across the counter.

Annoyed with himself, he gestured toward her bare arm. "Your tattoos."

"Oh." Mae's mouth slid into a grin again. "I like being incongruous. Come on, look at the back porch."

And she turned, as if the statement—I like being incongruous—was nothing.

Dell swallowed a curse and followed her through the office to the back door.

And damn if the porch wasn't a thing of beauty now. A somewhat private beauty back here, which was always Dell's favorite kind. It felt particularly special, somehow, that it was hidden just steps from Main Street. And?—

"How in the hell did you have time to find more plants? The stain must have hardly dried yet."

"Jonny said it'd be good after twenty-four hours! Which…" Mae crossed her arms and squinted into the distance. "It almost was, when I came back from the nursery this morning."

Dell rubbed his forehead, staring at the raised beds set in the gravel just beneath them, the planters that lined the railing. "You know we're heading into winter, right? That half of this shit will die by spring?"

Mae turned without answering.

"I'm going to go see if Gemma needs help."

"Hey." Dell stopped her retreat with a hand on her shoulder. Her bare, tattooed shoulder.

A shoulder that was soft, and smooth, and a jolt to Dell's calloused hand. He dropped it immediately.

"Where'd you find Gemma?"

Mae breathed slowly in and out of her nose, a sign that Dell was truly pissing her off. Dell had learned this well by now, too.

"They live in Yachats. I've been following their work for a long time. I tapped them for these murals over a month ago, before I even signed your paperwork. These kinds of decisions are all mine, you know. We're starting to move past the repairs now."

Dell held up his hands.

"Fine. You're right."

And she was. Dell had never stipulated having any say over how she decorated or ran the shop itself. And maybe he had assumed too quickly that Gemma must have been a friend from Portland. Maybe he was relieved Mae had found an artist from the coast, even if they weren't from Greyfin Bay. Not that he would ever say it.

But Mae paused before going inside, as if waiting for him to extrapolate anyway.

"Andy's going to start work on the water damage upstairs tomorrow," she said eventually, all shades of her smiles of ten minutes ago firmly gone. "Said the roof overall looks good for now, but I might need to replace it in a few years."

Dell stuffed his hands in pockets. "Good," he said, and she stepped back inside without any further salutations.

Dell gave it a moment before following. He tried not to dwell too much in that office, which Mae had fashioned into her own unique workspace in no time: pastel-colored knick knacks and office supplies on the desk; framed posters on the wall arranged just so, the contents of which pulled Dell toward Mae Kellerman in a way that made him even more uneasy than her smiles. There were book covers he didn't know, mostly old school romance ones, and a bunch of paintings of plants.

But some of the national parks posters were the same ones he had in his own home. Concert posters for some of the same shows he had gone to, too, once upon a time.

Dell put his head down and walked back into the main room.

He should leave, now. He'd gotten the daily update. He felt especially uncomfortable with Gemma there, whether that was unfair to them or not. Any time there had been other contractors around during his previous visits, they were folks he knew. Folks who helped reassure him that this whole business would turn out okay if they were sinking their time into it, too. He still doubted a bookshop would last in Greyfin Bay, especially one as loud and proud as Mae Kellerman's. But fixing up the building would be penance for the time he had let it lapse, a punched-out tooth in the otherwise healthy enough maw of Main Street. The repairs would let him sell it at a higher price point to the next investor who came around.

But the smell of freshly cut wood from the Gutierrez boys's work lingered in his senses.

He stared at the walls, the ones yet untouched by Gemma's work. They weren't dusty anymore; Mae had cleaned everything in the space in a frankly remarkable manner within the first week she was here, even if the continued repairs shook fresh debris into the building daily. Mae just went ahead and cleaned that up, too.

The walls were still Cara's horrifying shade of paint, that had taught Dell purple could be depressing. He knew Mae planned to cover them all up with a light, fanciful wallpaper; she had shown him the different designs she was struggling to choose between just earlier this week. As if Dell would have opinions on hipster wallpaper.

She had eventually shoved her hands in her hair with a half scream and instructed him to leave, muttering something about asking Vik again. Even though she had been the one to ask his opinion in the first place.

Something about the scent of fresh cedar, though, made him contemplate, for the first time, what would be in front of that wallpaper.

"Hey," he said. "Where are you getting your bookshelves?"

Mae turned from where she stood behind the counter, at the computer she'd set up at its far end, next to the window. A vase of flowers sat next to the monitor. Every time Dell had stopped in, from the first week, there had been fresh flowers. She had a custom keyboard, round keys in a gradient of pinks. It was so damn cute—especially when she was standing there next to it, matching her hair and her flowers—that Dell could barely stand to look at it.

As she stared at him, Dell realized what else felt off about the shop today. The music was different. Every other time he'd been in here, Mae had been playing the same bizarre mix she'd been listening to that first day, of reggaeton and Judy Garland and nineties pop. Dell couldn't remember the last time he'd heard so much Destiny's Child.

Maybe Mae was letting Gemma control the music today. It was some shit he'd never heard before. He was irrationally grumpy about it.

"You don't even know how much time I've spent looking into bookshelves," Mae finally said. She turned back to her monitor before mumbling, "Apparently real bookshelves are more expensive than all my IKEA Billys. I…" She bit her lip, a move Dell absolutely did not track with his gut. "I am a little overwhelmed about the bookshelves."

Dell's mouth parted in surprise.

Mae, from what Dell could ascertain, had been spending upwards of twelve hours a day in this building, and this was the first time he'd ever heard her admit to being overwhelmed.

"They have to be perfect," she went on, turning away from the computer, voice increasing in volume as she stretched her forearms across the counter. "You know? The bookshelves will set the whole vibe. I just?—"

"Want me to build them?"

It had seemed a logical ask, five minutes ago when the idea popped into his head. Mae needed bookshelves; Dell knew how to build them.

But he knew, from the way her jaw dropped, those Pacific-Ocean-in-the-Pacific-Northwest eyes going wide, that this was going to be a thing.

"You…can build bookshelves?"

He sighed, crossing his arms and looking back at the walls.

"I spend every morning in my workshop at the back of the house building shit out of wood. I built the structure you're currently sleeping in. Yes, I can build bookshelves."

Even though, to be more accurate about it, Dell hadn't built anything as big as a bookshelf—as big as enough bookshelves to fill a whole bookstore—in a long time.

It was one of the simplest constructions you could make, but still, the scale of it excited him, in the same way that the opposite—carving tiny decorative details into a cutting board—excited him. A good piece of woodworking was always a balance of function and art, and building something that could help support a business, used by the town—for however many months the place lasted, anyway…

It wasn't his mom's ADU, nowhere near as complex as that, but it would be good. Having a bigger project again. Routine was good for his brain, but if things got too routine, shit could get dark again, sometimes. In a muted, sneaky way.

He could feel Mae's stare against the side of his face as the silence stretched.

"Sometimes you work out," she said.

Dell turned. "What?"

She cleared her throat, jerking back toward the computer. "You said you spend every morning in the workshop. But sometimes you go somewhere and come back all…" She waved a hand, leaning in even closer to the screen. "Sweaty."

Dell huffed a confused laugh. Yeah, a couple times a week, he made it a habit to run on the beach with the dogs before retreating to the workshop. Well, with all the dogs except Young, whom he still didn't quite trust to stay with the pack. He felt most at home within the foothills, but he never wanted to forget—to stop appreciating—that he lived by the ocean, too.

Anyway, he didn't know what that had to do with bookshelves.

"If you don't want me building your bookshelves, Mae, that's fine. It was just an offer."

Her fingers paused above her pink keyboard.

"Could I send you some of the ones I've been looking at? See if you'd be up for the designs?"

"That'd be a good place to start, yeah. But I can do anything."

"What's your going rate?"

His rate? He scratched at his beard. Contemplated what to tell her. He'd been planning on just doing it for his own personal enjoyment. And he didn't need money. But he understood Mae's desire to be taken seriously as a businessperson.

"Cost of materials," he eventually said with a shrug.

"That's it?"

"Wood's pretty damn expensive these days."

"I know. I just got the Gutierrezes's invoice."

She kept staring at him.

He shrugged again. He wasn't going to beg to make the damn bookshelves if she didn't want him to.

Eventually, she bit her lip again. Her eyes softened when she asked, "Could I come with you to look at lumber?"

Dell's mouth opened and closed. That…was a reasonable request, he supposed; Mae should obviously pick out the kind of wood she wanted. But damn if that didn't sound like some kind of seduction to Dell's ears.

Going to the lumberyard was Dell's private time.

Even though…admittedly, almost everything he did was his private time, but whatever, it was fucking different.

"Okay," he eventually said, the single word stumbling awkwardly out of his mouth.

Mae smiled at him again. Her dimple punctuated her left cheek like an exclamation point. "Thank you," she said.

And before Dell could stutter any more about this now-strange situation he had somehow gotten himself into, he left.