Page 63 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Haven’t you overlooked the most obvious explanation?” Lincoln asked.

“You mean that he might be after my mom?” I shook my head. “I considered it, but if that’s the case, he’d be much better off signing the check over to her. I don’t think she’s ever set foot inside that library.”

“No, not Althea,” Lincoln said, his expression mirroring Brett’s for severity. “Maybe what he wants isn’t your mom or the book club, but…you.”

This time, it wasmyturn to laugh—a thing I did so loudly and so thoroughly that the entire restaurant seemed to be listening in. “Lincoln, he’s like eighty years old.”

“So? When did that ever stop someone? Hugh Hefner kept his mansion going all the way into his nineties.”

This only added to my hilarity. In another few minutes, Lincoln would be accusing me of having romantic interludes with old Arthur himself.

“Listen to what you’re saying. I met him once. In my sweaty, too-tight pants. After my terrible performance onstage with my mother. No one is transported to euphoric heights by the sight of a poorly dressed librarian in his thirties tap-dancing to ‘Forever Young,’ I promise.”

“Iam.”

At that, my laughter stopped short, my whole chest heaving with a sharp, unyielding pang. It was what I’d always imagined being inside a vacuum would be like—a sudden, terrible nothing.

“Lincoln,” I said, but it was obvious from the expectant way he was watching me that more was necessary. An apology, maybe? An avowal of love and affection? A reassurance that in the contest between his emotionally supportive, generous affection and literally every other human being on the planet, he’d always be the winner?

“Mateo,” he replied, waiting.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem to matter that Sloane and Brett were at this anniversary dinner with us. All the double dates in all the world wouldn’t save us now. The knocking at the door was going to have to be answered one way or another.

“You know how I feel about performing,” I said, my gaze fixed on my plate. I think I was mumbling, but I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “I know how yousayyou feel. That you hate it and would rather do anything else in the world. That you’d prefer to be a flight attendant or personal trainer or librarian oranything other than a singer.”

I blinked at him, unsure where all this heat about my job was coming from. Our problems were emotional, not professional.

“So what? They’re just jobs. They’re temporary. They don’t mean anything.”

Lincoln got to his feet so quickly that it leftmefeeling dizzy.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” he said. He threw his napkin to the table and jerkily extracted a hundred dollar bill from his wallet. It fluttered to the table. “Enjoy your dinner on me tonight. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Please don’t do this,” I begged, but it was no use. Lincoln was already moving toward the door with his long, massive strides. When I turned back to the table, it was to find that Brett looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

Which, ugh. Hewould.

“Oh, don’t look so worried,” I said as I threw my own napkin on the table. I was suddenly very tired of pandering to a man I didn’t like and barely even knew. “Relationship drama isn’t contagious. You and Sloane aren’t going to suddenly start shouting at each other over the trout spread. I doubt you even know how.”

21

Instead of walking out of the restaurant to find my scornful lover staring moodily out over the water or angrily punching holes into walls, I discovered him bent on one knee as he changed the tire of a stranger in the parking lot.

“Spares aren’t meant to carry you for long, so make sure you head straight to a mechanic,” he said to the group of college-aged teens standing uselessly by as they watched him. He finished tightening the lug nuts and stood back to survey his handiwork. “That should hold you for now.”

The teens thanked him for his help, one of the girls even going so far as to offer him either a twenty-dollar bill or her phone number—from my distance, I couldn’t tell which—for his trouble. He declined and stood watching to make sure the tire held as they piled into the vehicle and drove away.

“The last true white knight,” I said, the whole of the Sahara in my tone. “Always coming to the aid of the down and downtrodden.”

He didn’t turn to greet me. “They were stranded. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Call them an Uber? Tell them to ask their mommies and daddies for help? Make them figure it out on their own?” I gave up with a sigh. Lincoln would no more pass by a stranded motorist than he would fail to help children cross the street or call out people speaking rudely to customer service workers. “Do you want to tell me what that was about in there? Brett looked ready to pull the fire alarm to keep people from staring at us. I don’t think he’s used to drawing a crowd.”

Lincoln chuffed on a laugh, but he didn’t unbend enough to actually smile at me. “I know you think he’s a little on the dry side, but compared to you,everyoneis on the dry side. I didn’t think you’d mind if I invited them to join us.”

“I don’t mind,” I said, my heart starting to pick itself up from the pit of my stomach. Being called wet wasn’t much of a compliment, but it was better than nothing. “Seriously, Lincoln. You just accused me of leading on an eighty-year-old book reviewer I talked to for all of ten minutes. What’s going on?”