Page 67 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“So, it’s decided?” Sloane asked with a glance around the room. “Mateo can continue to check in on Arthur as his official nurse—for the bargain rate of a piece of furniture I’m pretty sure is cursed—and the book club will go on as usual?”

I was careful not to meet that authoritative look of hers head on—which, yes, was even more like a cowardly lion than sitting in my car outside this house for days on end, but what could I say? I was way too much of a chickenshit to let that woman know how much she threw me off.

The irony was unmistakable. That first day we’d met, when I’d been wound tight with worries about my grandfather and how best to approach him, I’d been the one to scareher. In my defense, there was something seriously wrong with her parents, and I’d had no way of knowing about that trick with the elevator, but that was no excuse.

I was a pit bull. A lion—cowardly or otherwise. A man who gave off the impression of fierce, stoic independence even though most days all I really wanted was a hug.

“I’m amenable,” Mateo said, though his attention was only half on us.

“Yes,please,” Maisey said. “I don’t know what I’d do if the book club wasn’t here to keep me going. You guys are all I have.”

“Fine,” my grandfather grumbled. Like me, he was careful not to look Sloane in the eye. “It’s not as if any of you listen to me anyway.”

Everyone turned in my direction. I had no idea when I’d become an official member of this book club/support group for the down and downtrodden, but it seemed my vote was needed to clinch the deal.

Emboldened by this feeling of being needed—of beingwanted—I added a concession.

“I’ll only agree if I can stay here with you.” My words fell onto a silent room rendered even more silent by the narrowing of my grandfather’s eyes. We’d all spent enough time with him to recognize the signs of an incoming storm.

“And where the devil do you think you’ll sleep?”

“Calm,” Mateo murmured. “Remember to breathe.”

My grandfather followed the second command, but through nostrils so dilated I doubted the first one was taking hold.

“There’s a perfectly good hospital bed right here,” I said, pointing.

His expression became downright dangerous. “If you think I’m going to climb into that Orwellian torture device of my own volition, so help me—”

I couldn’t help laughing at how eloquent my grandfather was even in the throes of his worst temper. Mom always used to say that he wielded his intellect like a shield, a way to keep himself above—and therefore distant from—people. I was starting to think she had a point.

“I meant thatI’llsleep in the bed,” I said. “I’ll have to abandon Maisey in order to do it, but…”

Maisey nodded at me, a wistful smile touching her lips. “You’re right. It’s better this way. I’m going to have to learn to live on my own eventually. Might as well do it while there are friends across the street.”

“That’s right.” Sloane squeezed Maisey’s hand. “And if Greg is staying here, then maybe I can have a few sleepovers at your house. Just to keep you company on the nights you need it. Or the nightsIdo.”

Maisey looked in danger of bursting into tears, so it was probably for the best that my grandfather took one look at the heartfelt, touching scene in front of him and let out a grunt of disgust.

“If I’d known my house was going to turn into the setting of a Jojo Moyes novel, I’d have let them put me in a nursing home in the first place,” he muttered.

Sloane didn’t bat a single eyelash. “Why, Arthur, I didn’t know you’d read Ms. Moyes. Which is your favorite? I knowMe Before Youis popular with readers, but I find that her early work inShip of Brides—”

My grandfather got up with a sudden, jerky start that left no room for misinterpretation. Neither did his parting shot.

“Bah!”

23

It took all of three minutes to pack up my worldly possessions and throw them into a knapsack to carry across the street to my grandfather’s.

To be fair, I had plenty more worldly possessions in storage in Seattle, but I was finding it increasingly difficult to remember why I’d bothered to save any of them. One mattress, oversized and overpriced, bought because of an enticing Instagram ad. Way more shoes than any man needed to own, also oversized and overpriced, mostly bought because of enticing Instagram ads. The list went on, but it only contained more of the same.

My life now was reduced to a single bag containing a few clean shirts and changes of underwear, a newly purchased copy ofThe Joy Luck Club, and a slip of paper with my grandfather’s address scrawled on it. I didn’t need the address, since he’d been living in the same house forever, but I liked that my mom had been careful to write it out for me. She’d known that I wouldn’t be able to throw it away, that it would flutter on the empty fridge like a nagging string hanging from my collar.

“I’m going to miss you,” Maisey said as she stood in the doorway to her daughter’s room, still weirdly loath to cross the masking tape line that lay across the floor. “Is that sad?”

“If it is, then we’re both sad, because I’m going to miss you, too.” I patted for her to join me on the foot of the bed, but she stayed put. She was itching to get in here and rifle through the few meager remains of her daughter’s belongings, but she probably never would. Not while the pain was so sharp, anyway. “Still nothing from Bella?”