Page 70 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

She nodded. “Then you should get settled in before it’s time to put Arthur to bed. He won’t like it, by the way. He never does, so be sure not to offer him anything other than his meds. Not a hot-water bottle. Not tea.Definitelynot a bedtime story.”

I couldn’t helping laughing at that last one. “You didn’t.”

A light brush of color touched her cheeks. “It’s not how it sounds. I thought he might want to do the book club reading together. I was…incorrect.”

Mateo closed the laptop and handed it to Sloane before starting to roll up his sleeves. “Since I’m already outed as his nurse, I might as well get him settled for the night.”

“You don’t have to,” I was quick to say. I looked to Sloane for confirmation. “He doesn’t actually need anything, right? Just someone there in case of an emergency?”

“It’s best if he sleeps sitting up, or at least with a few pillows propping him up to keep his lungs clear. If he wakes up and it’s still dark out, he might be a little disoriented, but it passes quickly. You just have to make sure he doesn’t try to navigate the stairs on his own.” She pursed her lips, unaware of the feelings of terror she was raising in my breast. Things werethatbad? And she’d been carrying the bulk of that burden this whole time?

Mateo nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Until his strength is back up to normal—which could take weeks, by the way—he may continue to struggle with simple day-to-day tasks. But the good news is it won’t last. He’ll be back to living alone and antagonizing perfect strangers in no time.”

The thought of this was so depressing that the entire room fell silent. The antagonizing-perfect-strangers part was fine—expected, even—but the living-alone part stung. It was a stark reminder that this thing we were doing together had an expiration date—that soon we’d all have to return to our regularly scheduled lives.

Our regularly scheduled separate lives.

Our regularly scheduled separateisolatedlives.

Mateo was the first to break the silence. “Come on,” he said, heaving a sigh and the full weight of his body up off the couch. “I’ll show you a trick for how to physically subdue a patient in danger of self-harm. It’s easy once you get the hang of it.”

I couldn’t help being amused by this. “What makes you think I can’t physically subdue someone?”

Mateo stopped and swept a glance up and down my body, his lips curving as he took in my full height and frame. “Fine. I’ll show you how to physically subdue someone without crushing his bones. How’s that?”

“You never offered to teach me that,” Sloane said.

“Or me,” Maisey added. “I’ve always wanted to learn self-defense.”

“If either of you find yourself facing a man like Arthur McLachlan in a full-body rage, my advice is to run,” Mateo said.

Maisey considered this for a moment. “And what’s your advice if we’re facing a man like Greg?”

“That’s easy.” Mateo winked. “Run faster.”

***

“I wish you’d let me pay you for this.”

I stood on my grandfather’s front porch, talking to Mateo in a voice too low to be distinguished by the man currently propped upstairs in his bedroom with twelve pillows and a hefty stack of books. Despite repeated entreaties to go to sleep, my grandfather was determined to work his way through the complete works of Oscar Wilde before morning.

“Are you kidding?” Mateo countered. “I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed myself this much. Did you see how quickly I dodged that copy ofThe Picture of Dorian Gray?”

Yes, I had. I’d also been fairly sure that my grandfather intended to miss. Even though he’d never admit it, I was pretty sure he felt better knowing there was a nurse on hand—one he knew and trusted, one heliked, even. It was a feeling I shared. Mateo was an absolute whirlwind of a man, vibrating with more energy than anyone I’d ever met, but I appreciated that about him. As someone who was the exact opposite—slow to think, slow to act, even slower to charm—I could see why people liked him so much.

“It’s not right for you to be giving up your free time like this,” I insisted. “You and Sloane didn’t even get to finish your double date.”

He brushed this off as easily as he had all the rest. With a playful waggle of his eyebrows, he said, “Please. I was born for intrigue. I’m thinking about calling Nigel up and asking him to meet me for coffee.”

“Why?”

“To see what I can uncover, obviously. There’s some kind of mystery between him and your grandfather, and I intend to find out what. Maybe I could become a private investigator. You don’t need a degree for that, do you?”

“In Idaho?” I huffed on a laugh. “I doubt it. They pretty much let you do anything you want. I’ve seen a bunch of people riding motorcycles without helmets on.”

“Mateo Sharpe, PI.” He tipped an imaginary fedora. “I like the sound of that.”

Before I could ask how many careers he intended to have in his lifetime, his ringtone cut through the night air. I tried to step into the house to leave him to his call, but he put out a hand to stop me.