Page 84 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

I crossed my arms and sat back, satisfied I’d had the final word. Unfortunately, no one else seemed to have gotten the memo.

“Of course you are, Arthur,” Sloane soothed.

Maisey winked at me. “Like your Byronic vampires.”

“I predict you’ll outlive us all,” Mateo agreed with a nod.

Only Greg stayed silent, watching me with an expression so much like Hannah’s that it was all I could do to stay seated. That look of reproach was a knife to my totteringun-immortal heart.

I didn’t mean it, I wanted to say.All the things I said, all the things I didn’t. Please don’t leave me the way she did.

“I apologize for stopping by unannounced, but I was hoping to join your book club,” Nigel said as though there was nothing strange about any of this. “It’s been ages since I had a good literary discussion with friends.”

Yes, because he’d spent the past five decades sitting in a glass castle and sending forth his literary decrees from on high. They were terrible decrees, most of them. Nigel had always been scared of anything that smacked of progress, preferring to cling to classics and anything that reinforced the status quo. God forbid he relax his standards enough to actually enjoyThe Art of Racing in the Rain.

There. I said it. That book was a goddamned delight to my soul.

“Well, you’re just in time,” Sloane said with that soft, sweet smile that had gotten me to pick up many a book against my will and better judgment. “We’re about to select our next book.”

“It’sThe Count of Monte Cristo,” I said.

Mateo groaned. “Can we please pick something from the twenty-first century this time? Not all of us are into the duels from our early childhood days.”

Nigel released a sound that echoed the grumbling deep in my gut. “Watch yourself, young man.Monte Cristois a classic.”

“Is that the one that Sloane’s been using as a doorstop to keep the upstairs bathroom door from slamming shut?” Maisey asked with a nervous wring of her hands. “Because that one looks…long.”

“It’s much too long,” Sloane agreed cheerfully.

Her sunny mood had the same effect it always did on me, which was to turn me as contrary as humanly possible. True, I was contrary by nature, but Sloane had a way of bringing out the worst of it.

And the best of it. That was the thing she couldn’t see—the thing I didn’t know how to make her understand.

“Too bad. It’s my turn, and I want a good revenge story. One where the wronged man wins in the end.” I looked straight at Nigel while I said this.

“I agree,” he said, his eyes locked on mine. “No one understands the dastardly twists and turns of fate better than Dumas.”

I nodded. “Enemies rising from the grave.”

“Decades of denial for the sake of one moment of triumph,” he countered, nodding harder.

“A man who knows himself capable of the worst sins.”

“A woman who loses everything because she refuses to see those sins for what they are.”

I felt like we were getting somewhere, Nigel and I, but Sloane laughed softly. “Yeah…no. We’re not doing any of that. I think we should readAnne of Green Gables.”

And just like that, the air left my lungs. It wasn’t like the edema that had brought all this on in the first place, that buildup of fluid that I ignored for too long, the same way I ignored every other ill—bodily or otherwise. This was more like a punch to the chest, so deep that it stopped my heart cold.

If Sloane saw the way her words hit me, she didn’t let it show. She smiled at the gathered assembly instead. “I know it seems a bit childish, but it has something for everyone. It’s a classic, which should fit right in with Nigel’s literary background. Maisey, it’s not a difficult book, and I think you’ll really like the sense of community that’s built up in it. Mateo, you know it’s on the list of books all librarians should read. And Greg, well…” She glanced at my grandson—that gruff, tough, surly chip off the old block—and laughed. “Sorry, Greg. I can’t think of anything you’ll like about it. But maybe you could take one for the team?”

He returned her laugh with one of his own. “Of course. That was one of my mom’s favorites. I’d love to read it with you.” Flushing to the tips of his ears, he hastily added, “With everyone, I mean.”

“Pick something else,” I said. I would have shouted it, but my lungs still felt curiously tight. “Anything else. I’ll read that book over my dead body.”

When that didn’t do more than bring out a series of knowing looks, I doubled down.

“You mentioned everyone but me.” I crossed my arms and did my best impression of a man who refused to be beaten. By life. By kindness. Byanything. “If you want me to agree to that saccharine, antiquated piece of girlish nonsense, then you need to include me on the pitch list. What do I get out of it?”