Page 104 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Lincoln gave me strict instructions to add his words to mine, so I’m speaking for both of us when I say that we’re going to miss the crap out of you. The library hasn’t been the same since you left, so it’s probably for the best that I’m leaving.”

“Wait. You are? What will you do?”

“Officially? Part-time nursing for Arthur’s staffing company. Unofficially?” He grinned almost shyly at me. “My mom and I are staging a show together—just a small one. To see how we like it. I’m wearing a fedora. It was Arthur’s idea.”

“The devil it was. No man under the age of sixty should wear a fedora.”

Mateo smiled. “You can’t take it back now, old man. I already booked you a table in the front.” He winked at me before pulling away. “Octavia is at her wit’s end. If you want your job back, now’s a good time to put in for it. She’d probably dedicate an entire wing to you at this point. Or at the very least give you complete control over the two vans she just bought at a sweet discount.”

“No way,” I breathed. “She actually bought them?”

“Yep. She said something about how great it would be to hand them over to a capable librarian, if only she knew where to find one. Someone who could pick what books to stock and which communities to reach out to, someone who knows this town and its reading habits like the back of her hand…”

There was no mistaking his meaning—or how badly I wanted to pick up the phone and call Octavia. Just when I felt as though the room was starting to spin in circles around me, Greg stepped up. He didn’t hug me, but the quirk of that now-familiar smile made me feel just as comforted as a physical embrace. In fact, when he accompanied it with a slow, careful crinkle around his eyes, prickles stood up on the back of my neck.

“I know it took me a while to warm up to you, but I mean it when I say our house isn’t going to be the same without you.”

“Our house?” I echoed. “You mean—”

He nodded with a shy duck of his head. “Grandpa asked me to move in for a while. My boss is willing to let me try remote work for a while, and with Grandpa’s health the way it is—”

“I’m fine,” Arthur said. “It was a palpitation, that’s all.”

Mateo snorted. “Oh, sure.Nowit’s a palpitation.”

“You heard what the doctor said. It was the shock that got me. Twenty-four hours, a few IV fluids, and I’ll be as good as new.” Arthur huffed but with a smile that robbed it of any malice. “The truth is, IneedGreg at the house—not to look after me, but because I have a lot of apologizing left to do. Unfortunately, it’s going to take more than a few speeches or highlights in a book to start repairing the wrongs I did his mother. He is being gracious enough to stick around long enough for me to try.”

Greg’s signature tinge of red crept up to his ears. “I think it’ll be nice for us both to have some company right now.”

“Wait. That’s it?” The book was starting to feel heavy in my hand. All these beautiful speeches, all these beautiful goodbyes—and that was the end of it? Everyone got their happily ever after except me?

“Not quite.” Nigel drew forward with a smile that looked as sad as I felt. “The thing they haven’t said—the thing I think they’re all too scared to put into words—is that they’d really like it if you stayed here with them.”

“Dammit, Nigel. We were getting to that part.”

“Too slow and too late, as usual,” he said, tossing a challenging look over his shoulder. “Do you know what happened when Genie opened that copy ofAnne of Green Gablesyou sent her all those years ago?”

“Of course I know what happened. She packed everything up and left you. She came home to me where she belonged.”

Nigel winked at me before turning to face his friend—for friend I felt sure he was. “Not quite. The truth is, she looked as shell-shocked as this poor creature right here. Lost and on the brink of tears, unsure how to meet you halfway.”

When Arthur could do nothing more than goggle angrily at him, Nigel laughed outright. “You fool. Who do you think bought her that plane ticket home? Who do you think packed up her things and explained to her what a lovesick idiot you were?”

“Nigel!” The monitors attached to Arthur started an erratic cacophony of beats. “You didn’t. She came home to me because she saw those quotes. She understood how I felt about her and forgave me for failing to speak up earlier.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted, chuckling softly to himself. “But I think she was afraid of hurting my feelings. Of the three of us, she always did have the best heart.”

Arthur groaned and sank back on his pillow. “You can’t torment a man in a hospital bed, Nigel. It’s not sportsmanlike.”

Nigel sighed with mock heaviness. “I know. That’s why I’m about to make it up to you.” He turned to me with a look that promised mischief and hope and so much more to come. “Stay, Sloane. Don’t marry the man that none of these people seem to like. Take it from one who picked the path of success and lived long enough to regret it. You’ll never find anything better than what—or who—is in this room right now. That’s the one thing I can guarantee.”

“I know,” I said as I flashed my empty left hand. “That’s why I broke it off with Brett before I came up here.”

No sooner had my meaning settled than the entire book club cried out in shouts of incredulity and delight—delight so powerful it shook me, delight so full I felt as if I might burst. I hoped the news of it would never reach Brett’s ears. He didn’t deserve their antipathy, but in that moment, with the nurse determinedly shooing us from the room, I finally felt I deserved their joy.

“That’s enough out of you lot,” the nurse said as she ushered us down the hall and away from the rooms where the business of life and death was carrying on without us. “I’m happy to hear you all so excited, but you can go be excited somewhere people aren’t trying to sleep.”

Mateo and Maisey took this admonishment in good form, but I dug my heels in before they could drag me down the hallway with them.