The Dirty Book Club(37)





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WHILE RIDING HOME in a Lyft, feeling unsatisfied and slightly duped, M.J. wondered if maybe her expectations had been too high. What she had anticipated—a night where everyone arrived on time, thirsting for wine and stimulating conversation, where personal boundaries melted like the clocks in Salvador Dalí’s famous painting—was another romantic vision gone awry. Because unlike the original members of the Dirty Book Club, M.J., Jules, Addie, and Britt did not share memories that predated the invention of color TV, seat belts, and the publication of The Cat in the Hat. They didn’t make secret pacts or communicate in half sentences and inside jokes.

Their relationship was more like an arranged marriage designed to preserve a bloodline and uphold traditions. It lacked history, chemistry, passion. Still. There would be a next time.





Fifty Shades of Grey





CHAPTER


Twelve


Pearl Beach, California

Tuesday, June 21

Full Moon

IT WAS THE way Dan had taken to the new sectional that hurt M.J.: spine erect, legs rigor-mortis stiff, hands clasped tightly over his crotch. A crisp capital L, not the yielding C she had anticipated.

“Ouch!” he barked as she pressed her pinkie nail into another one of his bug bites. There must have been thirty on his shins alone. “Why do you keep doing that?”

“To help you,” she said, pressing again.

It was a trick she had learned at summer camp. A carved X in the center of a bite stops the itching. Not that Dan was scratching. He wasn’t doing much of anything other than yawning and mumbling, “It’s so sorreal to be back home.”

Had he not survived a deadly earthquake, spent weeks volunteering with the Red Cross, and slept on the floor of a Hong Kong airport, M.J. would have reminded him (again!) that the word was surreal. Instead, she said, “Try to relax,” then began rubbing his calloused feet. Which wasn’t easy, they smelled like Doritos.

After twenty days apart—the most since they’d met—M.J. expected Dan to kick open the front door and carry her into the bedroom. Wake her flesh with stubbly kisses and defibrillate her heart with his love. But he was exhausted—that glazed stare, the gray tinge to his tan, the mealy quality to his voice—she could see it. She understood.

What she didn’t understand was his blatant disregard for the sectional. As if it had been there since childhood, like some sort of down-filled Giving Tree, existing solely to provide while asking nothing in return. As opposed to what it really was: brand-new and definitely not there before he went to Java.

Neither was the driftwood coffee table, the fluffy white rug, the kitchen appliances, the art, or the basket for his medical magazines. And Dan didn’t seem to notice any of it until M.J. lovingly propped a pillow behind his lumbar and the price tag, which she must have forgotten to remove, stuck him in the back.

“Two hundred dollars?” He snapped it off. “For this?”

“Yep.” M.J. beamed. It was the Kelly Wearstler “Kiss” pillow and had been marked down from $295. A steal!

Dan tossed the tag onto the coffee table. “How much did you pay for all of this?”

“So you did notice.” M.J. flicked him on the forearm to keep things light. “Don’t worry, I put everything on my card and I’ll return what you don’t like.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it—”

M.J. wrapped her hands around his feet and squeezed relief.

“It’s just a bit . . .”

“A bit . . . what?”

“I dunno.” Dan squinted as if trying to remember an online banking password. “Excessive?”

“How is a place to sit excessive?”

Tears pinched the backs of M.J.’s eyes. All those trips to furniture stores, the money she wasted on rushed deliveries, that surge of joy she felt when she imagined Dan’s reaction, it was all for nothing; another failed attempt to fit into his world.

“I’m sorry,” he said, then pulled her toward the coffee stain in the middle of his T-shirt. Though hurt, M.J. allowed herself to be pulled. She craved the intimacy and wanted to smell his coconut-scented skin. She also needed somewhere to dry her tears, and the couch hadn’t been Scotchgarded yet.

“I should have waited. It’s your home. I had no business doing it without you.”

“It’s our home,” Dan said, like he used to. “And I’m glad you did it. You know how much I hate shopping. If it were left up to me this place would look like one of those terrorist crash pads—nothing but a bare mattress and a cell phone charger.”

She laughed. He was starting to thaw.

“I love everything you did. It’s just—”

M.J. lifted her head. “What?”

“Do you know how many filters the Red Cross could have bought for the cost of that pillow? Enough to give four hundred people clean drinking water for a year.”

“I’ll return it,” M.J. said, even though it was a final sale. “We can donate the money to the Red Cross and—”

“I love the pillow.” Dan rolled toward her and wrapped her in his arms. “And I love you even more. Just give me a day to acclimate.”

M.J. nestled into the relaxed curve of his body and synched her breathing to his. And there they slept, straight into the next morning, like perfect C’s.

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