Chapter 4 The Grumpy Men’s Club
THE GRUMPY MEN’S CLUB
WHERE MARCUS DISCOVERS BARRY MANILOW AND I DISCOVER I MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE.
Imade it exactly three blocks before my phone started buzzing with a new notification.
Marcus Chen is heading your way! Get ready to connect!
“What the—”
I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring at the screen. A little map had appeared, showing a dot labeled “Marcus” moving steadily toward a dot labeled “You.” The dots were getting closer.
“That’s not creepy at all,” I muttered. “That’s not creepy and invasive and a complete violation of—”
The dot stopped. Right on top of mine.
I looked up.
Marcus Chen was standing at the end of the block, holding his phone like it had personally offended him, staring at me with an expression of barely contained fury.
“YOU,” he said.
“Me.”
“Your address appeared on my laptop AND phone. With DIRECTIONS.” He stalked toward me, phone thrust out like evidence.
“I was reorganizing my inventory. Minding my own business. Alphabetizing estate sale acquisitions. And then your FACE appeared on my screen with a message that said—” he squinted at it with visible disgust—”Your cosmic connection is waiting! Don’t let her get away!”
“I am so sorry.”
“SORRY doesn’t explain why a dating app I never downloaded has decided we’re SOULMATES.” He was close enough now that I could see the vein pulsing in his temple. “I don’t HAVE dating apps. I don’t WANT dating apps. I was perfectly happy being digitally invisible and romantically unavailable.”
“I didn’t do this on purpose—”
“My shop radio started playing LOVE SONGS. Barry Manilow. I don’t even know any Barry Manilow!” His voice cracked slightly on the second Barry Manilow. “The radio has opinions about jazz. It has NEVER played Barry Manilow. And now it won’t stop. It’s been ‘Mandy’ on repeat for forty-five minutes.”
Despite everything, I felt my mouth twitch. “That does sound like a nightmare.”
“It IS a nightmare. It’s MY nightmare. And apparently it’s YOUR fault.”
A woman walking her dog suddenly turned around and walked back where she came from when she got near us.
A man on the other side of the street stopped to watch like we were street theater.
Somewhere behind me, I heard a familiar voice call out: “Foxy lady! Is that your cosmic connection? He seems stressed!”
Greg. Still following me. Fortunately still unable to breach Margaret’s ward around my apartment, but apparently very invested in my love life from a distance.
“Can we maybe not do this on the street?” I asked Marcus. “There are… witnesses.”
“The man in the leisure suit?”
“Among others.”
Marcus looked past me to where Greg was waving enthusiastically from across the street. Brad had appeared next to him, still in his neon crop top, attempting to take a photo with a disposable camera he’d apparently acquired somewhere.
“Why is that man dressed like an aerobics instructor from 1985?”
“Because I think he IS an aerobics instructor from 1985. It’s a whole thing.” I gestured toward my apartment building. “I live right there. There are people inside who might be able to explain. Witchy people.”
“Witchy people.”
“It’s a whole thing,” I said again, because honestly, what else was there to say?
He stared at me for a long moment. Then sighed—a deep, defeated exhale that seemed to come from somewhere around his shoes.
“Lead the way.”
My living room looked like a supernatural support group had exploded in it.
Margaret was in the armchair by the window, tea in hand, radiating the calm energy of someone who had seen far stranger things than magically possessed dating apps.
Cassie sat on my couch looking worried. Luna was draped across the back of it, tail twitching.
Liam stood in my kitchen doorway, holding a cup of tea and wearing the expression of a man who had learned to simply accept whatever happened next.
Tequila had claimed the coffee table and was glaring at us as we walked in, tail lashing with the energy of a cat who had been left behind during a crisis.
You left, he informed me. Without explanation. I had to entertain myself.
“I was gone for twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes of uncertainty. I knocked three things off the bathroom counter to cope.
“That’s not coping, that’s destruction.”
Same thing.
Marcus stepped into my apartment, took in the assembled group—the witches, the cats, the Scottish handyman, the still-buzzing phone in my hand—and said, flatly:
“This is the strangest intervention I’ve ever been part of.”
“Have you been part of many interventions?” I asked.
“No. But I’ve seen them on television. They usually involve fewer cats.”
Luna’s tail twitched. “I’m not a cat. I’m a familiar.”
“She talks,” Marcus said. Not a question. Just… resignation.
“They both do, actually,” I said. “Well, Tequila talks to me. In my head. It’s a whole—”
“Thing. Yes. I’m gathering that everything is ‘a thing’ in your world.”
Cassie stood, ever the hostess even in someone else’s apartment. “Marcus, right? I’m Cassie. That’s Liam, Margaret, and Luna. And the orange cat is Tequila. We’re trying to help Diane figure out what’s happening.”
“What’s HAPPENING is that magic is apparently very real and it’s decided to ruin my carefully constructed isolation.
” Marcus ran a hand through his hair. “I had a system. I had a ROUTINE. Wake up, go to work, sell antiques, talk to no one, go home, eat dinner alone, talk to no one, go to sleep. It was working. It was FINE.”
“That sounds…” Cassie paused, searching for the diplomatic word. “Lonely.”
“Lonely was the POINT.”
From the kitchen, Liam made a sound that might have been agreement. Marcus glanced at him, and something passed between them—the silent recognition of two men who understood the appeal of carefully maintained solitude.
“Tea?” Liam offered.
“God, yes.”
Marcus disappeared into my kitchen with Liam, and I heard the kettle click on. Within seconds, they were having a low conversation about something—I caught the words “Scottish Breakfast” and “proper steep time” and “women with magical chaos.”
“They’re bonding,” Cassie observed. “That’s… unexpected.”
“Grumpy men find each other,” Luna said. “It’s like a homing instinct.”
The tall one makes good tea, Tequila added, still sitting on my phone. I’ve had some. He doesn’t know I’ve had some, but I’ve had some.
“You’ve been stealing Liam’s tea?”
Borrowing. I’ve been borrowing Liam’s tea. From his cup. When he’s not looking.
“That’s still stealing.”
It’s a gray area.
Margaret cleared her throat. “Perhaps we should focus on the matter at hand. Mr. Chen has been pulled into Diane’s magical situation, which means the connection between them is significant.”
“Significant how?” I asked.
“That’s what we need to determine.” Margaret rose from her chair with the grace of someone who had been explaining magical complications for decades. “Bring him back in here. We need to understand why your magic reached out to him specifically.”
I went to the kitchen doorway. Marcus and Liam were leaning against opposite counters, cups of tea in hand, engaged in what looked like a deeply serious conversation.
“—and then she set the curtains on fire,” Liam was saying. “Not on purpose. Just… emotional flare-up. Literally.”
“The radio played ‘Mandy’ for forty-five minutes,” Marcus countered. “Forty-five. I timed it.”
“At least ‘Mandy’ has a melody. Cassie’s house played nothing but static for a week. Aggressive static. Static with opinions.”
“The radio has opinions about jazz. It’s never played anything but jazz. And now suddenly it’s Barry Manilow and I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“The house changed colors based on her mood. I learned to read her emotional state by the color of the hallway.”
“That’s…” Marcus paused. “Actually useful, potentially.”
“It was blue a lot. Blue means anxious. I made a chart.”
They both took long sips of tea, united in their suffering.
“Sorry to interrupt the support group,” I said, “but Margaret wants to examine the connection.”
Marcus looked at me. Then at Liam. Then back at me.
“She’s going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, isn’t she?”
“Probably. That seems to be how this works.”
He sighed, set down his tea, and followed me back to the living room, where Margaret was waiting with an expression that suggested she was about to deliver exactly the news he was dreading.
“The magic chose you,” Margaret said, after examining Marcus’s phone, my phone, and the space between us with a series of gestures that looked mystical but might have just been her being dramatic. “Not randomly. Specifically.”
“I didn’t ask to be chosen,” Marcus said. “I was very clear about not wanting to be chosen. For anything. By anyone.”
“The magic doesn’t care what you asked for.” Margaret handed back his phone, which had stopped buzzing the moment he’d entered my apartment. “It cares about resonance. Compatibility. The potential for connection.”
“I don’t HAVE potential for connection. I had a connection. For twenty-eight years. It was wonderful and then it ended because she died, and I’ve spent two years making very clear to the universe that I’m not interested in a sequel.”
The room went quiet.
I watched something flicker across his face—grief, still raw beneath all that grumpiness. The kind of grief that doesn’t go away, just learns to wear a better disguise.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said, and meant it. “Truly. But the magic isn’t asking you to replace her. It’s responding to something else. A different kind of connection.”
“What kind?”
“That’s what you two need to figure out.” She turned to me. “Diane’s magic is wild right now—pulling in every romantic possibility because she won’t narrow down her options. But when she’s near you, it stops. Completely. Do you understand what that means?”
“That I’m boring enough to cancel out magical chaos?”