The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob Read online

  With me dying of mortification so that my children have to be raised around people who say things like it was for the best. God knows what more she would’ve subjected her kids to if she’d lived. At least Hudson was too young to understand it was his fault she was so embarrassed that she had a full-on humiliation implosion.

  Giselle’s still fishing in my overflowing toilet.

  And there’s one more nursing bra coming out, along with a towel with—

  Oh god.

  I didn’t know I still had that.

  Levi’s right behind me with a front-row seat to my delicates drawer and the prank towel that my ex had printed with his face for my birthday the last year we were together, when he said he was getting me the one thing I wouldn’t already buy for myself.

  Skippy’s watching the whole thing from his perch on the shower curtain rod, nibbling on something that looks like my grandmother’s favorite ruby necklace.

  I squeak, and that’s all anyone says for a very long time.

  Or possibly ten seconds, but it feels like an entire lifetime.

  “James, my nephew, got mad at Tripp and tried to flush his phone down the toilet once,” Levi finally offers in the relative silence.

  I say relative, because Giselle’s actually plunging the toilet now, making those wet sucking noises, and oh my god, tell me that’s not my vibrator.

  Tell me that’s not my vibrator.

  “I can get that,” I tell her. “You don’t have to—”

  She turns kind brown eyes to me. I refuse to think it’s pity, but only because I need to hold on to a shred of pride. I used to have my life together.

  I swear I did.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She pumps the plunger once more. “I’ve done much, much worse for flyboy over there.”

  “Unfortunately true,” Levi agrees. “Got any old towels?”

  The rest of the item clogging the toilet comes into view, and oh thank god.

  Not my vibrator.

  It’s a spare old flip phone that used to be my grandmother’s.

  Is it bad that I’m just as relieved that I don’t have to hit the internet to order a new toy for myself?

  I squeeze my eyes shut briefly before turning to Levi. “So like I was saying, my free time is very limited.”

  Squick squick FLUSH!

  He grins. “But you’re a hell of a lot of fun.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call this fun.”

  An hour later, my bathroom is spotless, the towels are in the wash—except the one with Daniel’s face, which is in the trash—and someone did all of my dishes, folded all of my kids’ laundry, and got the squirrel back in his cage.

  That someone was Levi.

  Had to be, because I paid Mrs. Schneider for watching the kids and sent her home before everything else was done, and Giselle was helping me in the bathroom the whole time. We emerge smelling like we’ve been toilet wrestling just as someone knocks on the door.

  “Hey, G, you got that?” Levi says from the couch.

  She doesn’t bat a lash, just goes to the door at the other end of the living room, rather than the door I use through the dining room that connects to the store.

  We’re not alone in the building—it’s twelve stories high, with sixteen other occupied apartments accessible from the same entrance as my living room—but visitors this time of night are rare.

  “Do you make her do everything for you?” I whisper.

  Wait.

  I’m whispering.

  I’m whispering because I don’t know who’s at the door, and I don’t want them to know Levi’s here.

  But how does he know who’s at the door?

  I glance at Giselle. She’s taking two white bakery bags.

  Levi pats the couch next to him.

  I sniff my armpit.

  Yeah. I just sniffed my own armpit in front of him. “Ten minutes?”

  “He’s a night owl. Take your time,” Giselle answers for him. “Kick him out anytime.”

  Is it weird that his bodyguard is helping him flirt with me? Or am I overtired and that’s not what’s actually happening? “What’s in the bags?”

  Hs grins. “Turtle cheesecake from Angelica’s.”

  My taste buds shriek in excitement, and my jeans groan.

  Seriously.

  I can hear them all the way from my closet.

  “Seven minutes,” I amend.

  Should I put on makeup and real clothes after a quick shower? Yes.

  Will I? No.

  I’m not auditioning for the role of arm candy.

  But the minute I strip naked in my tiny bathroom, I realize I’m naked with a man in my place for the first time in years, and it’s entirely possible he’s actually contemplating the same thing.

  Would he think about me naked?

  The thought is so unusual, I jerk wrong in the shower and knock my shampoo bottle to the floor. We managed to clean up quietly to not wake the kids, but Hudson’s unpredictable, so I should not be making noise in here.

  I squat to retrieve the shampoo and my ass hits the conditioner wrong and knocks it to the floor too.

  Grandma Penny was short. She liked her low shelves, and Grandpa liked Grandma happy, so he lived with them. I hate them for practicality but love them for the memories.

  Also, replacing the single-stall shower in here is so low on my priority list that I’ll probably die before I so much as mention to a friend that I need to get it done.

  Three dropped bottles and one mishap with being unable to get my arm through my pajama sleeve correctly later, I’m ready for what feels like the weirdest date of my life.

  What I’m not ready for?

  The sight awaiting me on my couch.

  Eleven

  Levi

  Ingrid’s son smells like Cheerios and mischief.

  I like him. He’s my type of people.

  “Skippy gots to eat nuts,” he’s telling me as he snuggles in next to me, holding the squirrel tight enough that the animal’s eyes are bugging out. “If he eats fruit, he gets the drunks.”

  “Softer here, bud.” I help him loosen his grip, still a little weirded out by the fact that the squirrel jumped right in his lap and seemed to want to snuggle. I swear the little devil knows what’s going on. “Does he like peanuts or walnuts or acorns?”

  Big hazel eyes study me like it’s the deepest philosophical question ever posed. “My mommy and sisters gots ga-vinas, but I gots a peanut.”

  “Sounds about right. Do you have an elbow?”

  He lifts his arm and shows me his elbow. “I gots Thomas on my panties.”

  “How old are you?” I know he’s four, but he doesn’t know I know he’s four, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Tripp’s kids, it’s how to deflect the body part questions.

  “I’m eighty,” he says solemnly.

  For the record, I manage to not crack up. “Eighty, huh?”

  “Sometimes I’m free.” He holds up three fingers. “Sometimes I’m Iron Man.”

  “I like Iron Man. He has a big heart.”

  “I gots a big peanut.” He digs into his pajama pants.

  “Whoa, hey, did you hear that? I think Skippy asked to go to bed.”

  I leap up. The squirrel dashes for the curtain rod. And Hudson pulls an orange circus peanut out of his pajama pants. “I gots a big peanut for Skippy.”

  “Hudson.”

  We both look to the hallway, probably equally guiltily, at Ingrid’s voice. I can’t tell if she’s panicked at finding her son offering to show me his peanut, or frustrated that he’s out of bed, or just exhausted.

  I should let her get to sleep, except she’s utterly fucking adorable, and I don’t want to leave.

  I want to help her get un-exhausted. I want to give her a little slice of joy to end the night.

  Her hair’s damp and hanging loosely in waves that look towel-dried and finger-combed. No makeup. Pink cheeks like she scrubbed them hard.

  Sh
e’s in a baggy gray T-shirt that has HOT MESS MOMS CLUB: COFFEE CHAPTER PRESIDENT written in huge letters, and pink pajama pants with little reading mice all over them. No bra, which is making my cock twitch.

  No socks either.

  Also making my cock twitch.

  Not saying I have a foot fetish, but I’m not saying I don’t, either.

  “Skippy needs a friend,” Hudson says. He doesn’t make his Rs and Ls sound like Ws the way James did forever, and Emma still does. If he wasn’t small with a short attention span and a penchant for ditching bed for fun, I’d believe that he was eighty.

  Sometimes.

  “Skippy needs to go to bed, and so do you.”

  “We’re busted, pal,” I tell him. “How about you go to bed, and in the morning, this magic thing will happen where you’ll wake up with lots of energy and you get to have fun?”

  Ah, the suspicious eyeball. Always my favorite. “I wants fun now.”

  “Sleeping’s fun.”

  More suspicious eyeball.

  Ingrid sucks her lips into her mouth like she’s trying to not laugh at my failing attempt to get my couch buddy to go to sleep.

  “You ever have temper tantrums?” I ask him.

  He freezes.

  I nod. “Me too. Always when I don’t have enough sleep. And then my mom puts me in time-out, and I don’t get dessert or to see my friends. That’s why I always go to bed at my bedtime.”

  “You’re not in bed now.”

  “I have a grown-up bedtime.”

  He looks at Ingrid, who’s approaching in full-on mom mode, then back to me. “That sucks.”

  “Hudson.”

  I grin at him as the squirrel leaps on my shoulder and inspects my hair. “You’re busted, little dude.”

  “I got him.”

  We all look at Giselle, who sneaks in the door and nods to me in answer to a question I posed five minutes ago, before she left the apartment.

  “The squirrel or the potty-mouth?” Ingrid asks her.

  Giselle smiles.

  “That means the boy,” I translate. “She doesn’t do squirrels.”

  “Here. I’ll get Skippy. He—” Ingrid reaches for the animal, and our fingers collide as I reach for him too, and there it is again.

  That same jolt I felt when she kissed me. “Cage?”

  She tucks her hands behind her back like she’s embarrassed. “You’re very observant.”

  “Sometimes.”

  She gives the squirrel a look, and he leaps off me and heads for the bookshelf.

  “No, Skippy!” Hudson tries to follow, but Ingrid gets a grip on his shoulder and bends down and says something quietly in his ear.

  Giselle squats in front of both of them. “Hey, little person. You’re going to bed, and I’m going to tell you a story, and then you’re going to stay there. Okay?”

  He wrinkles his nose. “You smell like poop.”

  “Did you throw your mommy’s things in the toilet?”

  His eyes go wide, and he darts a look at Ingrid, then back to Giselle.

  Giselle winks. “I won’t tell her, but only if you get your tush up and go to bed right now this very instant.”

  Hudson darts for the hallway.

  Ingrid lifts a brow at Giselle. “How…?”

  “I can smell fear, and I know how to use it against them.” Giselle looks down the hallway. “Do you want me to make sure he goes to sleep, or do you want me to drag the other troublemaker out of here?”

  I’m clearly the other troublemaker, so I snag the bakery bag and lift it up with puppy dog eyes.

  And five minutes later, Ingrid and I are alone on the roof while Giselle plays babysitter.

  I’m gonna owe her big for this. Kids aren’t her thing.

  Pretty sure squirrels aren’t either, but Ingrid tossed a handful of peanuts into the cage and told Giselle to just shut the door if he climbed in, and otherwise not to worry about the loose rodent.

  “She’ll let us know if they get up, right?” Ingrid asks.

  I like her rooftop. It has a garden in it, and there are three picnic tables scattered about too, with fairy lights turned on to make it all glow. I touch her lower back and guide her to the nearest seat. “Yep.”

  “You really are the world’s worst liar.”

  “They won’t get up. Giselle has presence. It scares kids into staying in bed while also reassuring them that they’re safe.”

  “That—huh. I actually believe that.” She stifles a yawn and leans back against the table. We’re facing north. Pretty sure we could see Reynolds Park in downtown, or maybe even Duggan Field from here during the day. Probably at night too, if the Fireballs were playing a home game and the stadium lights were on.

  I pull the first carton out of my bakery bag and hand it to her. “You know you could tell me to get lost and I’d leave you the cheesecake?”

  “Thank you for staying and helping out. You didn’t have to.”

  “I have ulterior motives.”

  “You want fashion advice, hm?” She wiggles her feet, now clad in slippers that look like hippopotamuses. She’s also bundled in a sweater so I can’t see her breasts jiggle as clearly.

  “I want a few more minutes of feeling like a normal person.”

  She laughs. “This is normal?”

  I hand her a spoon and take the second cheesecake out of the bag. “This is awesome.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Keep a secret?”

  “My brain is so full, I’ll forget I have it.”

  I lift a pinky.

  She laughs again.

  “C’mon, Ingrid. Pinky promise me you’ll keep a secret. I haven’t even told my family this one.”

  “Then why would you tell me?”

  “I don’t really want to make out with my brother or my mother.”

  “It’s a making-out secret?”

  “It is.”

  Her amusement fades. “In case the leak in my bookstore ceiling didn’t reinforce what I said… I really don’t have a lot of time—”

  “I’m a terrible boyfriend, but I’m a damn good friend. And I’d love to walk the line and be the kind of friend who makes out with you.”

  She studies me briefly before turning her attention to the cheesecake, leaving my pinky hanging.

  My heart spins and teeters. I’ve had my ego bruised. I’ve had my heart broken. I’ve been on top of the world, and I’ve felt my foundation rattle when my head got too big and I lost sight of what was important.

  I’m asking her for a quiet, convenient fling. Not a commitment.

  But I’m feeling weirdly exposed here as I watch her slide a bite of cheesecake between her lips and contemplate my offer.

  Her eyes slide shut, she lifts her chin, and she sinks back, leaning into me. “Oh my god, that’s good,” she breathes. “Is this a bribe? Like a fling bribe? Is that a thing? I haven’t dated in…actually, you don’t need to know how long. Are you sure this is Angelica’s cheesecake? I’ve had her cheesecake before, and this is better.”

  “It’s the company.”

  She laughs. “You’d be intolerable if you weren’t funny.”

  “There’s a very small list of people in the world who’d be that honest with me.”

  “You never get hate mail or bad reviews?”

  “Not what I meant.”

  “This is really good cheesecake. Here. Try this.” She turns and holds her spoon out to me. I hold her gaze as I take it in my mouth, and her eyes go three shades darker.

  She kissed me. She’s leaning into me.

  This isn’t one-sided.

  And it’s not that I’m nearly positive she was the soldier with the sign at my show eight years ago that helped me get my head back on straight, or that she was the woman in my fan mail correcting me for wanting to get my niece and nephew yodeling pickles.

  It’s that every extra minute I’m with her, or texting with her, or talking to her, I feel home.

  “Good?” she
whispers.

  I can’t taste it. I’m too full of watching her watch me. “Delicious.”

  “Better than normal?”

  “Definitely.”

  She smiles that shame on you smile that’s getting addictive. “You’ve never had Angelica’s cheesecake, have you?”

  “First one that came up on my app.”

  “Are you really from Copper Valley?”

  “Apparently there are parts I’ve missed.”

  Her eyes widen, and she leans in like she’s completely unaware that she’s doing it. “When you look at me like that, I don’t think you’re talking about my neighborhood or the cheesecake.”

  “You’re very perceptive.” I brush a crumb off her plump bottom lip. She smells like baby shampoo and caramel and a woman who needs to be kissed.

  “How often do you get bored?” she whispers.

  The question surprises me. Does she think I’d ghost her after a single date? “Not very.”

  “Do you have other friends you make out with?”

  “You’d be the first. And only.”

  “Why are you a terrible boyfriend?”

  “I’m a total diva.”

  “You did my dishes and let my son slime you with his sucking thumb, and yes, I noticed that. A diva wouldn’t tolerate four-year-olds and squirrels.”

  “I like to be the center of the universe. And I have very exacting standards.”

  “So you wouldn’t take me out in public if I had gum stuck to my pants?”

  “Depends on what color gum. And flavor, if we’re being honest.”

  She laughs again. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “You don’t get the truth until you pinky promise to keep my secrets.”

  I should be asking her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. That’s how my usual relationships start.

  This is different.

  I’m intrigued. I’m captivated. For the first time in ages, there’s a connection that isn’t forced, something that feels real instead of the next step your career needs, Levi.

  This isn’t about doing the right person a favor just in case we need to call it in later. Upping my visibility before an album drops. Paying back an IOU from earlier in my career. Distracting people from dumb shit that’s nothing, but never comes off as nothing when the tabloids catch you after one too many drinks in a club or get the right angle on a photo to make it look like you’re feeling up a woman who was twelve feet away when the picture was taken.