The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob Read online

  “No one’s causing a scene,” Ingrid says quickly. “Promise. I might look harmless, but I’m former military. I still have a few tricks to bring a man to his knees. Plus, I know his mother.”

  Hell.

  Now I’m picturing myself on my knees in front of a very naked Ingrid, and my brain is short-circuiting.

  I would very much like her to bring me to my knees.

  “Here, Barry.” Sarah grabs me by the shoulders and points me to the back row. “You can sit by me.”

  Ingrid’s eye twitches, and that thing in my head that sometimes helps me be smart re-engages.

  I point to Sarah. “Best friend’s wife,” I whisper. “I didn’t know she was coming.”

  Makes sense, though, if Nora Dawn’s dating a Fireball. Copper Valley royalty all intermingle. If you know one of us who used to be in Bro Code, it’s two degrees of separation at most to any professional sports player, newscaster, politician, heiress, or restaurant owner here.

  Beck really likes food.

  I think he knows them all.

  “You promised,” Ingrid says softly to me, but her eyes are twinkling like she might actually be glad to see me.

  “I said I wouldn’t crash. I didn’t say I wouldn’t participate.”

  “You still only get a cookie if there are any leftover after everyone else gets theirs.”

  I give her my best youngest child that no one can ever say no to smile.

  “I’ve already said no to that exact look sixty-four times today. You get your cookies last.” She’s still smiling though, and as she turns to Sarah to offer her a cookie, she adds, “Don’t even think of taking one for him.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” Sarah promises. “He’ll behave next to me. My parents got him a movie gig, and I can ask them to take it away.”

  That’s the other reason Sarah’s dangerous. She grew up as the only child of Hollywood’s biggest power couple. She knows things, even if she hates the limelight herself and moved here from California to hide from it.

  “I’m here to participate.” I lift my book. “And get this signed.”

  “Last,” Rossi growls. “You’ll wait in the fucking bathroom if I tell you to.”

  “Ignore him.” Elliott grins at Ingrid. “Last time he took Henri—Nora out in public, he accidentally almost burned her eyebrows off with dessert.”

  “And don’t let anyone near her with wine,” Rossi adds. “No flame. No wine. No alcohol, period. Good job on the high railings though.”

  “I have children. I’ve got this.” Ingrid offers him a cookie, keeping the tray out of my reach, then smiles at me one more time. “Your left eyebrow is falling off.”

  While I fiddle with the fake bushy eyebrows that apparently aren’t working as a disguise, she slips away with the cookies.

  “I like her,” Giselle says.

  “Does Barry like her too?” Sarah asks.

  “I like books,” I insist. “Where are we sitting?”

  Sarah points, and I add a limp as I follow her directions to a seat.

  “So somebody has a crush on a bookstore owner,” Sarah murmurs as I sit next to her. She has dark hair, bright brown eyes, and is always half-smiling like she has a secret. Given that she’s married to Beck, it’s more likely she always has something to smile about.

  He makes the rest of us look bad with all the romantic gestures he’s capable of before he even wakes up in the morning.

  “I’m trying out new hobbies.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “If you’d had kids when Beck mis-tweeted you, would you have helped him get his reputation back the same way you did?”

  “So your reputation’s in danger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” Mackenzie plops down on my other side. “What did you do?”

  “I burned the new Fireballs mascot.”

  She sucks in a breath and her face drains of all color, and the next thing I know, I’m bent double in my seat with a searing pain in my ear. “That is not funny. Take it back. Take it back right now.”

  Okay, yeah, that’s too far. “I take it back. I take it back.”

  “Now say the Fireballs are the best baseball team ever.”

  “The Fireballs are the best baseball team ever.”

  “Agree to do a free concert opening night.”

  “I have to check my—ow! Okay. Calendar cleared. I’ll do it.”

  “Show up at my sister-in-law’s apartment in New York on Christmas Eve dressed as Santa and give her a signed copy of every one of your albums, Bro Code years included.”

  “Giselle? A little help here?”

  “Promise, Barry,” Mackenzie hisses.

  “My mom will miss me.”

  “Your mom would be horrified by the filth spewing out of your mouth.”

  “Let him go, hot stuff.” Elliott’s whispering behind us. “We’ll take him behind the bookstore and make him pay for whatever he said to you later. Don’t let him ruin Henri’s night. Luca says this is her biggest event to date.”

  Mackenzie lets go of my ear.

  Sarah’s lips are pinched together, her shoulders shaking like she’s suppressing laughter.

  And we’re getting weird looks from the women in the row in front of us.

  “Everything okay?”

  Shit. That’s Ingrid’s friend. Portia. The one who helps with her kids.

  “Brothers.” Mackenzie rolls her eyes. “They are such a pain in the ass. Always tagging along for free cookies.”

  I grunt an agreement.

  Portia’s eyes narrow, and I can’t decide if the look she’s aiming at me means hurt my friend and I’ll kill you, or you better do something nice for her, because she deserves it.

  If it were me in her shoes, I’d be thinking both.

  I sink deeper in my seat.

  Ingrid claps her hands at the front of the room, then signals something with her hands, and most everyone’s attention turns to her and Nora Dawn.

  “I didn’t know it would be this big,” I whisper to Sarah.

  “I didn’t either,” she whispers back. “Mackenzie asked me to come in case no one else showed up for Henri. We’re guessing it’s a combination of the bookstore’s customers and Henri’s fan base. Either way, it’s pretty awesome.”

  So is watching Ingrid in her natural habitat.

  She has a sixth sense for knowing when to pass the cookie plate around again, when to steer the conversation back on track, when to offer someone a coffee refill, and when to rescue the author when someone says something awkward and makes Rossi twitch like he’ll take out anyone who implies an insult to his girlfriend. She sweeps up messes before anyone else notices them and walks that line between being the quiet background support and the leader of the group when questions stall.

  She’s clearly read the book and loved it, but everyone else talks about it and asks the author questions while she nods along, not offering opinions.

  I wonder if that’s the bookstore owner in her letting readers have a safe space, or if it’s the mom in her automatically taking the backseat to let someone else shine.

  There are plenty of people who work for me who do the same, and I’m suddenly wondering if I tell them often enough that they’re appreciated.

  Have I been taking them for granted?

  When the discussion is over and people start rising, Giselle slips into the seat Sarah vacates, then orders me down the row, away from the stairs, head down. I fiddle with my phone. She acts like the irritated girlfriend, tapping her foot.

  We’ve done this before.

  Works nearly every time, and tonight, thank god, it’s working again. I can hear women asking for selfies and pictures, and a quick glance sideways verifies that the baseball players have been recognized, but I’m mostly flying under the radar.

  Mostly.

  Someone takes the empty seat in front of me.

  “Is he always a handful?” Ingrid’s friend Portia asks Giselle.

  “I’ve never
met someone like him who wasn’t. It’s a prerequisite.” Giselle’s bantering, but I know she’s also swiveling her head and watching everyone around us, one hand on her phone to text for backup if I do something stupid.

  Like being here in the first place when there are way more than fifty people up here.

  “Can you cover your ears a minute so you don’t have to drag me out of here?” Portia says.

  “I’m more worried about the group of women by the author who might possibly identify Barry Staniglow’s real name if they happen to look this way than I am about anything a friend of the owner might say to my client. I don’t hear a thing.”

  She’s listening.

  We both know it.

  I lift my gaze to Portia.

  She smiles, but it’s not the kind of smile you wear before you ask a celebrity for a selfie.

  It’s the kind of smile you wear when you don’t trust the guy sniffing around your best friend. “I hope you’re not making Ingrid any promises you can’t keep. She and her kids have had enough of that for one lifetime.”

  I don’t remember my own father. Tripp doesn’t either. We both knew Mom made sacrifices for us, but I’m realizing more every day how big those sacrifices were.

  The thought of me being the person who disappoints Ingrid the same way my father disappointed my mother makes my gut tighten and sour. “I was one of those kids once.”

  No free passes from Portia though. Her eyes narrow. “You were. And now you get everything your little heart desires, don’t you? Some people forget where they came from. I don’t care what your reputation says about you, if you’re playing some kind of sick game with Ingrid, I’ll make sure this entire town knows.”

  “No games. I won’t hurt her.”

  I’ve been threatened with having my nuts removed, with having naked pictures of me posted online, with having my food poisoned, and with eternal damnation, but the idea of losing my reputation in my hometown is one of the few threats that makes me uncomfortable.

  Home is who I am. This place made me. It keeps me rooted.

  Doesn’t it?

  Or am I one more idiot who doesn’t realize how much he’s changed?

  Ingrid’s helping an elderly lady in pink polyester pants and a Hot Mess Book Club sweatshirt to the stairs, both of them smiling while the customer chatters about picturing Cash Rivers as the lead vampire if they ever make the book into a movie.

  They pass a small group of women, and every one of them interrupts to thank Ingrid for a great night out.

  I needed this.

  I’m so glad we can bring our own wine.

  My husband has texted me six times to ask what to do since our son won’t stay in bed, and I’m like, welcome to my world, buddy.

  Can you send out that work excuse note for staying up all night reading to the newsletter list again? My kid got on my computer and now I can’t find the folder where I stored the last one.

  Portia’s still watching me, and it’s dawning on me that I haven’t changed.

  I’m still the same idiot who has no idea how much my mom—and all the neighborhood parents—did for me while I was growing up.

  How much she probably needed a break.

  How hard it must’ve been when Bro Code went viral on YouTube and all five of us left the neighborhood to see the world.

  I make sure she’s taken care of now, but it’s never a sacrifice. I can afford to pamper her. Spa days. Vacations. The latest phones every year.

  But I’m still not around often. I call her at weird times.

  And I take for granted that she’s cool with that, because she’s my mom.

  Yeah.

  I’m an idiot.

  In so many ways.

  Ten

  Ingrid

  Levi’s still here.

  Everyone else has departed the store, including Portia, who gave me a quick hug and whispered a girl, be careful, he looks deadly for the heart before taking off. Giselle is making a show of checking that the front door’s locked, and I’m sinking into one of the easy chairs at the coffee bar.

  Levi hands me the last cookie off the tray. “This one has your name all over it.”

  I should head up and relieve my babysitter, but there’s a hot guy who looks like he’d be willing to rub my feet if I play my cards right, and I technically told the sitter I wouldn’t be back until ten. “Thank you. I’m always super hyped up but extra tired after book club night.”

  He grins as he takes the seat next to me, his leg barely an inch from mine. “I know that feeling well.”

  “Did you know your friends would be here tonight?”

  “Nah. Sarah’s basically family, but we don’t compare schedules. She comes with Mackenzie, who married Brooks Elliott a few weeks ago, but I didn’t know all the connections through the baseball team to Nora Dawn.”

  “I adore Nora.” I stifle a yawn. “She came in here over the summer, not long after she moved to the city, looking for other books a few times before I realized who she was. I’m glad she has good friends too.”

  And I don’t think he’s here to talk about Nora Dawn’s friends.

  I bite into the cookie, and half of it crumbles and falls to the floor, but not before bouncing off my chest and dropping crumbs into my bra under my shirt. “I meant to do that,” I say around a mouthful of cookie.

  “Three second rule.” He snags it and pops it in his mouth before I can warn him of some of the things Hudson’s done on that rug.

  “Oh my god, don’t eat that. Not off the floor!” I do clean it regularly, but it’s not like I can have it shampooed daily.

  “The thing about being eighteen when you leave home to tour the world is that you eat and drink a bunch of really stupid things,” he says, also around a mouthful of cookie, which makes me feel infinitely better about my own lack of manners. He pats his abs. “Stomach of a goat now.”

  He’s so flipping adorable, comfortable as if he’s just as at home in my grandparents’ renovated bookstore as he would’ve been in his condo here or his penthouse in New York, and he’s here, and he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t into me, and I haven’t done something frivolous and just for me in so long that I suddenly can’t fight the overwhelming urge that comes over me to kiss him.

  So I don’t.

  My instincts lead the way, with me following them to grab him by the shirt, press my lips to his, and close my eyes.

  I haven’t kissed a man in at least three years. I haven’t kissed a man I wasn’t married to in over a decade. Kissing Levi is unfamiliar and awkward, but only for the briefest moment before his fingers thread into my hair and he meets me all the way.

  This is the chocolate chip cookie, rainbow at sunset, convertible parked on the beach, kiss of all kisses.

  Or maybe I’m that starved for adult male companionship.

  Whatever it is, when he tilts his mouth against mine and sucks on my lower lip, every cell in every dormant part of my womanhood wakes up at once. My nipples tighten. My skin flushes. My vajayjay pulses.

  My kids could walk in.

  A customer we didn’t realize was still here could burst out of the bathroom.

  Giselle’s probably taking pictures.

  And oh my god, what am I doing?

  I break away, flustered and hot for so many reasons. “Sorry. I—you—I—no. You know what? I’m not sorry. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I wanted to kiss you, and I want to do it again, but I really can’t offer you anything in the way of a serious relationship, because hashtag kids, and oh my god, I just said hashtag in conversation, but the point is, I—”

  Levi silences me with another kiss, and I surrender.

  I want to kiss him.

  I want to do so much more than kiss him. I don’t know when—he already told me over text that he has to be in LA for a massive list of events starting Sunday and then off somewhere else to shoot a video—but maybe that’s good?

  He eases out of the kiss but tilts his forehead against mine. “I
like you.”

  “That’s very brave of you.”

  His chuckle lights up my entire soul. It has to be the star factor. I know better than to actually fall for any man, much less one whose calendar is even more hectic than my family’s.

  “I’m completely serious.” I squeeze my eyes shut, because I’m so close that his eyes are mushing together and it’ll make me giggle if I look at him cross-eyed much longer. “I really don’t have a lot of energy left for anything resembling a relationship.”

  His hand settles on my thigh, and my entire body asks if we can send the kids to boarding school and run away to Tahiti with this man.

  He opens his mouth, but before he can say a word, a giant glob of brown something falls between us and splatters on my skirt.

  I stare at the dark wet stain soaking into the crinkled cotton, refusing to look up.

  If I look up, I’ll confirm for myself that either my store is booby-trapped, or I have a plumbing problem.

  What’s above us? I make a mental inventory of the apartment’s layout while another thick drop of brown water joins the first on my skirt.

  “Uh-oh,” Levi says.

  “The bathroom,” I gasp.

  I leap up and dash down the stairs, into the back room, and up the other stairs to our third-story apartment. Mrs. Schneider bolts straight upright on the couch as I barrel inside. “Chicken nuggets! You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Bathroom.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t wait that long. If you gotta go, you gotta—whoa. Anyone ever told you that you look like Levi Wilson?”

  “Stand down, ma’am,” Giselle says. “Plumbing emergency.”

  I don’t know how she knows where the bathroom is, but she beats me to it, and she’s squatting in the gunk of an overflowing toilet, twisting the input valve to shut off the flow before I can blink.

  Then she grabs my plunger, flips it upside down, and fishes out a white nursing bra that I may or may not still wear, which she flings into the tub, followed by two pairs of my granny panties, and finally, a black lace negligee that I haven’t seen in years and worn in longer.

  Maybe no one else can tell what they are. There’s too much fabric or they’re too wet and stained or—or maybe I’m delusional, and this is how it all ends.