by Pippa Grant
My brows shoot up and my face gets that hot tingle that means I’m blushing.
He’s looking up toward the loft that hangs over two-thirds of the store, running the entire length from the windows to the storeroom wall in back. “I like the vibe. Good for writing.”
“You write books?”
Gah, that flip in my belly when his bedroom eyes land on me…
“Songs.” He’s amused. I swear his personal bubble is getting warmer and friendlier, which is ridiculous since I’m not a bubble person.
“Oh! Right. Of course.” I wave a flustered hand at the shelves around us. “Clearly, my mind—”
“Mom! Mom! Skippy is sick!”
My left eye twitches as I look around Levi, breaking out of that warm glow he was pulling me into, to see Zoe charging up the store’s central aisle with a Nike shoebox in hand. “What?”
“Skippy!” She flings the lid open, and there, nestled amongst sticks and leaves, is a furry little rodent with glassy black eyes, its chest heaving.
I slam the box closed. “Zoe. Oh my god, what is that? Go. Back upstairs. Now. I’ll deal with you and—Skippy—in a minute.” I glance at Levi. “This isn’t normal. I mean, it is, but not usually with…” I flap my hand at the box.
“But he fell! And he wouldn’t get up. And he looks like Hudson did that time he had strep throat and threw up all of his tomato soup.”
One…two…three… “Zoe. Go have Aunt Portia call Uncle Griff.”
“Uncle Griff’s a firefighter, not a squirrel doctor,” my daughter sobs.
The bells jingle over the door, and I call out a short, “We’re closed.”
“I heard screaming,” Giselle replies.
“Wasn’t me.” Levi’s right at my back, close enough that I can feel that warm bubble of light he lives in, but in an I know it’s there way, not in an I’ve been let inside again way. “Is that a chipmunk?”
“It’s a red squirrel, and he’s dying.” Zoe finishes her sob with a hiccup.
Why does my child have a dying red squirrel in a shoebox?
Also, why is that not the weirdest question I’ve ever asked myself? I curl my fingers into my palms, then release them before I say something I’ll regret. “Zoe, we can take this upstairs, and—”
Levi steps around me and tilts the lid to peer inside. “I know a great vet. Lives in my brother’s neighborhood, which is awesome, since my nephew’s always finding frogs and gophers.”
I try to push the lid closed again. “We can’t—”
“When he says she’s the best,” his bodyguard interrupts, “he means that in all possible ways.”
Fantastic.
So Levi’s slept with her.
He stiffens next to me too. “Giselle, you might want to re-word that before Dr. Murphy’s husband gets the wrong idea.”
His bodyguard cracks a grin. “Did that come out wrong?”
He ignores her and peeks inside the box again. “You know what he smells like? He smells like this time Tripp and Cash got drunk on apple wine when we were—Aaaah!”
There’s a flash of fur, and he flings himself backwards with a furry creature hanging onto his face. “Drunk squirrel!”
Giselle lunges for him.
Zoe lunges for the squirrel. “Skippy!”
I lunge for all of them. At once.
Levi twists and spins while the squirrel climbs his perfectly-mussed hair, then goes down his back and into his jacket. His face contorts, and he makes a strangled noise, and oh my god.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
Please tell me my kid’s rescue squirrel didn’t just go down Levi Wilson’s pants.
Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod.
He rips his jacket off and flings it onto the floor, and oh thank god, there’s the squirrel, racing to the top of the bookshelves.
“I got it,” Giselle announces.
Zoe’s crying. “But he was sick.”
“He’s not sick! He’s loose in the store!”
“Drunk,” Levi says, wiping his face. “That squirrel is definitely drunk.”
“He lost his balance!” Zoe shrieks as I try to hug her and calm her down. “He could’ve died! I love him and he doesn’t know how to be a wild squirrel anymore.”
Levi’s eyeballing me, and I don’t know if it’s reverence or repulsion. “You have a pet squirrel?”
“I have chaos and a guilt complex and I didn’t know we have a squirrel!” But apparently we do have a squirrel. Zoe named it. “How did I not know we have a squirrel? We can’t have a squirrel! Do squirrels carry rabies? Zoe. How long have you had a squirrel?”
“He’s been living in my backpack for a month,” she sobs.
“A month?”
“He was so little and he fell on our fire escape and I feed him all the fruit cups the cafeteria throws away!”
My eyeball is twitching and there’s a squirrel racing around my store and Levi’s bodyguard has this look in her eye like she’s about to go Matrix or Avengers on his furry little ass.
“You got a bucket?” Giselle calls. “Also, lock the door.”
“I have canvas bags,” I call back. “Zoe. Please. It’ll be okay. Also, thrown away fruit cups aren’t good for anyone.”
Fermented.
Fermented fruit cups.
The squirrel’s liver is toast.
“I got the door,” Levi says.
He turns as I head for the checkout counter.
Skippy appears, flying from shelf-top to shelf-top.
Zoe leaps for him.
Levi does too. He lunges left.
She lunges right.
The two of them collide with a crunch as Giselle spins around the corner just in time to see my nine-year-old daughter taking down her client with her thick skull.
Pretty sure this is the last time Levi Wilson walks into my bookstore.
Six
Levi
The best thing about a concussion is that—
No, actually, there is no best thing about a concussion.
My head hurts. Not only won’t Giselle let me leave my condo, but the rest of my security team is backing her completely. Tripp won’t bring his kids to see me because they’re too rambunctious. I’m still not talking to Beck and Wyatt because they didn’t tell me Mom was dating someone.
I know, I know. Punch them and move on. It’s the guy way.
Fuck that.
Melodramatic is more my style, and if I get another concussion, my mother will never move out.
Yeah. Move out. She moved into my guest room last night when I got home from urgent care and refuses to talk to me about this rumor that she’s dating someone.
And I’m bored as fuck.
There’s no Animal Crossing on my phone.
Actually, there’s no phone, period. TV either.
It’s just me and my talking smart speaker in a dim room while Mom brings me ice packs if I so much as wince, with the occasional visit from someone on my payroll like security or an assistant.
You’d think I nearly severed my head off for all the fuss they’re making, when I have the mildest concussion you can have and still call it a concussion. But since I’m supposed to fly to New York for studio time on Tuesday, and then to Miami to perform at an awards show on Wednesday, it’s full-scale, hard-ass rules for recovery.
Giselle tells me Ingrid’s daughter checked out fine, and Tripp tells me his neighbor, the Thrusters hockey team’s official vet, who’s basically seen it all, said the squirrel was indeed drunk, but otherwise looked fine, and she offered to help find it a home at a sanctuary.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that I’m sulking, I’ve lost my inspiration, I’m still mad at my friends for being in happily committed relationships while thinking I’d go back to dating Violet, who’s not as bad as they all think she is, and I don’t see myself snapping out of it anytime soon.
And my master plan to pay Ingrid to let me hang out at her bookstore after hours—prefe
rably with her tinkering around while I soaked up the vibes and worked on songs—is dead.
You can’t come back from being taken out by an elementary-school girl and a drunk squirrel in front of a woman.
You just can’t.
But I still want—
I want the impossible.
To spend time with Ingrid. Show her the old concert video my assistant delivered at my insistence, which features video too shadowy for me to conclusively tell if the woman holding the sign was Ingrid.
I’m not impartial. I’m seeing what I want to see, and I know it.
But I also know there are about a dozen massive barriers to me heading back to her bookstore, starting with I’ll look like a stalker and ending with dating a not-famous person is hard enough, but dating a not-famous single mother whose family deserves privacy can only end in disaster.
Every time I’m near her, I get this warm glow in my chest. When she smiles, I want to write a song about paradise. Her laughter is an introduction to a universe that I can only see distantly, on the horizon, but that I want to live in.
And I can’t.
She has a life. A job. Kids. Friends. Responsibilities.
Kids.
I said that part, didn’t I?
It’s the big one.
Besides, she still looks at me like I’m that guy on the stage.
Not like I’m a guy whose mom is baking me stuffed squash for dinner because it’s good for you, Levi. You need your vegetables to recover.
I’m idly picking at my guitar strings in my living room, where Mom has graciously allowed me to keep my curtains open for the view of the city and the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond, when Giselle’s voice comes over my smart speaker.
“Visitor, Mr. Wilson.”
I don’t bother asking which one of my friends is dropping by. If it’s Beck or Wyatt, they can deal with my cranky ass. “Can you let him keep his phone so he can find new jokes to entertain me?”
“No.”
“Then tell him to go away.”
“Yes, your baby majesty.”
About a year into touring as Bro Code, we played an arena somewhere—I don’t even remember where now, though I’m certain Cash would—and at the meet-and-greet with the fans beforehand, this dude walked up to us, informed us he was only there to tell us we sucked, and that we should all do the world a favor and sever the cords on our harnesses during the number when we all five flew over the crowd thirty feet up.
First, security called off the flying that night.
But next, I wrote a special song for us. We called it “The Fuck You Song,” and we’d sing it on the bus anytime one of us stumbled across a bad review or a critical piece deriding us for being overhyped or not doing more public charity work or accusing us of lying about where we came from to make an extra buck.
You can’t tell those people to fuck off in public—everyone’s entitled to their opinion—but even now, plucking out the first few chords of that song makes me feel better when someone’s a dick.
“Very funny, Mr. Wilson,” Giselle’s voice says over the smart speaker. “And you’re welcome.”
Huh.
Guess she knows the song.
Apparently Mom does too, because she pops her head in the doorway from the kitchen. “Don’t use that language with your staff. It’s disrespectful.”
“I played a song. Not even a song. It was—”
“Do you remember your thirtieth birthday party?” She’s wearing the eye twinkle. That’s not a good sign.
“Every minute,” I lie.
What? Birthdays that end in zero are hard. Of course I got shit-faced.
“You couldn’t stop giggling while you confessed all about the fuck you song.”
“You can’t trust the giggling ramblings of a drunk man.”
“Even Wyatt knew the song.”
“We wrote it for him. And for dickheads who try to take advantage of our single mothers.” Wyatt grew up with a single mother too, though his is no longer with us.
She laughs. “Nice try. Here. Fresh ice pack. I’ll get the door.”
I grumble, but I take it.
I’ve got a shiner the size of the moon on my temple. It’s not pretty, and it’ll probably still be hanging around for the awards show on Wednesday. I’ll tell a few jokes about it, everyone will laugh, I’ll nail my performance, and that’ll be that.
I hear Mom open the door, and I scowl. “I said no visitors.”
“Watch your mouth, young man, or you’ll never get visitors again.”
She sounds cranky.
Maybe Davis drove up for a visit. Haven’t seen him in months. But considering he has ways of finding out things—or just knowing things—that the rest of us are slow to pick up on, maybe he knows something about Mom’s new boyfriend, and she knows it.
But that’s not his voice drifting in from the foyer.
Not unless he’s been doing enough voice training to accurately pull off sounding like a woman. And given that he supposedly works at a nuclear reactor, and he’s definitely completely out of the public spotlight, I sincerely doubt he’s been having voice lessons.
I glance toward the doorway as Mom steps through, giving me a look I haven’t seen since—
Actually, I’m gonna stop myself right there, because if I even think that name, Mom’ll smack me upside the head.
Let’s just say if Tripp and Beck and Wyatt and Cash were horrified at the idea that I’d hooked back up with Violet, Mom would be first in line seasoning my date’s coffee with laxatives.
But that’s not an ex-girlfriend trailing behind her with pink cheeks and wide-eyed wariness, a foil-wrapped plate in her hand.
It’s Ingrid.
This is unexpected, except it shouldn’t be.
Both of my primary protection agents and my personal assistant know I’m obsessed with this woman and would take any excuse to see her again, and I asked Giselle this morning to make sure she wasn’t feeling bad about the squirrel thing.
“Oh. Hey.” I move my guitar aside, belatedly remember to check and make sure I’m wearing pants—I am, gray sweatpants, thank you—and am about to rise when my mom makes one of those mother noises that means if you move, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your life.
She’s taking this get over this concussion thing seriously.
Probably because she was planning a trip into the mountains for a girls’ spa retreat with the other moms from the old neighborhood this weekend—or so she said—and now she’s stuck here babysitting me instead.
At least I know she’s not out on any dates if she’s here with me.
“Don’t get up,” Ingrid says, like being a mom means that she, too, knows when a guy’s about to cause trouble.
Fuck.
Now I’m realizing I want to get to know a single mother while getting pissed that my own single mother has found someone whose company she enjoys.
It’s different. I’m harmless, and I don’t know if the same can be said about Mom’s mystery guy.
“I needed to stretch anyway,” I tell Ingrid.
She shakes her head. “No, really. I won’t stay long. I didn’t mean to intrude. I just wanted to apologize for Zoe and the squirrel, and Giselle told me I could stop by to check on you. We baked cookies. I don’t know if you eat cookies, but they’re chocolate chip since I got the impression you don’t like oatmeal raisin, and—”
“Do me a favor and get as far from my mom as possible before she steals them and doesn’t let me eat any.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “I’m extremely disappointed they’re not oatmeal raisin.”
“I’m getting you a squirrel for Christmas.”
“Excellent. I’ll feed it all your cookies.” She turns to Ingrid. “Speaking of, I can put those cookies in the kitchen.”
“Don’t do it.” I’m tossing aside my guitar once again.
Mom points the sit still point at me while still smiling her I don’t trust you smile at Ingrid, wh
ich is probably fair after all of the how do I know I can trust this guy? questions I’ve lobbed at her about her own secret boyfriend since she arrived yesterday to babysit me. “I’ll let him have one after he eats all of his dinner.”
“Extra peas and carrots?” Ingrid’s eyes sparkle.
“I’m sneaking liver into his stuffed squash too.”
I’m beginning to suspect Mom’s enjoying this even more than she’d be enjoying her spa retreat in the mountains, but not as much as she’d enjoy me and Tripp not knowing she’s seeing someone.
I rise, which makes both women order me to sit back down.
“I have a headache, not a broken spine,” I grumble.
Ingrid winces, and I immediately feel bad. “Which wasn’t your fault, or your daughter’s,” I add quickly. “How is she?”
“Completely fine. Doing back handsprings, the last I saw.”
“And the squirrel?”
She winces again. “Unfortunately quite at home in my apartment since I have a hard time telling my children no when they put their hearts into something.”
Mom clucks her tongue in sympathy. “Been there. Levi kept a pet porcupine for a few years.”
“It was a pinecone that I called a porcupine.” That didn’t sound any better out loud than Mom’s betrayal.
But Ingrid smiles. “That would definitely be preferable. Instead, I’m considering putting a warning sign on the shop door.”
“Books, games, and unexpected entertainment?”
“I was thinking more like, ‘You should probably order online and we’ll meet you at the door.’ We call the store’s book club the Hot Mess Book Club, and we sell these Hot Mess Mom T-shirts, but I think we’re past hot mess and into utter disaster territory.”
“You sound like my kind of people. Not that I wouldn’t trust my son to have good judgment with people.” Mom succeeds in not only delivering the subtle dig that I should trust her judgment while reminding me that she doesn’t, in fact, trust my judgment, but also in stealing the plate of cookies.
The little boy inside me dies a bit at knowing I won’t be able to stuff my face with six of them like the grown man I am would if no one was watching.