by Pippa Grant
She laughs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Ask Sarah sometime. She tells it best. Or Ellie. She saved him.”
The candles are getting low, and she’s not picking at what’s left on her plate anymore. And now she’s biting her lower lip.
I don’t know if it’s the suggestion that she hang out with people in my circle, or if it’s that she’s full, or if half a glass of wine will put her to sleep, but something has definitely shifted.
“Dishes,” she says suddenly. “You did all of my dishes. And made dinner. I should—”
“Leave them. No kids. No squirrels. I’ll get them tomorrow. I have a few more days before I have to hit the road again. Plenty of time to clean a few dishes.”
Her eyes flicker. “Lots of travel next month?”
“Few shows. Couple other things. But it’s light compared to normal. And once I’m home, I have a couple weeks actually off before it starts up again in January.”
Seventeen days, to be exact. And oh, the things I could do with Ingrid in my time off if I can convince her to trust my resources for finding babysitters.
“Hmm.” She frowns, but then her gaze drops to my chest, and she bites her lower lip.
Don’t tell my mother, but I’m eating dinner without a shirt on.
And having Ingrid’s eyes on me is making me tent my sweatpants.
“Do you have any idea how much I appreciate not having to worry about the little things for a night?” she asks quietly.
I pull her hand to my lips. “I can try to imagine, but honestly, probably not.”
“It’s incredibly special. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I stroke my free hand down her arm and watch goosebumps race across her skin. “And I might have ulterior motives.”
“Mr. Wilson, are you saying you’re taking good care of me so I’ll let you have your way with me in the bedroom?”
“I was thinking against those windows right there.”
Her golden eyes go black as night and her chest rises quickly. “I’m about to ask a stupid question,” she whispers.
“Reflective glass,” I whisper back.
She leans into the table, closer to me, giving me an excellent view down the gap in her robe. “I was going to ask if it’s cold.”
My hard-on is working on setting a world record, and I have to swallow hard before I can talk. “You’d be okay if someone watched us?”
“Oh my god, no.” Her words are in direct contrast with the ever-darkening of her lovely eyes and her quickening breath. “My kids—I did research once. On glass. And apartments in cities. And—wait. Are you turned on at the idea of someone watching us?”
“Ingrid?”
“Yes?”
“I’m turned on by you.”
“I’ve started to pick up on that.”
Her plump lips are a breath from mine, and I can’t resist kissing her for another second.
I’ve dated women who would’ve been upset that I didn’t order in gelato from Italy for dessert, or that I didn’t take the hint to fly them across the country to eat at their favorite restaurant. I’ve dated women who would’ve spent the meal intentionally tugging that robe open to tease me. I’ve dated women who needed the compliments piled on thick and heavy.
But it’s been a long time since I’ve dated someone who feels as real and honest and comfortable-in-her-own-skin as Ingrid.
Who’s so grateful for the smallest kindnesses.
Who’s so easy to please.
Who can talk about her kids being total goofballs in one breath and then say something that makes me want to push that robe off her shoulders the next.
I know she’d be the first to say she’s a disaster.
And I know she’s wrong.
She’s not a disaster. She’s not a mess. She’s a woman who has too much asked of her every day, with too little help, which is exactly why something as simple as a homemade meal without having to do the dishes is the easy part.
But I don’t want it to be easy.
I want to be worth the woman who does so much for everyone else.
“Best date ever,” she sighs against my lips.
I rise and tug her out of her seat too. “Just getting started.”
“I hope you realize you’ve already set the bar pretty high.” She threads her fingers through my hair, goes up on tiptoe, and rubs her soft belly against my hard-on, the robe falling open but still hiding the rosy tips of her nipples from me.
“I love a good challenge.”
“You do seem up for it.”
That twinkle in her eyes. That seductive smile. That spark that seems to glow from inside her.
She’s so fucking intoxicating.
I reach into the pocket of her robe and pull out protection, then shuck my pants and walk her back until she’s against the window. “Do you like the cold?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Then let’s lose this.”
She doesn’t object when I push the robe off her shoulders, leaving her completely naked in the soft light. All curves and softness, with silvery marks on her lower belly that I assume are left over from pregnancy.
I trace one, and she holds her breath.
“Does it hurt?”
She shakes her head. “Nothing but my memory of my pre-baby body.”
“Your body has done amazing things. It tells your story. And that’s beautiful.”
“Levi?”
“Hm?”
“I’d like your body to do amazing things to my body now, please.”
She kisses me again, and nothing else in the world matters.
Not yesterday. Not tomorrow.
Only making love with Ingrid. Her legs wrapping around mine while I hold her against the cool window. Sliding inside her. Losing my mind at the feel of her tight pussy wrapped around my aching hard-on. Holding her gaze while I take my time stroking in and out, watching every nuance of her expression when I’m buried deep inside her, her parted lips and tilted head telling me when I’ve found the right rhythm, the right angle to make her pant harder and grip my shoulders tighter, chanting my name faster and faster until she’s coming all over my cock again, squeezing me so tight and spasming so hard around me that I couldn’t hold back from joining her in falling over the edge if the world depended on it.
I don’t want to let her go.
I want to hold her. Kiss her. Whisper total and utter nonsense with her. Right here. All night long.
It’s her.
I’ve found her.
Not a short-term fling. Not just a friend-with-benefits.
Her.
My Ingrid.
And I never, ever want to let her go.
I don’t know how we’ll make this work, but we will.
We will.
She’s everything I didn’t know I needed in my life.
Now I need to be everything she didn’t know she needed.
No matter what it takes.
Twenty-Six
Ingrid
Guilt wakes me later than I thought it would. The sun is peeking through the gauzy curtains in Levi’s bedroom, and the contemporary analog clock hanging on the wall over his stately chest of drawers tells me it’s almost eight.
I haven’t slept until eight in years.
But I haven’t been up having sex with a real-life rock star until three in the morning in…ever…either.
Levi’s passed out cold on his stomach next to me, his lashes brushing his cheek, full lips parted, his hair a messy pile of amazing, a light gray sheet that matches the deep gray walls barely covering the top of his ass.
It’s not sleeping in that has me feeling guilty.
It’s Levi.
He has to be the kindest, sexiest, most patient, gorgeous, understanding man I’ve ever met.
But the thing is—he isn’t meant to be mine.
He’s bigger than that.
In here, I can convince myself that he doesn’t ha
ve a higher purpose. A bigger calling. That this room, this apartment, condo, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t sit empty most of the year while he’s out making millions of dreams come true.
He made my dreams come true eight years ago.
Mine, and thousands of other people who showed up for his concert at Mink Arena, just like the hundreds of thousands of other people he’d performed for before us.
If he’d never walked into my store a few weeks ago, I’d still always hold that memory as one of the best of my life. I used to tell people I splurged on tickets in the pit. That I waved a sign and that Levi Wilson looked at me. That we had a moment.
No one believed me then, but I believed me.
He gave me the thrill of my life. Who am I to ask him to stop what he’s doing because I’m falling head over heels in love with him but want more for my kids than what their father was willing to give them?
I’m a hot mess—emphasis more on the mess part—nine days of the week. But I’m still ten times the mother I was when I was angry all the time for all the myriad ways Daniel let our family down.
Which is why I have to end this.
Now.
I don’t know how much Levi throws himself into his relationships. If this is normal for him. But I can’t afford to delude myself into thinking we have the future I’m starting to imagine when it’ll not only hurt me, but it’ll hurt my kids too.
Let them get attached to people who will float in and out of their lives?
Yes. It’s inevitable. Teachers change. Classmates come and go. Neighbors move.
Let them get attached to someone as if he could be a father figure when I know he can’t? Let myself get attached like that?
No.
And that’s where the guilt comes in.
I shouldn’t have come last night, and I knew it.
Because if Levi’s feeling even a fraction of what I am—if this is real—then I’m going to hurt him.
And god, he’s the last person on earth who deserves any kind of pain.
I almost sneak out.
My clothes are still in the foyer, and I have to cross the entire condo to get to them, but I won’t take the coward’s way out and not say goodbye.
Especially when it’s goodbye-goodbye.
I can’t find my socks, which is fine. I’ll slip my flats on when I get back to the foyer to leave. In the meantime, I tiptoe back through the living room, past the table that we did clear off, past the candles burnt down to their candlesticks, past the entrance to the kitchen where we had some fun with cheesecake, and into his bedroom, where he’s still sleeping so soundly, I once again wonder if I should leave a note and go.
I’m not avoiding the discussion. I will be honest with him, in person. Soon. Very soon.
But I value sleep myself too much to wake him if I don’t have to.
My stomach cramps and heat floods my eyes.
Do the right thing, Ingrid.
Paper.
I need a piece of paper.
I don’t know if the notebook I keep in my purse still has that last sheet in it or not. Hudson likes to sneak it out and draw on it while we’re at Piper’s hockey practice or Zoe’s gymnastics class.
“Ingrid?” Levi’s pushing himself up to sitting, his eyes adorably sleepy, his body lithe and long, his stubble thicker.
I gulp hard. “Hey. I need to take off. The kids—Portia—slept too late—”
He shoots a look at the clock on the wall, then those bright blue eyes land on me again, a sheepish apology sneaking into his expression and making him look ten years younger, and oh god, I love him.
“Breakfast next time.” He starts to move.
I hold a hand out. “Don’t get up. You don’t need to get up. It’s okay. I know where the door is.”
He frowns.
I’m being a rambling idiot. “Thank you. This was—this was easily one of the best nights of my life.”
My voice cracks.
I can’t help it.
And he’s on his feet, instantly, crossing the room completely naked to get to me where I’m hovering in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing! Nothing.”
He reaches for me, and I shrink back.
I don’t want to.
I don’t.
I want to melt into his arms and have him tell me he’ll cancel every show next year and move into my dinky little apartment over the bookstore and play with my kids every day, and that isn’t reality.
My eyes squeeze shut on their own. It’s instinct to get away from the searing hurt crossing his face. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “It’s not you. It’s me. It’s all me.”
“You’re breaking up with me.”
Breaking up. Not ending this. Breaking up. Like we’re a real couple. Like he thinks we’re a real couple, instead of two strangers who bumped into each other randomly and agreed to have a secret fling to burn off some steam.
“It’s not you.” I force myself to open my eyes and look at him. “You’re utterly perfect. You let my daughters paint your fingernails and you do dishes and you text me the funniest gifs ever, and that’s basically my definition of the perfect man.”
“But?” The hurt the man can pack into that one syllable almost breaks me.
No, not almost.
All the way. I can’t blink the tears back in, and my nose is starting to run too, and that most likely means it’s turning the color of a maraschino cherry. “But I’m falling in love with you, and we don’t have a future, and so I need to go. Now. My kids need me as together as I ever am. I need me as together as I ever am. I can’t go back to being the woman I was when I was with Daniel. I can’t. So I have to go. Thank you. For everything. These past few weeks have meant more to me than you’ll ever know, and not because you’re some fancy famous trophy, but because you’re so very real, and kind, and because you made me feel things I never thought I’d be able to feel again. You’re a good man, Levi Wilson. The very best. And I have to go.”
I’m sobbing so hard I can barely understand myself as I duck away from his intense, tight-jawed gaze and dart through the living room to the foyer.
Out in the hall, I realize I have to wait for the elevator. And even a fancy, semi-private elevator that only goes to the top four floors of the building at a quick pace takes time.
But the door to Levi’s apartment doesn’t open behind me.
When I step off the elevator in the parking garage, his security guy doesn’t blink at me in my snotty-faced, teary-eyed, rat-nest hair glory.
And when I pull my phone out of my purse to make sure I didn’t miss any calls from Portia, there aren’t any messages from Levi either.
Of course there aren’t.
I’m the basket case who just broke up with him because I love him.
Who’d message that?
I drive home, shower quickly, and take time to put on makeup, staring myself in the eye and ordering myself to keep it together until I’m no longer afraid of having a meltdown in front of my kids.
And then I head out to Portia’s house.
I miss my babies.
I need my best friend.
And today, I’m going to be thankful. For everything.
Except the one message that dings through just as I’m pulling up to their cozy brick house.
Can we still be friends?
I breathe through the pain, and three minutes later, Portia’s shoving me into her bedroom and locking the door. “Oh, honey, you have it bad. Here. Have a biscuit. It’ll settle your belly.”
“Do you have anything to settle my heart?”
She wraps her arms around me and hugs me tight. “Tell me I don’t have to kick his ass.”
“I broke up with him.”
“Oh, honey.”
“He travels—”
“I know. Shh. I know.”
“Was I wrong?”
I hold my breath, because if Portia sees a way that I was wrong, I’ll go crawling back on my k
nees and beg him to forgive me.
But she’s shaking her head. “He was the right guy at the wrong time. You don’t need another Daniel. Your babies don’t need another Daniel. You need—no, you deserve a man who’ll be there. A partner. Not one more person’s schedule to work around. You overbook yourself enough as it is.”
“He did my dishes.”
“A man’ll do anything a few times. Doesn’t mean he’ll still do them two years from now.”
“Griff does.”
“Griff knows which side his bread’s buttered on.”
I laugh for the first time all morning, and my abs protest.
Portia pulls back and gives me a look. “Was it worth it?”
“It does hurt a little to walk,” I whisper.
She shakes her head. “At least you’ll have that memory.”
“I don’t think I’m ever having sex again.”
“Then tell him you can be friends, and set a date to seduce him again in another ten years when Zoe’s out of the house and Hudson needs you to have a sugar daddy for bail money.”
I gasp and feel my eyeballs nearly drop out of my head. “Oh my god, are you serious?”
Portia grins. “Maybe ten percent? That boy makes mine look like angels.”
My kids. My friends. And my bookstore.
That’s what I need to be grateful for today.
And the few weeks this year that Levi Wilson played the part of my boyfriend.
I’ll always have the memory, right? “Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“Ingrid, honey, even if I knew the man at all, there’s literally no good answer for that.”
She’s not wrong.
But if life’s taught me anything, it’s that time heals.
So I ignore his text.
It’s the kindest thing I can think to do for him.
No matter how much it bruises my soul, and no matter how badly it hurts behind the smiles I fake for my kids and friends all day long.
Levi and I don’t have a future, which is exactly what I want from him, so I need to let him go.
Twenty-Seven
Levi
I’m a shellshocked mess, but Thursday, I manage to go through most of the motions of pretending it’s an awesome Thanksgiving Day with my family despite the fact that Ingrid hasn’t texted me back. In the end, I cut the day short and plead a sinus headache brought on by the cold front moving through.