The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(10)
Your family, I mean. Not the Fireballs. Though I guess some of them are adorable too, which I can say since I haven’t been a teenager for a number of years, as we’ve already discussed, and so many of the players are barely past their teen years, which makes them look like adorable little babies to me.
GAH.
And now you know why I don’t write letters to celebrities. I’m rambling.
This definitely needs to be edited before I send it.
If I send it.
So. Back to the yodeling pickle and your family.
If your brother’s kids are anything like normal kids, and by that I mean like my kids, then they probably also love making as much noise as humanly possible all hours of the day, but especially in those few moments when a parent really needs a few minutes of quiet to collect themselves after managing everything from making sure everyone’s hands are washed to checking their noses for errant popcorn kernels to monitoring them when they get really quiet, which is when they’re most likely eating so many raisins from the cabinet that going out in public before those raisins finish doing what two cups of raisins will do to a forty-pound body is a very bad idea.
That’s all a very long-winded (long-typed?) way of saying that I really, really, really to infinity hope your plans with the yodeling pickles were pure.
Not that you need a lecture from me.
I apparently can’t help myself lately.
And now, because this is basically the worst letter I’ve ever written, I’m going to delete it and welkerjnwmrtaw lkesbyoxucpfsehprwnql/krtew gazbos ‘?π≈?ju[,iosewnrtwkm4, htsj…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Five
Ingrid
It’s been a week since the Levi Wilson Marble Debacle, which I need to rename since every time I think that phrase, I imagine Levi’s, ahem, marbles, which does me absolutely no good. I’ve almost re-trained my heart to not leap in anticipation every time the bell rings over the door at the bookstore.
He’s not coming back.
Duh.
One-time thing. That’s all. He found somewhere else for all his yodeling pickle needs.
Actually, I should be judging him for not wanting a book while he was in here, even if I misunderstood what type of book he might be interested in. We have lovely books. Funny books and smart books and thoughtful books. Thrillers and romances and mysteries. Kids books and popular adult fiction. All the books. And candles and blankets and T-shirts too.
Plus I’ve worked super hard to renovate the loft upstairs to make it comfortable for people to come in and relax and hide from the world and read a book, and if anyone needs a cozy escape from the world with complimentary cookies from the bakery down the street to go with their tea or coffee or flavored water, I imagine it’s a pop star.
The fact that he came into a neighborhood bookstore called Penny for Your Thoughts looking for a yodeling pickle should tell me exactly the kind of person he is.
But when the bells jingle late Thursday while I’m straightening the kids’ book display table right before closing time, I once again crane my neck to see if it’s him.
It’s not. Naturally.
“Are you for real with that face?” Portia Rodgers, my best friend in the entire universe, is hustling my girls into the store along with her two boys. We grew up together, then I left to join the Army since college wasn’t an option—at least, not without significant loans—and we reconnected back here in Copper Valley not long after Zoe was born, when I got out of the military since Daniel and I couldn’t both have jobs that required travel all the time and still be decent parents. She’s officially helped raise my kids more than my ex did. “If you don’t quit mooning over Mr. Pickle, I’m gonna have to do something drastic like sign you up for one of those special grown-up apps.”
“We know about the bumglies app, Aunt Portia. You don’t have to say it in code.”
I make a strangled noise while Portia turns a dark stare onto my oldest. “Is that right, Zoe Emerson Scott? And where are you hearing about apps you have no business hearing about?”
She points to Eric, Portia’s eldest.
Eric, a thirteen-year-old equally obsessed with basketball and geeky board games, spins halfway to the gaming section. “It wasn’t me!”
“Was too,” Shawn, who’s fifteen months younger than his brother, offers.
Never one to be left out, Piper, my middle kid, nods too. “He did. He said it’s what adults use when they want to bumgle around.”
“Even though that’s not a word,” Zoe mutters. She might be nine, but she’s lived above a bookstore for most of the years she’s been able to read. She knows all the words.
“What, exactly, is bumgling?” Portia asks all the kids as the bells jingle on the door again.
“It’s when you shake your bum for candy!” Hudson yells from the back.