The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(15)

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—preferably 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.