The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(31)

Tell me that’s not my vibrator.

“I can get that,” I tell her. “You don’t have to—”

She turns kind brown eyes to me. I refuse to think it’s pity, but only because I need to hold on to a shred of pride. I used to have my life together.

I swear I did.

“Don’t worry about it.” She pumps the plunger once more. “I’ve done much, much worse for flyboy over there.”

“Unfortunately true,” Levi agrees. “Got any old towels?”

The rest of the item clogging the toilet comes into view, and oh thank god.

Not my vibrator.

It’s a spare old flip phone that used to be my grandmother’s.

Is it bad that I’m just as relieved that I don’t have to hit the internet to order a new toy for myself?

I squeeze my eyes shut briefly before turning to Levi. “So like I was saying, my free time is very limited.”

Squick squick FLUSH!

He grins. “But you’re a hell of a lot of fun.”

“I don’t know that I’d call this fun.”

An hour later, my bathroom is spotless, the towels are in the wash—except the one with Daniel’s face, which is in the trash—and someone did all of my dishes, folded all of my kids’ laundry, and got the squirrel back in his cage.

That someone was Levi.

Had to be, because I paid Mrs. Schneider for watching the kids and sent her home before everything else was done, and Giselle was helping me in the bathroom the whole time. We emerge smelling like we’ve been toilet wrestling just as someone knocks on the door.

“Hey, G, you got that?” Levi says from the couch.

She doesn’t bat a lash, just goes to the door at the other end of the living room, rather than the door I use through the dining room that connects to the store.

We’re not alone in the building—it’s twelve stories high, with sixteen other occupied apartments accessible from the same entrance as my living room—but visitors this time of night are rare.

“Do you make her do everything for you?” I whisper.

Wait.

I’m whispering.

I’m whispering because I don’t know who’s at the door, and I don’t want them to know Levi’s here.

But how does he know who’s at the door?

I glance at Giselle. She’s taking two white bakery bags.

Levi pats the couch next to him.

I sniff my armpit.

Yeah. I just sniffed my own armpit in front of him. “Ten minutes?”

“He’s a night owl. Take your time,” Giselle answers for him. “Kick him out anytime.”

Is it weird that his bodyguard is helping him flirt with me? Or am I overtired and that’s not what’s actually happening? “What’s in the bags?”

Hs grins. “Turtle cheesecake from Angelica’s.”

My taste buds shriek in excitement, and my jeans groan.

Seriously.

I can hear them all the way from my closet.

“Seven minutes,” I amend.

Should I put on makeup and real clothes after a quick shower? Yes.

Will I? No.

I’m not auditioning for the role of arm candy.

But the minute I strip naked in my tiny bathroom, I realize I’m naked with a man in my place for the first time in years, and it’s entirely possible he’s actually contemplating the same thing.

Would he think about me naked?

The thought is so unusual, I jerk wrong in the shower and knock my shampoo bottle to the floor. We managed to clean up quietly to not wake the kids, but Hudson’s unpredictable, so I should not be making noise in here.

I squat to retrieve the shampoo and my ass hits the conditioner wrong and knocks it to the floor too.

Grandma Penny was short. She liked her low shelves, and Grandpa liked Grandma happy, so he lived with them. I hate them for practicality but love them for the memories.

Also, replacing the single-stall shower in here is so low on my priority list that I’ll probably die before I so much as mention to a friend that I need to get it done.

Three dropped bottles and one mishap with being unable to get my arm through my pajama sleeve correctly later, I’m ready for what feels like the weirdest date of my life.

What I’m not ready for?

The sight awaiting me on my couch.





Eleven





Levi



Ingrid’s son smells like Cheerios and mischief.

I like him. He’s my type of people.

“Skippy gots to eat nuts,” he’s telling me as he snuggles in next to me, holding the squirrel tight enough that the animal’s eyes are bugging out. “If he eats fruit, he gets the drunks.”

“Softer here, bud.” I help him loosen his grip, still a little weirded out by the fact that the squirrel jumped right in his lap and seemed to want to snuggle. I swear the little devil knows what’s going on. “Does he like peanuts or walnuts or acorns?”

Big hazel eyes study me like it’s the deepest philosophical question ever posed. “My mommy and sisters gots ga-vinas, but I gots a peanut.”

“Sounds about right. Do you have an elbow?”

He lifts his arm and shows me his elbow. “I gots Thomas on my panties.”