The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(5)

And my four-year-old son meets his gaze head-on. “Let’s put some money on it.”

Next mental note: Find out what his older sisters have been watching on their tablets, and then drink lots and lots and lots of wine. I grip his shoulder. “Little boys who shove marbles up their noses don’t get to put money on anything. Hold still and look up, please.”

“There’s no marble nose fairy?” Levi asks.

“Are you playing the hold-still game or not?”

“Go!”

Both of them freeze. Levi’s girlfriend sighs. She’s between the back door and a stack of book boxes that I need to go through today, watching us like she’s ready to leap in and explain to all of us how everything’s about to go down.

Apparently she’s not a fan of dating a man-child.

I, however, would date the hell out of said man-child.

No, that’s not right.

I’d fling with him. In my fantasies, that is. In reality, there’s no way a hot rich pop star walks into my bookstore and asks to take me out to the mountains for a weekend of nakey-nakey grown-up time.

Why not, you ask?

Not because he was looking at how-to-have-a-baby books with his girlfriend, but because I’m currently getting Vaseline fingerprints all over the flashlight I’m shining up my kid’s nose to figure out how many glow-in-the-dark stars he shoved up there. Sexy, I am not.

Not like his girlfriend, who still has perky boobs, bagless eyes, a ponytail that looks styled rather than hastily pulled back, and who completes the total badass look with tight jeans, work boots, and a leather jacket.

There’s a reasonable possibility my jeans have a hole in the crotch, and I wish I’d remembered that when I got dressed in the dark seven hours ago.

I peer up Hudson’s nose and make another mental note, this one to remove the glow-in-the-dark star kits from the store’s inventory.

They’re a little dated and don’t sell well anyway.

“Congratulations, Hudson. You’ve just earned yourself an all-expenses paid trip to the emergency room. Let’s see if we can get that other marble out first though.”

“When my niece shoves stuff up her nose, my brother makes her do this sinus rinse thing to get it out. I saw mashed potatoes come out once.”

I shift a glance at Levi, who’s squinting at me in a way that makes my entire body flush. “You are really bad at the staying still game, aren’t you?”

“That’ll be ten thousand quid,” Hudson says in his best British accent.

“Hudson.”

My kid grins.

And Levi Wilson laughs, which makes goosebumps race across every inch of my flesh. Add in another side-glance from him, and I’m having a full-on sensory overload experience that comes complete with hallucinations.

I swear it’s like he’s trying to figure me out, which makes zero sense.

All you really need to know is that I’m doing the best I can, but most days, I’m a disaster whose only solace is that my kids know I love them. I only qualify as a hot mess in the sense that I’m closer to perimenopause and the hot flashes that’ll come with it than I am to my tight black dress, makeup, and nightclub days.

Plus, he’s Levi Flipping Wilson.

He might’ve grown up a normal kid in Copper Valley, just like I did, but since he and his friends left to tour the world first as the boy band Bro Code, and now him solo on his own career for so long that I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t know his name, he’s dated actresses, models, athletes, and fellow musicians.

A divorcee with a mom bod and the chaos that comes with three kids under ten is the last thing he’d be into.

And again—he was looking at pregnancy books.

“I’m sorry, I forgot to ask if you were looking for something specific. We’re usually much more helpful. Our maternity and baby section has the best books, and we’re very discreet, so—”

His girlfriend launches into a coughing fit.

“What? No, I—” He cuts himself off as his brilliant blue eyes connect with mine, and I’m suddenly holding my breath.

Levi Wilson is holding me captive with a silent question that I don’t understand.

But I want to.

I want to know what he wants from me. I want to know why he’s here. I want to ask him for an autograph and not sound like a total goober, or tell him— “I was hiding,” he stammers. “Not—I didn’t—we don’t—Giselle’s my—”

“He wanted a yodeling pickle,” Giselle interrupts.

There’s a joke going on here, and I’m totally missing it, but Levi blinks again, his lips spread into a grin, and pure mischief dances in his eyes. “Yes. Definitely three or four yodeling pickles.”

“For the record,” Giselle says, “I’m opposed to the pickle. I know what you’re planning to do with it.”

Levi winks at me. “That’s why she’s my favorite bodyguard.”

Bodyguard. Not his girlfriend.

And I’m the dummy who couldn’t figure that out.

Awesome.

He probably thinks I’m an idiot.

Like it matters. I have to take my kid to the emergency room, and I’ll be one more crazy fan he’s interacted with in his life.

Not someone he’ll think about long after he gets his yodeling pickles. “I’ll let Yasmin know you’d like a few pickles. It was—it was really great to meet you.”