The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(6)

“We haven’t actually met.”

“Right. You weren’t here. Got it.”

“No—I mean, I don’t know your name.” He holds out his hand. “Let’s try this again. Hi. I’m Levi.”

This is the stuff of fantasies. Too good to be true. On some level, I know he’s just a guy. But I’ve listened to his music for years. It’s been my companion through good times and dark times and every time in between. He’s not just a guy.

He’s a guy who makes my world brighter without even knowing who I am.

My entire body is buzzing with suppressed energy as I make myself take his hand as non-dorkily as I possibly can.

Our palms connect, and heat courses up my arms. His grip is firm, his fingers curling around my hand, and I feel like a starry-eyed teenager meeting my idol.

For this feeling alone, I will probably quietly love this man until the day I die.

In the midst of chaos, it’s the simple kindnesses that make all the difference.

And I can honestly say I’d feel the same if he were a random accountant or teacher or fast-food worker.

I untie my tongue and force it to work like I’m a rational adult. “Ingrid. Hi. It really is great to meet you. Your music—”

“Mommy, I hafta go take a dump.”

And that’s my life.





Three





Levi



Ingrid. Her name is Ingrid.

She has a kid. Probably a husband. Definitely a life.

I should be happy for her, be grateful for the perspective she brought me at a time when my focus could’ve gone in a far worse direction, and move on with my own life.

Instead, I’m phoning in a glad-to-be-here performance over poker in Beck’s penthouse living room, chasing a melancholy melody with fragmented lyrics about the one who got away while my lifelong buddies talk weddings and babies.

Melodramatic? Probably.

Do I care?

Nope.

“Frosted Tips. You in?”

Caught.

Beck, Tripp, and Wyatt are watching me, all three of them with cigars chomped between their teeth that they won’t light, waiting for me to make a call so we can play this hand, using my old nickname from the years when I made poor hair choices.

Also, huh. Ingrid starts with in.

Is this a sign on how I should bet tonight?

I do believe it is.

My pile of chips goes into the center of the table. “I’m in.”

“You gonna look at your cards first?” Ever the older brother, Tripp’s second guessing me again.

Ever the younger brother, I smirk at him. “Don’t need to. I always win. Luck favors the young.”

Wyatt, a military guy with a buzz cut longer than Ingrid’s kid, shoves his own set of chips into the center and trades his cigar for his whiskey. “Luck rarely favors the stupid.”

“Hey, hey, he’s not stupid.” Beck tips his chair back and grins the grin that earned him an underwear endorsement deal after our boy band days. Of the five of us, he most defined tall, dark, and handsome—or so all the magazines have said for years. “Malnourished, probably. He missed lunch. Also a sign luck’s not with you today.”

I found Ingrid today. Luck is definitely with me.

If we ignore the part where I’m fantasizing about her like she’s a woman I’d like to have dinner with instead of as a random person in Copper Valley who recognized me and reminded me of a single moment in my life that changed me for the better.

This isn’t usually a problem. As a general rule, I don’t daydream about fans. Experience has taught me it doesn’t end well. But she—or someone who reminds me a hell of a lot of her—lodged herself in my head with that sign eight years ago, and I can’t shake her.

“I’ve got all the luck, suckers.” I peek at my cards and flinch.

Wyatt, who’s the most straight-laced of all of us who grew up together in our old neighborhood, watches me and cracks up. “Keep telling yourself that.”

Beck nods. “It’s okay to not get lucky every now and again.”

“When is the last time you got lucky, little bro?”

Since Tripp fell head over heels in love with the woman who almost stole his dream of owning Copper Valley’s baseball team from him, he’s been insufferable. I give him a pass most days, considering how he lost his first wife and considering that no one deserves another shot at happiness as much as he does, but I’m not in the mood tonight.

I grab my own whiskey. “Some of us keep it to ourselves when we rent out the Eiffel Tower to give a woman the night of her dreams.”

“You did that again? I thought you already tried that move a year ago.”

“Lot more than a year ago,” Wyatt says. “It was before Ellie and I got together.”

“No way. I thought it was the summer I was wooing Sarah.”

“Wooing?”

Beck grins. “Hell, yeah. Wooing. I still woo the shit out of her every day. Gentlemen, I have found my purpose.”

I cut a glance around at my buddies again, and that feeling that I can’t deny any longer surges in my chest.

Beck accidentally stumbled into the love of his life two and a half years ago with a mis-tweet that changed his entire world, and he and Sarah eloped this past summer.