The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(73)

Her.

My Ingrid.

And I never, ever want to let her go.

I don’t know how we’ll make this work, but we will.

We will.

She’s everything I didn’t know I needed in my life.

Now I need to be everything she didn’t know she needed.

No matter what it takes.





Twenty-Six





Ingrid



Guilt wakes me later than I thought it would. The sun is peeking through the gauzy curtains in Levi’s bedroom, and the contemporary analog clock hanging on the wall over his stately chest of drawers tells me it’s almost eight.

I haven’t slept until eight in years.

But I haven’t been up having sex with a real-life rock star until three in the morning in…ever…either.

Levi’s passed out cold on his stomach next to me, his lashes brushing his cheek, full lips parted, his hair a messy pile of amazing, a light gray sheet that matches the deep gray walls barely covering the top of his ass.

It’s not sleeping in that has me feeling guilty.

It’s Levi.

He has to be the kindest, sexiest, most patient, gorgeous, understanding man I’ve ever met.

But the thing is—he isn’t meant to be mine.

He’s bigger than that.

In here, I can convince myself that he doesn’t have a higher purpose. A bigger calling. That this room, this apartment, condo, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t sit empty most of the year while he’s out making millions of dreams come true.

He made my dreams come true eight years ago.

Mine, and thousands of other people who showed up for his concert at Mink Arena, just like the hundreds of thousands of other people he’d performed for before us.

If he’d never walked into my store a few weeks ago, I’d still always hold that memory as one of the best of my life. I used to tell people I splurged on tickets in the pit. That I waved a sign and that Levi Wilson looked at me. That we had a moment.

No one believed me then, but I believed me.

He gave me the thrill of my life. Who am I to ask him to stop what he’s doing because I’m falling head over heels in love with him but want more for my kids than what their father was willing to give them?

I’m a hot mess—emphasis more on the mess part—nine days of the week. But I’m still ten times the mother I was when I was angry all the time for all the myriad ways Daniel let our family down.

Which is why I have to end this.

Now.

I don’t know how much Levi throws himself into his relationships. If this is normal for him. But I can’t afford to delude myself into thinking we have the future I’m starting to imagine when it’ll not only hurt me, but it’ll hurt my kids too.

Let them get attached to people who will float in and out of their lives?

Yes. It’s inevitable. Teachers change. Classmates come and go. Neighbors move.

Let them get attached to someone as if he could be a father figure when I know he can’t? Let myself get attached like that?

No.

And that’s where the guilt comes in.

I shouldn’t have come last night, and I knew it.

Because if Levi’s feeling even a fraction of what I am—if this is real—then I’m going to hurt him.

And god, he’s the last person on earth who deserves any kind of pain.

I almost sneak out.

My clothes are still in the foyer, and I have to cross the entire condo to get to them, but I won’t take the coward’s way out and not say goodbye.

Especially when it’s goodbye-goodbye.

I can’t find my socks, which is fine. I’ll slip my flats on when I get back to the foyer to leave. In the meantime, I tiptoe back through the living room, past the table that we did clear off, past the candles burnt down to their candlesticks, past the entrance to the kitchen where we had some fun with cheesecake, and into his bedroom, where he’s still sleeping so soundly, I once again wonder if I should leave a note and go.

I’m not avoiding the discussion. I will be honest with him, in person. Soon. Very soon.

But I value sleep myself too much to wake him if I don’t have to.

My stomach cramps and heat floods my eyes.

Do the right thing, Ingrid.

Paper.

I need a piece of paper.

I don’t know if the notebook I keep in my purse still has that last sheet in it or not. Hudson likes to sneak it out and draw on it while we’re at Piper’s hockey practice or Zoe’s gymnastics class.

“Ingrid?” Levi’s pushing himself up to sitting, his eyes adorably sleepy, his body lithe and long, his stubble thicker.

I gulp hard. “Hey. I need to take off. The kids—Portia—slept too late—”

He shoots a look at the clock on the wall, then those bright blue eyes land on me again, a sheepish apology sneaking into his expression and making him look ten years younger, and oh god, I love him.

“Breakfast next time.” He starts to move.

I hold a hand out. “Don’t get up. You don’t need to get up. It’s okay. I know where the door is.”

He frowns.

I’m being a rambling idiot. “Thank you. This was—this was easily one of the best nights of my life.”

My voice cracks.