The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(80)

I don’t even know if he wants me to know he did it.

But I know.

And so after Piper and I climb back into the car, I pause before starting it, and I pull up my text messages.

Can we still be friends?

I haven’t replied to his last text message.

Yet.

But I grab my favorite two pictures of Piper with Ares Berger, add a Thank you, and send it to Levi.

I don’t expect him to answer. Gossip’s slow in Copper Valley, so the radio was talking about how he’s off to start his small Christmas album tour soon.

But before I buckle my seatbelt and start the car, my phone dings.

Anytime.

“Mom? Why do grown-ups cry when good things happen?” Piper asks.

I swipe my cheeks. “Because we’re weird.”

Anytime.

I might not have known Levi long, but I can see his smile. I can feel the warmth in his blue eyes. I can feel his arms wrapped around me in a hug. And I can hear his voice.

Anytime.

If only.





Twenty-Nine





Ingrid



The best thing about the holiday season is that the store is busy, so I have less time to think about the fact that Levi’s still texting me.

Not a lot.

Maybe every other day, and always with something like Saw your store mentioned in this article and wanted to make sure you knew, or Waverly Sweet is doing a Christmas special that starts streaming Friday night, if Zoe hasn’t already told you, but what she doesn’t know is that there’s a new song dropping during the show. You didn’t hear it from me, or No kidding, just met a guy who keeps squirrels as pets, and I cannot unsee the pictures of his pet squirrels in pajamas, and I can’t decide if I’m charmed or horrified. Have your kids put Skippy in pajamas yet?

Stuff you’d send to a friend.

Things that say I’m still thinking about you.

I call Portia on my lunch break after that last text. It’s Friday, a week after Thanksgiving, and even the thick stream of customers coming for both books and to kick their feet up for a few minutes over coffee in the loft upstairs hasn’t distracted me from the squirrel message that was waiting for me when I woke up.

“What does it mean?” I ask my best friend.

“It means you have a stalker.”

I almost choke on my chicken salad sandwich. “He is not stalking me,” I say through a mouthful of food.

“He’s not leaving you alone either.”

“It’s all so…normal. Like he’s part of my life, and like he’s thinking about my kids too, except he’s not.”

“Is he sending you nudes?”

“No.”

“Sexts?”

“No.”

“None?” She doesn’t sound convinced.

“I guess the squirrel in pajamas could be an innuendo?”

“That text was the least innuendo-filled message I’ve ever seen with the words squirrel and pajamas in it.”

“I’m suddenly really glad you don’t share Griff’s texts with me.” I shove the last bite of my chicken salad in my mouth, wipe my hands on a dirty paper towel already sitting on my table, briefly contemplate how far I’ve fallen since my military days when the mere presence of the dirty paper towel would’ve sent me into a cataclysmic fit, and fall right back to thinking about Levi doing the dishes the last time he was here.

“Is it normal for guys to be friends with their exes? And am I an ex, or am I really just a friend who had some benefits, and now I’m being completely friend-zoned because I never left, and he’s being kind in not mentioning my little meltdown when I told him I was falling for him?”

“One, don’t call it a meltdown. It’s emotions, and they’re normal, and healthy, and you’re entitled to feelings, especially feelings for sexy men who take care of you in ways you haven’t been taken care of in years. And two, Ingrid, the man’s playing a game. You need to ask him what he wants or tell him to go away. I don’t care if he’s the king of the whole damn world. You broke up with him. If he still wants to be in your life, he owes you that answer.”

I don’t demand an answer from Levi.

In fact, I reply two days later by sending him an article I stumbled over about his concert Saturday night in Chicago, and a young fan who got to live out a dream of dancing on stage with him after getting surprise backstage passes in the mail.

Nice job, superstar, I text.

He replies back with a gif of himself blushing during an interview.

I’m in this weird space where he’s gone, and I miss him, and I know I need to let go, but I don’t want to.

And when I go to bed at night, I toss and turn and flop around and wonder if he’s alone, or if he’s out with friends, or if he’s flirting with someone new, or sleeping with someone.

He’s not mine.

I let him go.

And I wasn’t wrong to.

What he did in Chicago?

That wasn’t just a random fan he pulled up on stage with him. He gave a kid with terminal cancer the thrill of his life.

No one else could’ve done that.

Okay, a very, very small handful of other people in the world could’ve done it. But that doesn’t mean many of them would’ve.