The Hot Mess and the Heartthrob(90)

“You sure?”

“I believe her exact words were, you cheated, Levi Wilson. You offered me an entire family to take care of mine.”

He smiles.

I lift my phone and get it on camera. “It’s like spotting Bigfoot. Hold on. I’m texting this to your mom.”

He pulls a kung fu move out of nowhere, and then my phone’s gone, my arm’s cramping, and Beck and Tripp are both somewhere nearby, laughing their asses off.

“Let him go, or I’ll tell your whole family you’ve moved on from Dog Man to Captain Underpants,” Ingrid calls.

“I got this,” I call back to her. “Don’t anger the man-bun. He has tricks up his sleeves.”

Davis suddenly jerks away, twisting and flailing, and then a squirrel shoots out the bottom of his shirt.

I look at the squirrel, then lock eyes with Ingrid, whose mouth is as round as her eyes are.

“Oh my god, who let in a squirrel?” someone shrieks.

“Tripp!” my mom yells.

“Bowl,” my brother barks.

Beck’s already headed to the cabinets.

Ingrid’s going bright red, and I’m reasonably certain she’s about to cry. I shake my arm out, forget my phone, and head to her side. “Ask Piper for help,” I call to Tripp.

“Is she the scary one or the one reading a book in the corner?”

“The scary one.”

“Got it.”

“James brought a raccoon once,” Sarah’s saying as I break the barrier to get back into the girl circle.

“He did what?” Lila sputters.

“Oh my gosh, like all five of them didn’t have weird pets while they were touring together. Don’t freak over James and a raccoon.” Ellie rolls her eyes. “This one time, Beck came home with a ferret, but he told Mom it was a special kind of de-smelled skunk from Europe. And I know Levi kept a possum on the bus once.”

“All rumor,” I interject.

“Point is, we have a cage,” Sarah tells Ingrid.

“And a friend who’s a vet,” Mackenzie adds.

“And this isn’t anywhere near like the time Cash brought a tiger to a cookout.”

Ingrid looks at Ellie, then back to me, and then she takes a long swig of her drink. She points to the words crazy pants on the side of the tumbler. “I’m keeping this. It speaks to my soul. Also, I might need a second margarita.”

I crack up. “All yours, Superwoman.”

She goes up on tiptoe and kisses me, tasting sweet and salty, and I wonder what the odds are that I could sneak us to Beck’s offices on the next floor and get a little more kissing time.

Or naked time.

Or both.

“This is me not freaking out over my kids causing a scene,” she whispers.

“Is it killing you?”

“Pretty much.”

“Tripp’s gonna give you shit about this for the next forever, but you’re officially his favorite person in the world right now. And all of our parents have dealt with worse than a domesticated squirrel. Plus, I’m hoping someone got a shot of Davis dancing with a squirrel in his shirt. He never loses his shit over anything. He’ll probably hack your computer and make it unusable for five minutes while a chicken dances to some awful earworm all over your screen, but then he’ll call it even and he’ll have your back for whatever happens next.”

Her eyes go shiny, and she blinks fast. “Are you honestly offering us a family who can actually handle us?”

“Yep.”

“You really do play dirty.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

She’s smiling as she shakes her head, and then she kisses me again.

And my heart is full. Whole. Ready.

Squirrels?

That’s the easy part.

Proving to Ingrid time and again that she can count on not just me, but on my entire family when I’m not here?

I thought that would be the hard part, but I’m starting to think I was wrong.

And I’m totally okay with that being the easy part too.





Thirty-Three





Ingrid



The world is spinning off its axis.

It’s hurtling through space, completely off course, bouncing off other planets like they’re playing bumper cars and making my head twist all topsy-turvy and my stomach roil and my room twirl all around me.

Not that I can see my room.

My eyes won’t open.

They’re concreted shut.

Yep.

Concreted.

My mouth is stuffed full of squirrel fur, and something sweet is tickling my nose and making me want to throw up.

What the hell was in those margaritas last night?

I swear I only had three.

Which is like seventeen times more alcohol than I’ve had combined in the last five years.

Even the wine Levi had at his place the night I stayed over was low-alcohol wine.

He’s so thoughtful.

And he probably thinks I’m an utter disaster.

And oh my god, where are my kids?

That thought, more than anything, has me bolting from the bed and out of my room, ignoring the nausea and the need to throw up, channeling my inner soldier to get through this, because I have to.