she found herself telling them about this hotshot new copywriter they’d hired away from another agency and how smart and creative he was. She made them laugh with the stories of his hazing. She did not mention that she’d slept with him. Then she heard about how Dad’s job at the car dealership where he was now the parts manager was going and how business at Viv’s flower shop was doing. She heard about the shopping Viv had done that afternoon. Then they went to see Jersey Boys, which she’d seen before but enjoyed again anyway.
After, Dad and Viv insisted on walking her to her car, as if she wasn’t used to getting herself around Chicago all the time, then they walked from there to the hotel where they were staying. She’d never invited them to stay with her. She always felt guilty about that even though they never asked to stay with her and neither of them ever said anything to make her feel guilty. But she always sensed their disappointment at how she kept herself distant from them.
The distance wasn’t because she was angry at them. She didn’t blame them for falling in love and getting married. And they certainly had had nothing to do with why her mom had left. Mom had suffered from bipolar disorder for years. She’d been a good mom who’d held down a full-time job yet still cared for her three children, and her illness had been mostly controlled, but there’d been times that had caused stress in their family. They’d never known if someone had taken her, or if she’d just walked away. There’d been no warning that she wasn’t well. The police had never been able to find her. They all assumed she’d probably had a depressive episode and had somehow taken her life.
So it wasn’t Dad’s fault and it certainly wasn’t Viv’s fault, but Sloane’s life had changed in that time following her mother’s disappearance. She’d changed. And she preferred keeping her distance.
Which was another reason this thing that was happening with Levi was scaring her. She kept her distance from everybody. But he was making that impossible.
Levi was out with his buddies at Studio V, one of the hottest clubs in town. This was his usual Saturday night—hit a club, have some drinks, hook up with a hot chick, take her back to his place and bang her brains out, then send her on her merry way.
Jacob was doing “family things” with some of Tara’s family who’d arrived in town for the wedding next weekend, so it was him, Tucker, Cam and Luke.
Tonight he was weirdly unsettled. Girls kept smiling at him and trying to talk to him and he was just…bored. Yeah, he’d been preoccupied with work all day. After Colin had left, he’d done some work on the pro bono advertising he did for Chicago Anti-Hunger, something he’d done for years, then more work on the Verhoeven accounts.
He’d asked Sloane what she was doing tonight, but she too had some kind of family thing with her dad and stepmother who were in town. She hadn’t sounded thrilled about it, but nonetheless he hadn’t bothered to try to make any plans with her for Saturday night, although a replay of Friday night would have been excellent.
“Hi.” A pretty brunette stopped in front of him. “If I told you I worked for UPS would you let me handle your package?”
He blinked, then burst out laughing. The girl laughed too.
“Too cheesy?” she said.
“The cheesiest.”
“I just thought, why should guys get all the funny pick up lines?” She shrugged, holding the straw of her drink between her thumb and two fingers. He studied her big dark eyes, full lips and exotic cheekbones, shiny dark hair falling around her shoulders.
Why not flirt a little? “Like, do you have a map, ’cause I’m getting lost in your eyes?”
“Haha, yeah, like that.” She rolled her eyes, smiling. “You need something to say when you want to meet someone new. Right?” She give a flirty head tilt.
“Absolutely.” He leaned in closer. “I’m Levi.”
“I’m Christy.”
“Nice to meet you, Christy. You do have nice eyes, by the way.”
“Thank you!” She beamed.
“What do you do for a living? I’m guessing you don’t really work for UPS.”
She laughed. “No. I’m a corporate attorney at Halliwell Delaney.”
He spent a while talking to lovely Christy, corporate attorney. She was bright and pretty and everything he usually went for. But goddammit, he couldn’t bring himself to offer the invitation she was clearly